A mid 30-year –old mom/wife/student trying to find a way to get her family out of the $ 84,993.99 owe.
Mrs. SeaDog came into the relationship with her $20K in student loans and about $1600 worth of CC debts. Oh ya, and 2 kids. : )
Mr. SeaDog was pretty good financially. Didn’t owe much except to his mortgage.
So how did we end up with $84K in debt within 4-5 years?!?!?! (Yes, I am just as shocked as I am writing this history out – it’s just like facing your debt – your jaw drops!)
Well, when Mrs. SeaDog moved in she decided she now makes enough money and needed a reliable long-distance car now that she was going to commute 80 miles a day. So, she bought a new car. Remember, the one at 15.9% interest?
That one at 15.9% interest turns a $14,000 dollar car into a $25,000 car! Geesh! Stupid, money minded.
Time passed. Mr. SeaDog though it would be a good idea to take out a personal loan to pay off all our CC debt and fix up house. Clear the slate and start anew. That was a 20K loan. (How much have we accrued…$20K + $14K + 20K = $54K).
So, then we lived and thought we were doing good. Mr. SeaDog’s friends bought custom choppers. So, Mr. SeaDog had one built, too. Only it went thru so much drama to have it built – **chopper guys are flaky, we got ripped off by the original builder, got ripped off by the next builder. The chopper was supposed to costs $18K ended up costing us $28K. So, we had to take another loan out to cover that = $20K. Now, we are at 74K. Yes, my husband agrees with me that it was the stupidest investment & should of bought a Corvair or similar.
Beautiful custom chopper.
However, it gets used very little. Sits in our garage and looks pretty cuz the guys found a new hobby, boats! (No, we are not buying a boat. Our friends already own one) Interested in a chopper?
(See, we both made stupid automotive decisions! No wonder we are compatible).
Well, on top of the $20K. We had to put $5500 on the CC to cover additional expenses.
Then, we went to Hawaii for a friend’s wedding. I took $2700 out as a retirement personal loan to fund that one.
Then we needed kid’s clothes. Our wedding rings. The wedding (which only cost 5K, but is a mother nature of story – promise to post one day soon).
Well, you get the picture… $85K of massive debt to climb out of. And I plan on tackling this one! I think my Type A personality will be wonderful for this mess.
So, I started with Motley Fool’s debt workbook on figuring Bad-Debt-to-Income-Ratio (hence, the title). That was a shocker in realizing how much debt we have!
Then, I started my plan to eradicate the debt. But, I had no solid guideline that I was following. That wasn’t working for me. I needed someone’s help and solid plan/goals. Then, I was reading my Woman’s Day magazine and found Mary Hunt’s Debt-Proof Living just recently. This is working for me right now. So, lets see how this goes! And let me find out how much I really do believe in myself! *Right now, I am using a combination of Motley Fool & Dave Ramsey.
This is a journey of self-discovery, finding true happiness, and lifting the great burden of debt off my family’s shoulders! So, come join me to eradicate debt and live the life that is meant to be – happy & full of live!
Thank you for checking out Money Funk: Bad-Debt-To-Income-Ratio!
Like Dave Ramsey would say, you paid lots of stupid tax. 🙂
So have I. $28K for a bike? Wow. Looks cool but that’s too much money for me.
You just made me realize that I still have that $2,700 retirement loan that I still owe. Wow, I wrote this 3 years ago… how much progress have I made? Hmmm… not enough to make me thrilled. Time to make some super efforts.
Ya, its a nice bike. But if you took the price and calculated it by the amount it gets used… its an expensive bike. Wanna a bike? Think I could talk him down to selling it for $18,000.