I still can't believe that I am struggling under a mountain of CC debt at my age, since I have a good job and I personally am pretty darn frugal. When I think back at what snowflakes make up those big snowballs of debt, it's too much stuff (I LOVE Delbert McClinton's song of that name). A particularly bad memory is American Girl dolls - my wife blew a TON of money on that junk. But I guess the bottom line is it's my fault for not laying down the law. The fact is it is darn hard to live the life we have lived on one salary. Other things in those snowballs are every vacation we ever took after kids, I suppose. Also in there are swim and dance classes for the girls. There's a lot of costly packaged food in there, as well as too much dining out. Definitely WAY too many clothes for the girls, one that REALLY irks me.
So the irony is that in trying not to be the bad guy, we are much worse off than if I had had a backbone and stopped the insanity. I'm not sure what my point here is, other than to think out loud on what is in those snowballs of debt. The immediate problem is I'm not even sure we have stopped digging, so like every governor in the country I am scrambling to cut costs to the bone. Oh well, what's life without a challenge?
How did I let this happen?
January 17th, 2009 at 04:08 am
January 17th, 2009 at 05:56 am 1232171794
January 17th, 2009 at 01:38 pm 1232199515
I agree with frugaltexan, first step in tackling this debt is accountability and I think you're moving in the right direction
January 17th, 2009 at 02:50 pm 1232203803
I, too, have sometimes wondered how I ended up where I did. For myself I think it's included some denial and some wanting to believe the best in other people when evidence (in their behaviour) should have led me to think otherwise.
There's no where to go but up from here, and we'll cheer you on. Just keep at it.
January 17th, 2009 at 03:20 pm 1232205613
It's great you are reflecting on this! Keep at it.
January 17th, 2009 at 03:36 pm 1232206564
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January 18th, 2009 at 01:26 pm 1232285169
So I suppose what I need to do is set a budget and repayment plan and involve her. She always accuses me of "spinning" the situation, I'm pretty sure as a form of denial, but numbers don't lie!
What I am doing this weekend besides sweating out how to refinance the debt is listening to the "Maxed Out" audio book. It is pretty eye-opening and I highly recommend it.
Oh, and as far as selling the dolls, I suppose that's possible, especially some of the excess accessories, but I think we'll just go the route of saving it for their children for now. But we can certainly start thinking about selling some of our excess junk, but most of it is pretty valueless I'm afraid. We did give a ot of thechild size clothes to family members, but maybe some of the teen clothes that they've outgrown we can sell now, although we have just been using clothing as our charitable donations.
January 18th, 2009 at 02:24 pm 1232288685
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