conversation: User (DesperateThrowaway15): "So after many months of beating around the bush, it was made clear by my wife of 5 years (as of this October) that I am solely responsible for our bad financial situation, and how irresponsible I am with my money/debt. For anyone who truly cares, I would provide some insight into our situation.\n\nGrowing up, I never really thought too much about debt. I had a Southwestern Bell telephone that I let get charged off, and then my electric service, and cell phone, and etc. I was, and have always been carefree in regards to my debt. I always assumed that if I ignored it, that it would go away. Some of it has, others have not. When I met my wife, she had great credit. She was very proud of her credit score, and worked hard to get it to where it was. Eventually when we moved in together, she had to put everything in her name because I crapped all over my credit and had debt that prevented me from having the electric, phones, or water service in my name. She did it all, putting it in her name. Since the inception of our relationship, this has been pretty much status quo. When we got our new car, it was done in her name. She opened a couple of credit cards under her name, and we kind of got out of hand with them, maxing them out in a few months. Pretty much everything is in my wife's name. Now I fully accept that I am a piece of garbage. I have been taking advantage of the woman that I love, and allowing her to suffer the consequences. I know how much stress this is causing her, and I can't see her like that. I need to do my part, and make this right.\n\nFast forward 10 years to today, and we have been married for 5 years. We have a 7 year old daughter, and we are struggling even more. We still have a lot of credit card debt, medical bills, and we are always paying our bills a month behind. Our car had some mechanical issues, and that put us back $500. When configuring our finances last nite, my wife finally hit a breaking point. She went over everything and noticed a trend. Every bill I have, I rip up and throw away. It's all about out of sight out of mind. No trouble if I don't see it. I have managed to ignore every financial responsibility that I have, like I don't care. But there's that underlying fear that I know something bad is brewing. I know there is trouble. People have gotten crapped on for a lot worse. I don't want it to get to that point.\n\n I am a delivery driver, and she is a social worker. She averages around $1100 every two weeks, and I average around $700-1000 every two weeks, the higher being if I obviously had a good two weeks of deliveries which is possible. Her checks come in on the 1st and 15th of every month, and her checks pretty much immediately go towards bills. Since I make cash when I work, we spend my money for casual things like eating out, shopping for groceries and household items, and other things we might need or want to go do. In an effort to try and resolve this, I mentioned the possibility of filing bankruptcy, and she became upset. It is not an option for her. She says it's stupid, and it hurts you worse than it helps you. She has always been good about paying what she owes, and takes pride in it. I wish I was like that. I NEED to be more like that. I HAVE to get that mentality if I want to save our marriage. As of tonight I began turning off things we can do without (Netflix, Hulu, etc). So far I have saved us $20 as of tonight in monthly costs.\n\nI am considering consulting a debt consolidation company in regards to getting myself back on track, but have absolutely no info about whether they are good or bad, and if they are rip offs and such. I took sometime this evening to reflect on my bad habits, and I know I have a problem. My mother is the exact same kind of person I am. When she gets money, it burns a whole in her pocket. My parents just recently filed for bankruptcy themselves. I can tell this has created a huge rift between my wife and I. I don't want to be another statistic. In all honesty, we don't fight or argue at all unless it's about money or bills. I want to become a better person financially and own up to my debt, get it paid and get my life financially out of the gutter. I want to have money in my own bank account so when we have car issues, I don't have to scramble and freak out about where I am going to get the money to fix it. I am 33 years old, my wife is 29, we need this to be fixed so we can begin saving our marriage, and prepare for our future.\n\nI am willing to provide any information I can to you guys in detail if you are genuinely interested in offering advice, or recommending anything I can do. \n\nA few things: \n\nWe own a house (are actively paying a mortgage)\nwe own two vehicles (one is paid, other has 1 more year left of payments)\nI have credit card debt that I have not paid in 6 months\nWe both have student loans that we are behind on, some of hers are under forbearance to allow us to pay other debt.\nShe has 3 credit cards with debt on it (Wal-mart Credit Card, Best Buy Credit Card, and CareCredit)\nWe have various medical bills in our names with outstanding debt\nWe are a month behind on most of our monthly bills (internet, water, electricity,) \nWe manage to pay our house and car payments on time every month, because they are the most important things and come out on the 1st and 15th when she is paid.