Money Matters
ljs4117
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No money, mo' problems - input appreciated!
Hi everyone! I've never posted here before but thought I would give it a go. Thinking that maybe a fresh set of eyes might help us out.
Long story short, we've gotten ourselves into quite the pickle. We don't have enough money to satisfy our bills and stuff's getting real this month.
DH works full time and overtime when available and I'm a SAHM to two little girls (6 weeks old and 12 months old). DH is also working on his company in his time at home but that is not an income generator yet, should be by early next year and at the moment there is no investment necessary (already put a bit in last year and will have to take a couple of trips end of this year). I have started a little something of my own from home with about $300 initial investment. So far I've seen approx 100% ROI in a decent amt of time and I plan on rolling most of the money back into it for about 3-4 months until I can take a paycheck.
We don't spend much at all so there just doesn't seem to be a lot we can do other than make more money IMO.. I may be able to get a part time job serving tables on the weekends or something to help pay the bills but so far employers are turned off by my availability and I can't see myself making enough on weeknights to even pay a sitter's wages. We really screwed up with credit cards.. like bad.. but even if we didn't have that expense we would be hard pressed to pay our "normal" bills. (again, why I believe our solution lies in finding a way to make more).
We are overdue by a week on our credit cards (2) and I've called them to let them know. We're late on a medical bill and a school bill that I've been paying a tiny bit on just to chip away and keep them happy.. We have one car with a note (4-door car what we need to transport kiddos) and another car paid off (crappy jeep that girls can't ride in). We're upside down on car and jeep isn't worth a ton (has mechanical issues). We've pretty much been operating as a one-car family since our youngest baby was born and so we've cut down on our fuel by $200 or more... so yay that. We have now almost entirely cut out eating out because it obviously is a good way to nickel and dime yourself to death....This is turning into a novel...!!
So I suppose I'm just asking for general thoughts/ideas on how to deal with not being able to pay all of our bills at this moment...how to save money...how to make more...is my life going to be ruined by collectors until we can do one of the above (lol.. but really)? Sigh... I'm just so stressed. I wake up thinking about money and I go to bed thinking about it... sucks.
Here's our monthly "budget":
income -------------------- $1,850
mortgage -------- $540
Long story short, we've gotten ourselves into quite the pickle. We don't have enough money to satisfy our bills and stuff's getting real this month.
DH works full time and overtime when available and I'm a SAHM to two little girls (6 weeks old and 12 months old). DH is also working on his company in his time at home but that is not an income generator yet, should be by early next year and at the moment there is no investment necessary (already put a bit in last year and will have to take a couple of trips end of this year). I have started a little something of my own from home with about $300 initial investment. So far I've seen approx 100% ROI in a decent amt of time and I plan on rolling most of the money back into it for about 3-4 months until I can take a paycheck.
We don't spend much at all so there just doesn't seem to be a lot we can do other than make more money IMO.. I may be able to get a part time job serving tables on the weekends or something to help pay the bills but so far employers are turned off by my availability and I can't see myself making enough on weeknights to even pay a sitter's wages. We really screwed up with credit cards.. like bad.. but even if we didn't have that expense we would be hard pressed to pay our "normal" bills. (again, why I believe our solution lies in finding a way to make more).
We are overdue by a week on our credit cards (2) and I've called them to let them know. We're late on a medical bill and a school bill that I've been paying a tiny bit on just to chip away and keep them happy.. We have one car with a note (4-door car what we need to transport kiddos) and another car paid off (crappy jeep that girls can't ride in). We're upside down on car and jeep isn't worth a ton (has mechanical issues). We've pretty much been operating as a one-car family since our youngest baby was born and so we've cut down on our fuel by $200 or more... so yay that. We have now almost entirely cut out eating out because it obviously is a good way to nickel and dime yourself to death....This is turning into a novel...!!
So I suppose I'm just asking for general thoughts/ideas on how to deal with not being able to pay all of our bills at this moment...how to save money...how to make more...is my life going to be ruined by collectors until we can do one of the above (lol.. but really)? Sigh... I'm just so stressed. I wake up thinking about money and I go to bed thinking about it... sucks.
