Title says it all. Poor spending habits/shopping/eatingout/etc are the cause. I was shocked at the amount. I knew she wasnt great with money, but I thought she might have a few thousand in debt tops. She thought she had 12,000. Created a creditkarma with her and found out its over 18,000 total spread across a half dozen cards.
So. How to handle this? She makes around 25k a year, and it seems she has given up hope about ever paying it off. (last few months the total debt has stayed about even at least it looks like, so she is at least trying to start digging her way out)
I make about 60k a year, and have around 10k in liquid savings I could used to help out...but I dont think that sends a good message if I shoulder a lot of this. That said, we are in a long term relationship and live together, so I do end up picking up the financial slack(I have paid the rent solo lately since I knew she was tight financially)
The way I see it she has a couple options:
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Let her credit get destroyed, settle with the banks for an amount she can afford/bankruptcy. This option isnt ideal. She may want to buy a house in the next 7 years, and ethically hey its her debt
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Try to balance transfer as much as possible to a low APR card(I see offers sometimes for like 2% for 12 months etc) Aggressively pay off what cant be transferred(possibly with my help) Cut up all the other cards besides this one. Set a strict budget and pay this card off during the 12 month period if possible.(tough but maybe doable, I might help by matching her payments to help dig her out)
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Any other ideas?
Submitted July 23, 2017 at 02:56AM by ak907throwaway http://ift.tt/2ummqls
