Any advice would be welcome

I know it sounds a lot of money what we earn but I want to emphasise that my wife takes no part of my debt for my recklesness, and that after taxes and stuff, I come out with $904 every paycheck. Thanks

You have two options. You can either increase your income by getting extra work or you can decrease your monthly expenditures. The easiest way to attack monthly expenditures is to cut out stuff you don???t need i.e. cable, cell phones, large car payments, eating out, etc??? You can attack it from the other side by earning extra money. Both are hard to do because you are forced to change your lifestyle. If you are already delinquent on the debt then I would suggest saving money and then settling each individual debt one at a time in full.

Hi Dollars
Thanks for the quick reply. I am already being offered to pay one of my debts off, (thats $4100 ) citibank, for $2200. Unfortunatley I have to make full payment right now. I think that is a good idea but I am worried what the other creditors might do if I dont pay them anything. Also if you know, How are American express in dealing with debtors? I have heard about mainly citibank chase etc, but I wondered if they are sympathetic in dealing with people who owe them money> Thanks again

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i have heard both that creditors are more willing to negotiate now with a bad economy, but i have also heard of them taking creditors straight to court after 3 months of no payments. its hard to say how they will react to your situation. if you get a settlement through citibank thats great but most cc companies use the universal code that if you default on one, they will usually increase your %. If your considering settling these accounts you will need to stop paying and start saving. Also tighten the belt, like the above post says, get rid of cells, expensive car payments, shop insurance raise deductables, no going out spending, i cut out snacks believe it or not that helped alot. no unecessary spending.

Welcome to the Community :D The way my husband and I started crawling out of debt was by taking second jobs. Actually at one time my husband had 2 part time jobs, it was tough, but we got through it.

I also cut back on expenses, and also was able to use a few tricks and cut back on groceries(the cost).

You said you were giving you son money for college? Is there a way he can get a job, or part time one so you can use that money. I know when I went to college, almost all of us got pt jobs. That was really tough, and studying,etc., but it helped.

Good Luck..let us know what happens..karen

i too went i went to college worked. LIke you said bossy it was hard, but necessary. I lived in the city, and was scared to ride the bus at night(im a country girl) so i quit that job, but i went home every weekend to see my husband (boyfriend at the time) every fri he pick me up, i would work fri night, put in about 10 hours on sat, and 8-10 on sun, then he would drive me back to school sunday night. i put in alot of hours on the weekend and still had time for him, it wasnt alot of money but it was enough to get me by and that freed my school week for homework and projects. it was enough to by my grocieries, smokes, and whatever else i needed. so it can be done. i have pretty much been on my own scince i was 16, when i turned 16 i was told that i was lucky to have a roof over my head, from that point on i had to buy my own shampoo, deoderant, car repairs, insurance, makeup,senior pictures, class ring,going out money was all me. anything i needed or wanted i had to pay for or i went without. I thanked my parents for it later, it made me responsible for myself. Not enough parents do this these days.

I took out my own student loans, i paid for everything. my husband the same thing. trust me we took that very seriously and were not the kids parting and blowing off school we paid for it, we worked hard. so dont feel bad to put this on your kid, they will thank you later.

Why can't your wife help you pay off the debt? I understand that it isn't HER debt, but supposedly when you marry someone, you're both going through life together, so I would ask her to help.

That being said, if she DOES agree to help, you have to prove to her that you're not going to be as crazy and reckless as you've been in the past. I would take some money management classes (sometimes these are offered free in the community-check Craiglist) and basically offer to have her help keep you accountable.

my husband was horrible about paying his cc bills its like he thought it was free money beforewe got married. but the above post is correct. i dont get these couples who keep seperate finances. All our money scince we moved in together all went into the pot i paid the bills and what was left was left. i know people who keep seperate bills and it hardly seems fair that one may have more bills than the other or one has free and clear money to blow while the other struggles.