Here's our monthly "budget":
income -------------------- $1,850
mortgage -------- $540
utilities ----------- $200
groceries -------- $200 <---(includes misc. household needs)
baby -------------- $150 <---(things like formula, diapers, wipes)
car ----------------- $330
car ins. ----------- $140
baby -------------- $150 <---(things like formula, diapers, wipes)
car ----------------- $330
car ins. ----------- $140
phone ------------- $50
internet ----------- $40
cable -------------- $45 <--(I believe we would have to pay if cancelled early)
school ------------ $15
school ------------ $15
hospital ---------- $20
CCs --------------- $400 <---(major wompwompppp...)
CCs --------------- $400 <---(major wompwompppp...)
What I would like to do is sell the jeep, maybe get $3-4K out of that, put aside most for supplementing our income (2-3K) and invest a bit into my business (500-1,000) that so far has been very successful... because I am very confident that my work from home could easily surpass what my husband makes at his full time job within the year... we would also have a very reasonable chunk of change set aside to help with bills in the mean time.
Any holes in my logic there?
TL;DR -- We have more money going out than coming in. Budget is above but also asking if my logic from previous paragraph seems legit/doable/reasonable.
TIA!
Any holes in my logic there?
TL;DR -- We have more money going out than coming in. Budget is above but also asking if my logic from previous paragraph seems legit/doable/reasonable.
TIA!
Re: No money, mo' problems - input appreciated!
We have insurance through USAA so I can check but we've been pretty happy with rates compared to what I know others pay. I can see about the cable but I'm pretty sure the cancellation fee would be quite hefty.. we would still be paying 20 a month until the contract is up (next year).
I have a call in with our bank where our credit card is to talk about our rates.
So, why would you say to put jeep money towards our car loan? My instinct is that cash is king in our situation and we would need the cash to stay afloat while we find a way to make more money.
Thank you for your thoughtful input!
How much is the cancellation fee for your cable? If it's $200 or so, that would only take 4 months to pay off and then you have that extra $ to put to something else in your budget. (And so you don't go stir crazy without any entertainment check out your library for DVD's- they normally have a bunch that they rent for free).
I always recommend checking out southernsavers.com for recommendations on where to buy diapers and wipes. That is a huge chunk of our budget, and yours right now that you HAVE to spend, but if you can get everything as cheap as possible, that may leave you some more to push on your other debt. I normally buy wipes when they go 99 cents at Kroger (possibly going to that price on Wednesday this week- so if you have one near you, check it out and stock up.) I normally buy diapers at CVS when they have their spend $30 get $10 back. Use coupons with that sale and your total will actually be under $30, but you will still get the $10 back. I aim to spend as close to 10 cents a diaper as I can possibly get. I won't spend over 15 cents unless I"m completely out or on vacation.
I believe AprilH said to put the Jeep $ towards the car loan because then it would be paid off earlier, there by freeing up that $ every month too. What is the balance on the car loan? Also, what will you save on insurance if you no longer have the Jeep? That may be 2 very good reasons to sell it. Can you pay off the second car- or get really close by selling the Jeep? If you won't be close, I would maybe keep 1 k on hand as an emergency fund but use at least part of it to pay down something.
How much do you have on the CC and the school and hospital bill? Is the school student loans that you could get put on hardship deferral until your income goes back up?
A weekend job could be an absolutely amazing answer until you get your work from home thing up and making an income. $300 a month would mean you are breaking even every month- and hopefully you would make that. Think outside the box on standard jobs- pizza delivery, newspaper delivery person something where they maybe more accepting of your other obligations.
I would also be looking into WIC or something to help you out like April said. This seems to be one of those reasons that these programs are there- to help when you need it because your income goes down/somebody gets hurt/laid off/whatever. See if you qualify now with the new baby even if you have looked into it in the past. Getting help to pay for formula/baby food won't solve the problem, but will help.
I guess my logic with stashing the jeep cash was that that would allow us to continue paying our creditors for at least 6 months, buying us time to figure something out whether that's a new job for DH, a part time job for me, prostitution, you know.. (harharhar
Meanwhile, I'd only grow your business with its earnings. It sounds like it's off to a great start, but I agree with PPs that getting current on your debts should come before investing more.
