I would be lying through my teeth if i said it was the current economy that made us walk from our house (which went into foreclosure, and now someone else owns it), or is the reason now why we have more bills than we can pay. Put simply: We were living above our own means. Before the market fell apart and went to crap...we were already there.
Yes, at that time my husband was making great money, but we did not manage it good at all. We would take the money and go on vacation ( and pay for other people to join us) and then come back from vacation in a panic that we didn't have any money to pay out mortgage. We had no savings and most often our account was overdrawn. Our marriage (3.5 yrs at the time) was almost up in flames. We were arguing and playing the blame game like crazy. Pushing the fault on eachother, or the business or anyone and everyone else. The creditors would call day in and day out, I honestly had a fear of answering my phone.
We eventually walked from our house. We chose this because we needed to save our marriage more. We knew that walking away from the house, would completely ruin our credit. We also knew that walking away from the house would be a lifestyle changer. We knew that if we kept spending out of controll and arguing like we were we would probably divorce very soon.
Unfortunately, we didn't adjust to that new "lifestyle" changer very well. So we did what we do best, we spent, went on another cruise, vacationed, shopped. Paid bills late. We moved into a really nice rental home. Really nice. When we did the numbers late one night on the rent and the electric, utilities and water...the costs was more than what we were paying for our mortgage in the last house!
We needed to once again make a BIG change, because bills were being paid late, and we just knew we could not continue to pay as much as we were in rent. Thankfully, the house we were renting went into foreclosure, which allowed us to successfully get out of our contract and move into a affordable rental home. We currently only pay $1600 for rent (we were paying $2100 before in rent). In the last house we were in we never once made our rent late, but often enough we bounced checks, made late payments on bills and student loans.
Fast forward to now:
I work from my home to help make ends meet while taking care of our two children. I have to say, the best part about taking this "fall" was that it taught us how to communicate better. Although going over bills and finance is still a struggle, we really are trying. We really are trying to dig ourselves our of debt, but currently we only make enough to cover our monthlies and a little extra. We want to start paying down all the debt we have...we just don't know how to exactly go about getting that done...successfully. We have made budget sheets to no avail, tried to do the "cash" only..which worked for 3 days. We have so many bills, that it is so overwhelming on how and where to start. I dread going to the mailbox, because there is always a letter for something i owe, that i don't have the money to pay for.
I am hoping to get some good pointers, tips, help and guidance from people who are knowledgeable about finance, or who have found successful ways that they balance their budget. Maybe this information will help others and not only me.
