I screwed up

[myself]

Control your spending

These things may have been said already, so my apologies if I'm repeating anyone.

1. Pack your lunch. Some folks pack 1-2 weeks of lunches ahead of time, and simply grab one out of the freezer.
2. Stop your current cable/satellite TV service. Go to the local library and borrow books and/or movies, but of course make sure to return them on time. Take a walk in the park, and enjoy what you do have already.
3. Track each and every expenditure. Personally my favorite is to use a credit card that has no balance, and will be paid in full every month. Then download the transactions into Quicken (they do have free versions available, I believe), or Excel (most banks export in either format.
4. Get out of that lease as soon as you can. Offer to give the car back early, and see what their response is.
5. Take a really good look at your tax situation. Since you're married, and guessing that you filed "married filing jointly" with the IRS, it seems that your wife is working for about $9.07/hr (or less, if you live in a taxable state). Based on her earnings of $28,200 and your income, that would cause close to half of her paycheck to disappear due to taxes. Here's how it breaks down:

• Federal tax bracket: 28% - if you're annual income is over $128,500/yr.
• $28,200 Income
• - $7,896 Federal tax
• - $1,692 Social Security
• - $ 465 Medicaid/Medicare
• - $ 0 State tax
• $18,147 Take home pay
• $18,147/2000 = $9.07/hr

Now, if you both were maxing out your 401K ($15,000/each), that would shield her paycheck from being taxed right now. Although it would also limit your income as well (if your budget depends upon her paycheck, this wouldn't be a good thing, but it may be a good thing).

Hopefully this information can/will be of good use to you.
Good luck with everything!

[Ima saver]

Everyone is giving such good advice. I just wanted to say welcome. I know you can buckle down and get yourself out of debt!! It just takes time.

[fairy74]

I also want to say kudos for getting help with your disorder and getting your financial life restarted.

Just a quick tip for your wife: I'm an attorney and worked as a paralegal for five years before going to law school and she is being massively underpaid---there are many good career coaches who can help her to find a situation where she would be comfortable but not be undervalued. It's worth looking into.

Best wishes to you both.

[DebbieL]

I believe the original poster's wife brings home $28k after taxes and he brings home over 100K after taxes (that's how I'm reading it from his original post).

[Kate Ann]

one by one

I don't know about fixing the whole puzzle piece as I'm a n00b to this site.

However, I don't know that anyone suggested a simple step like paying off your credit cards by paying them off from smallest balance to largest. Pay off the lowest balance credit card first with the largest payment you can reasonably afford, while making the minimum payments on the others. Once the first card is paid off, take the amount you paid towards getting that first credit card paid off, add that amount to the minimum monthly payment for the next card that has the lowest balance and get that balance paid off, while making the minimums on the rest....
Every time you pay off a balance, you'll feel SO good. I know, I just did it, and am now down to one cc balance to pay off.

You can do it.

[JanH]

I don't have anything to add to the good suggestions. But I do want to congratulate you on sticking with finding help for your disorder. I have a milder form of bipolar and a couple of other things and I spent money in spurts. Now, I am in debt and working on it. I am blessed in that my disorders are milder and that I've got a good team behind me now. And I found this site to help me get back on track with my finances. I know you feel bad about it all, but you're on the right track. Don't beat yourself up about it. Keep working on it slowly. And come here for questions and support. This is an awesome bunch of people who care. My favorite quote in the whole world is: Keep going, even the snail made it to the ark!

[LuckyRobin]

Since you are an engineer, if you can at all, try to get yourself hired on at one of the oil fields on the North Slope of Alaska, somewhere like Kuparuk or Prudhoe Bay. They are starting a big gear up and many of the companies are starting to hire. Wages up there are well above the norm, benefits are good, and you live on site in the barracks for free, and they feed you for free. If you can get hired on there, there is no need to have a second household and you will be able to get your focus onto supporting one home. Plus schedules are usually of the 2 on 2 off, 3 on 3 off, or 4 on 2 off variety, so you would be able to go home and spend that time with your family.