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So I am a college student and my parents have been telling me more about their financial situation. They have a crazy amount of credit card debt (we listed all the balances and it added up to more than $130k). They also have a mortgage which they still have $210k left on and about $15k in car loans.

So apparently this credit card debt got racked up when my dad was unemployed a few years ago for about 6 months. They were paying their bills and mortgage using these cards. However, I know it has to also do with some terrible spending decisions (such as international travel) and absolutely no budgeting.

They are seriously trying to stop this debt and want to get better but are right now just paying minimum payments on most cards and paying full balances on the ones that they are using to pay for groceries, cable/phone bills, etc.

Some more info: My dad makes about $6500 a month. My mom makes about $1500 a month. We are a family of 7 (I'm the only one in college and able to pay most of my expenses thankfully) Their expenses (water, groceries, electricity, gas, cable, phone, insurance) are about $2500 a month The mortgage right now is about $2000 a month

So we are basically living paycheck to paycheck right now with really no savings. I think my dad still has a 401k which he makes contributions too, so he has his retirement savings. He also has like $10k in a 529 account for my siblings colleges. Finally, we have about $80k in home equity that we could use (this is the plan that my parents want to go with)

So any advice on how to help them with this? Is selling our home for the equity a good decision? Should they file bankruptcy? Should they seek credit counseling?



Submitted December 30, 2018 at 06:34PM by Throwaway76879 http://bit.ly/2Sv1aDU

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