I'll throw out some numbers first then give a story for those interested in how I got here. I'm going to be super transparent and these numbers are accurate as I can get from memory right now. I am seriously considering filing bankruptcy.
I've never been good with money, my parents were terrible with it so I never learned anything from them and I made money from coding shit on computers. I thought life was easy: Write code, get paid, buy shit. I was an idiot and now I'm paying for it greatly. I'm probably still an idiot but I need help figuring out what I'm doing wrong and how I can do better.
Income
Web Developer Full Time Salary: $87,000
HRA: $4k
Total: $91,000
Assets: ~$7k in a SUSORP I can't cash out, 2005 Toyota Tacoma that's paid off (and beat up cosmetically)
Location: Florida
Married with 2 kids (1 is 50/50 custody ex-wife)
Wife is in school for medical billing and coding, no income
After taxes my actual monthly income is right around
Total Income: ~$6300/mth
I try to freelance when I can but the pipeline is pretty empty lately. Also, I have to give 100% at my salaried job because it's an amazing job with big growth potential for me professionally. This makes it hard to hit freelance commitments.
Expenses
Rent: $1500/mth
Child Support: $350/mth
Health Insurance: $1280/mth - tax credit = $850/mth
Car Insurance: $225/mth
Power: $100-300/mth thanks to AC in summer time. Average is right around $200/mth
Car: $400/mth
Phones/Internet: $350/mth
IRS Debt: $477/mth
Water: $60/mth
Child care: ~$120/mth for after school care
Groceries: ~$600/mth+
Doc Visits & Prescriptions: ~$300/mth
Gym: $30/mth
Total: $5462
I probably forgot something, but that's close. Then there are the unforeseen things like I just got notice my daughter needs an eye exam, that will be $100 + any prescriptions, my wife goes to a study place, grocery shops, gym so there's gas usage. I work from home so no gas usage. My truck is in desperate need of an oil change and new back tires. My daughter is dying for piano lessons and this is the age where it could have a serious impact on her musical growth. Just seems to be more shit every month I have to figure out how to pay for with my remaining $850 after expenses.
Whenever I get a little freelance money it goes straight to credit cards, but then those start getting used again and it always seems to stay around $6k.
Debts
Student Loans (will go back into default next month): $65,000
IRS: $21,000 but I make a monthly payment as listed above
Credit Cards: $6000
Hospital: $11,000 (in collections) lost health insurance unexpectedly right before my wife gave birth.
Various other collections debt: ~$15,000
Story Time
So how did I get in this hole? Poor decisions. No one owes me shit and I need to figure out how to take care of my family for the long term, but I feel completely buried and lost.
I got married when I was 20 thanks to a southern baptist upbringing that convinced me it was important to marry that first love. She joined the military for six years while I went to school and did freelance work. While stationed in NY I got a master's from Syracuse that put me $60k in student debt hell (its $65k now after I paid it down for 3 years then defaulted and fees/interest stacked up).
I got a job offer in Florida right after graduation, moved down, bought a house (2009 market was bottomed out and got a steal) and had no real debt beyond the student loans which I was paying $750/mth on.
Long story short, the marriage was doomed for a couple years and we tried counseling and all sorts of shit but it was just not meant to be so at the ripe age of 28 I asked her for a divorce. I'd also finally left religion for good. The divorce was bad, real bad. I asked if we could do a mutual agreement without a bunch of lawyer needs, I'd give her everything. The house, all my assets ($8k retirement) and pay her half my paycheck for 2 years. I did all that then when I thought the divorce was ready to be filed she hired a nasty lawyer that came after me for even more.
By the end of the 2 year process I was divorced with defaulted student loans, massive CC and IRS debt and a monthly child support of $500/mth even though I tended to have my daughter more than 50% of the time it was 50/50 on paper. That's been reduced to $350/mth now.
So after that I started making really dumb decisions, had a shitty job making $44k because I quit my high paying job to pursue a start up opportunity. An investor gave me a $180k budget for an idea I had. That ultimately failed and is where my IRS debt came from.
My current wife and I met at that time and we’d become cocaine addicts. I never did it around my daughter, but when she was with her mom, my girlfriend (now wife) and I would binge every other weekend just blowing $$$ like a couple of dumbasses. We quit blow and haven’t touched it in 4 years.
I snapped out of my funk and spent every night for 2 years practicing and getting better at web development until I finally landed my dream job that I currently have. My life is absolute bliss beyond this huge financial mess. My kids are the best, I love them so freaking much. My wife is amazing, her and I went through some insane struggles with addiction together and it brought us very close. My wife, ex-wife and I have a very solid co-parenting relationship now and the kids have never been aware of any trouble.
Our prescriptions are for ADHD, asthma and gout. We workout every day and stay in shape. My daughter is kicking ass in baseball and my son is ahead of the curve for 2 year olds with his potty training and speaking. Shit is awesome! I just get soooo soo down on life and feel like the biggest loser whenever a student debt or collections letter comes in the mail.
Student Debt
So this is where I’ve been trying to focus my energy. I got a call about a year ago from a dude that worked for a company that now had my student loans (or so I thought). I told them I could pay $50/month forever but that’s all I could afford. He said that’s fine and would get me out of default at least so I could build my credit back up and hopefully buy another house someday.
It seemed to work, I got a letter about some loans being out of default and was super happy. Then I got another letter saying if I didn’t start making payments my loans would go into default. That was about 2 months ago maybe. I took a day off work just to investigate and figure out what was going on and I barely know anything more.
It appears I have 9 different loans now, I guess the big one got split up or something. I found one of the lenders websites and signed up and tried to get a payment plan based on income but didn’t get very far. After the application it needed info from my wife that required her to sign up on some gov website. I was on probably 7 or 8 different sites that day making different accounts and I got so overwhelmed I never got anything really done.
I don’t know what to do anymore and I think I just need to file bankruptcy. I talked to a bankruptcy firm about 3 years ago and they said they could get my student loans on hold for a while then set a very small payment for a few years. And it would wipe out all my CC and misc collections debt. I just want to know that in 5 years I’ll be able to buy my family a proper house. I’d like to know that when our current house gets sold or whatever reason we have to move, I can get a new rental. We had to have my mother in law co-sign on this one, you know how embarrassing that is for a 30 year old man? Can’t even imagine being 35+ and having to ask her to do that again.
Future
The plan is my wife will finish her schooling this year and get a job. We know she could potentially reach $70k in a few years but will probably starting at half that. Will definitely be a HUGE help but if I were to start paying back student loans and collections right away it would be her entire paycheck... which is probably what we need to do.
The biggest pieces of advice I could use is finding out if there's a person that can help me get my student loans tracked down and in order and possibly consolidated AND is bankruptcy the right option for me right now? I'm open to any and all advice though and I can take some heat, so feel free to tell me how shitty of a job I've done at life over the last decade.
Submitted March 28, 2019 at 01:44PM by imsuck_withmoney https://ift.tt/2HTPurM