As far as the cable goes we switched to Directv only a couple months ago because it was so much cheaper than what we were paying (stupid... just stupid).. so the cancellation fee would probably be much more than $200, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to call and see.
Yeah we aren't even close to paying off our car because we only bought it a year ago when everything seemed peachy. We still owe something like 15K I believe. The CCs have too much on them.. It's a bit embarrassing but trust me when I say it wouldn't be all that close to paying either one off.
@AprilH81 - No, not planning on working full time, but of course would consider night shift or something if it really came down to it. I never had a "traditional career" that I would be going back to though.
Ugh, the freaking FSD office messed up our income because DH's business got a sponsorship and they counted it as 100% our income... which it's not. It didn't even make up for all of the money that DH and his partner have invested and even if it did we only have 50% ownership.. grumblegrumble.
So now I'm not sure how to go about fixing that as they don't seem to understand the error and how to fix it.
CVS runs that deal at least once a month. You need a card, and you can generally only do it once per card, but sometimes they will let you do twice. Generally it's Huggies brand diapers, but sometimes its Pampers. They will also run their diapers as low as $3 a pack. If you have family who live close by you could always have them sign up for a card so you can do it 2 times when the next sale comes out so you can get enough for the month. Usually the sale is $9 a pack. Use the best coupon you can find online (this is where SouthernSavers really helps) so that gets them down to 6-7 a pack. Then when you consider the extra bucks you get back (if you buy 4 packs, it ends up being $2.5 a pack off extra) the packs only cost $3.50-$4.50. So for newborn sometimes even less than 10 cents. Plus CVS lets you use a manufacturer coupon, plus a CVS coupon- so sometimes at the coupon machine in the store it will print out a diaper coupon that you can use at the same time and save even more.
I would not use your rewards bucks right away- they are normally good for a month, which means you can use them for the next sale. I don't want to get too long here so I will pm you some more info. Just check your messages in a minute!!
ETA A SAHM friend of mine picked up four night shifts at a Panera and liked that pretty well (until a change in management-a big risk at any job ).
What are the rates on your credit cards? What are the balances?
For employment for yourself - try a company customer service call center or, try UPS or FEDEX or other places with 3rd shifts. Like an airport? Hospital? When DH gets home, you leave for work. This isn't ideal for a long-term, but for 6-8 months of working at night when DH can be home with the girls you will make some good money. Then, toss it all at the debts. It would be hard doing this for a long time, but if you got 6-8 months out of it, it could really help out.
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Also look into working in a convenience store at night. They usually pay pretty well and have night positions open since they are 24/7.
Finally your DH really needs to look at getting his income up. You make less than half of the national average. It might be worth it for him to put aside his business (especially since it's not making money right now) and make finding a better paying job his business.
Though I'll add some notes...
1. I've made a killing selling random stuff on my local Facebook Yard Sale group. A KILLING. And most of the stuff that people fought over was stuff I almost didn't post because I was SURE no one would want it.
2.This. In the meantime call them and find out exactly what the cancellation fee is. At the same time mention that you aren't super thrilled with the service and are thinking of switching back to cable. They will most likely drop your payment a bit until you have the cancellation fee saved up.
3. Put away that $1k and do not touch it. It's basically not even there. Put it in a different bank than your regular bank. Better yet, open an account with a credit union with it if you can.
4. I'm not a huge fan of selling almost new cars, especially if you are upside down on it. But definitely look into it. Saving that payment plus the insurance on a brand new car will help.
5. I would check out local bakeries. A lot of the time they need bakers in the morning 2-3am-10-11am. Panera if you have one, donut shops, any bakery. Is your business a direct sales business? If so I'm in direct sales too and I'd be HAPPY to talk to you about ideas options via PM if you like. I would not invest anything into your business at this point that is not generated from your business. In fact I would move full steam ahead on as little as possible and throw the money you are making to your CCs.
6. This. Even if they say no they at least know that you are doing what you can to work with them. Stop using them if you haven't already. I'm not a "cut them up right NOW" girl, but definitely hide them at home and get them out of your wallet.
7. This. You will see momentum pick up and you CAN do this. While I loosely follow Dave Ramsey he is a great springboard for situations like this and I often listen to his podcasts online for free.