\n\nEDIT #1: The amount of responses I awoke to were amazing. There are a lot of great people on this sub and I am overwhelmed with support. Thank you all so much. Now, for those asking, here is a breakdown of our monthly expenses (what we currently pay on AVERAGE). The credit card payments for $25.00 are minimum payments.\n\n* Mortgage: $556.50\n* Car: $275.00\n* Care Credit: $32.00\n* Water/Sewage-$70.00\n* Electric-$300\n* Best Buy CC- $25.00\n* Plaza Tire CC-$25.00\n* Internet-$45.00\n* Walmart CC-$25.00\n* Cell Phone-$73.37\n* Lunch Money for child at school-$40\n* ADT Security System-$40 \n* Automobile Insurance-$100\n* (we did have Netflix and Hulu but I cancelled those last night saving us $20 a month)\n* Gas- $200-$300 a month\n* Groceries- $250-300\n\nEDIT #2 I am beginning to compile all of our current debt. This may take a while! Please be patient!\n\nOUR DEBT\n\n* Plaza Tire- Total owed is $818.17 (INTEREST- Yearly 22.8%, Monthly 1.9%)\n* Hospital Bill 1-$102.50 \n* Hospital Bill 2- $92.07\n* Radiology Bill- $13.82\n* Credit Card 1- $412.12\n* Lab and Pathology Bill- $18.55\n* Wal-Mart CC- $1,474.49 (Interest rate-(9.0 apr, we got into a customer assistance program. It ends in October. they tell us they cannot tell us what it will go up to until the program ends. I don't know if I got a lazy worker, or if she was being honest)\n* Surgery Bill- $285.30\n* Hospital Bill 3- $19.52\n* Imaging Bill (medical)- $78.63\n* Anesthesia Bill (medical)- $47.88\n* Medical Bill- $177.26\n* Best Buy CC- $650.29\n* My Student Loan Debt- $19,567.15\n* Her Student Loan Debt 1- $17,334.66\n* Her Student Loan Debt 2- $6642.26\n* Her Student Loan Debt 3- $26,958.27\n* Care Credit- $1,105.66\n* My old bank acct- $175.00\n\nSo far this is everything I have found, I feel like I am missing one, so I am still going through everything. If I do find anything else, I will update it. Thank you all again.\n\n* Edit 3: I would like to add that over the summer we paid $135 a week, every week for our daughter to be in daycare. That really hurt us when it came to paying the bills. I just wanted to add that for a perspective since it is no longer in our monthly expenses.\n\n* Edit 4: Added gas to my monthly expenses\n\n* Edit 5: Added groceries\n\nEdit 6: I am going to begin to add the interest percentages to our Credit Cards. I have to work at 5pm until 1am this morning. I will get as much updated as possible before then, and will continue when I am off work. Thanks again to everyone.\n\n* Edit 7: I finally got an answer on the interest rate on the Wal-Mart card. When the program we are currently on ends (9% APR) it will shoot up to 27% interest which is insanely high.\n\n* Edit 8: I made $111 in tips last night, and paid off the three smallest medical bills in her name, and paid our internet bill. I know it's insignificant, but I am stoked to make this lifestyle change. I also signed up for www.everydollar.com and www.undebt.it  . Both are pretty confusing, but I am trying my best to understand the websites and how they work. I am on the right path, and can't wait to come back to you guys with more good news in the near future! Thank you to everyone who took the time to speak with me, negative and positive!"
  Self: "Please post a budget of your itemized monthly expenditures."
  User (DesperateThrowaway15): "I will do this first thing in the morning. Thank you so much."
  Self: "With regard to your budget. In the worst case, you make $700, so we'll use that as the budget base. Anything over $700 should go toward debt service. That's 1800/2 weeks, or $3900/mo.\n\nUnchangable, high-priority ($1926.50-2075.50/mo):  \nMortgage: $556.50  \nCar: $275.00  \nWater/Sewage-$70.00  \nElectric-$300  \nLunch Money for child at school-$40  \nGas- $200-$300 a month  \nGroceries- $250-300  \nDay Care: $135 (amortized cost of day care, gotta start budgeting for it now!)  \nAutomobile Insurance-$100\n\nJust a note: several people have mentioned that electric is high. You need to cut this by 50%. Also, try to get out from under the car note and into something different. Leaves $1900/mo worst-case.\n\nExpenses for me to take pot shots at:  \nInternet-$45.00  \nCell Phone-$73.37  \nADT Security System-$40  \n\nNegotiate for lower Internet. If you're covering 2 phones at $73.37, look at anything cheaper; there's lots of cheaper prepaid. If security is a must have in your neighborhood, consider SimpliSafe (I know there's an upfront cost but the payoff is fast). Even now, the total is only $158.37, leaves you $1741 worst-case.\n\nDebt service. This money is already spent:  \nCare Credit: $32.00  \nBest Buy CC- $25.00  \nPlaza Tire CC-$25.00  \nWalmart CC-$25.00  \n\nThat's $107/mo. So you still have $1634/mo. You've got a **huge** leak somewhere, and there's at least $210 of fat to trim.\n\nProject for the next month: deposit every cent you take home. Track every cent. Your cash in should equal your cash out. Every transaction goes into a paper ledger (or mint.com, or ynab, ...). Then you'll know where your leaks are. Also, for debt, itemize who's name the debt is in, APR, agreed payment schedule. For the sake of your marriage, you may consider prioritizing debts in her name first, even if it's not mathematically optimal."
  Teh_Cactus (Teh_Cactus): "Yes, I noticed this as well. Though he hasn't mentioned how much the student loans repayments are every month just yet, so I'm wondering if they are taking a chunk of that remainder cash. There's got to be more expenses that aren't listed."
  