conversation: User (jkgibson1125): "Had a post written and it went away. \n\ntl;dr: swimming in debt. 22k credit cards  2 kids in college, undervalued myself in salary negotiations at new job, going through spending, cutting costs. What else can I do?\n\nLong version:\n\nI work in IT. I make about 88k a year. I have a review coming up and want to use that to renegotiate my salary by at least 6000.00 take home a year. \n\n5 years ago life went to shit. My full time job cut me to 1/2 pay and told me I could find side clients. \n\nI landed positions one consulting company that was pretty poorly run. Ended leaving that one after I realized the owner threw me under the bus for his mistakes. I knew that was the case because his. Clients kept calling me after begging me to do work. The guy was litigious and I know he would have tried to go to court over his non-compete. So I left that alone. \n\nNext consulting firm wasn’t much better would send me out on jobs and then bill. Clients would call back after the job and bitch about the charges. They would call me and ask me to give back hours. I repeatedly pointed out that I was there because they assigned me there and My hourly accounting showed that I was busy doing the work. Left them when I found full time work that Got me out of the 1/2 time job and the consulting gigs. \n\nAfter getting the new job, I had a medical issue that required surgery. Many doctors bills on the credit cards. Hospital bill on terms and I’m paying it off. Still have about 2500 to go on that\n\n2 kids soon to be 3 in college. Some expenses on credit cards. Most of college paid for by grand parents (thank you lord) but may have missed some books and other fees for reimbursement. \n\nWe added onto house to bring my mom to live with us. Upgraded kitchen that was 17 years ago. Now starting to replace appliances that are failing. \n\n23k on cards at this point. Considering getting personal loan to pay them off and canceling all but 2 which are my Costco visa and the Home Depot. The HD I use for replacement of appliances and use the 6-12 months interest free they give. \n\nI’m considering a personal loan to consolidate the credit cards so I’m making a single payment. \n\nI am going over our budget. I’m moving our phones off att to twigby which will save 1000 a year. \n\nCancelling the Y membership which is rarely used to save about 800.00 a year. \n\nPorting our home phone to a prepaid cell then moving it to google voice and forward it to our cell phones which will save 300.00 a year \n\nGoing over other spending to see what else we can do. Getting the family on a real budget and working on following it. \n\nTried setting up trim to negotiate some things but they don’t support my bank at this time. Reached out to them to see what else we can do on that. \n\nMy credit score is 780. So I think the loan will be easy to get. \n\nOk. Long post. If you have observations, suggestions, or questions let me know. \n\nThanks all"
  Self: " Porting our home phone to a prepaid cell  -- why do this at all? "
  User (jkgibson1125): "Att won’t port a land line out to a cell provider. But will allow you to port a landline to a prepaid att cell. \n\nGrab an att flip off of Craig’s list, or next door, get a month of service. \n\nOnce that is done I can port to google voice which will act as a switch board for the landline so to speak. \n\nWe want to keep the land line because our aging parents use that most often to call us. My mom is almost 90 and blind so I want her use what she knows rather than trying to change her ways.\n\nMy wife’s parents are in their mid 80s and her father is sick. They usually use that number. Again right now to keep the number we have to jump a couple of hoops. \n\nGoogle charges 20.00 to port the number. I’ll pay that to keep it for now. "
  