Hey all! I just wanted to say that thanks to this sub, I am nearly debt free. My main problem was lifestyle creep. I’m 30 years old and make $120k (without bonuses). I’m going to walk you through what my situation turned into and the drastic measures I took to fix it.
I had 14 credit cards with balances on them with an average APR of 24%, three personal loans with APR of 10%-15%, and a mortgage at 3.5%. Plus student loans
This totaled nearly $257,000 in debt, $57k of which was cc and personal loan debt.
Monthly cost to finance the minimum payments was about $4,000.
This didn’t happen over night. It was lifestyle creep over several years, a lack of financial awareness, and an unwillingness to accept the really.
I fixed this by getting real with myself on the costs of debt, an inability to save for the future, and facing the music before it was too late.
I sold my house and moved into an apartment where all utilities are covered. It’s still expensive but it was a flat rate and it meets my needs. Went from a 4 bedroom house to a studio apartment. I put every penny I made from my house towards the debt, cut up my credit cards, and maintained my lifestyle from when I was living paycheck to paycheck. I don’t eat out, I discount shop, I got a job where my employer pays for 100% of my premium (this was lucky and unplanned but still saved me $500 per month.)
The only thing I have left to pay is about $10k in car loan and $50k left on student loans which I’ll pay aggressively. My credit score went from 650 to 815-820.
I’m also starting therapy to make sure I don’t get into the same problem with impulse spending, etc.
The sheer psychological weight of this was worse than anything I had experienced before. Thank you for the awesome advice!
Submitted June 28, 2019 at 03:32PM by mcsmith610 https://ift.tt/2ZOy7yi
