Looking for advice

[EM_Vandaveer 2,368]

First of all, thank you for reading my long post/novel LOL & thank you very much in advance for your contribution.

cross posted to reddit (edited here)

 

Please no bashing, thanks.

So husband & I are in a financial pickle. We live with my MIL, whose Social Security is less than $1000/month. (We have 3 kids who are almost 6, 4 &1)

We pay in full the approx. $1100/month mortgage otherwise she'd lose her house. There are about 5 years left until it's paid off. Our monthly income is roughly $3500 (not counting MIL's Social Security as we are on separate budgets). This comes from S1200/month my husband's self-employment & $1900-2300/month gas royalty (it changes month to month, once in a blue moon we'd have a month when we don't even get a check).

This is where it gets bad: in our 7 years of marriage we accumulated $30k in CC debt. My bad, hubby didn't want anything to do with credit cards, I should have listened to him.

We have an empty lot that's worth about $25K. We bought the lot for 18.5k & it'll be worth $50k+ once a driveway is put in. (Long story.)

At the moment our monthly income is spoken for (I'm talking necessities LOL). Just the minimum payments & some miscellaneous bills that go out directly from the bank account amount to 1k/month plus 1k bills going on credit card, ideally this part also gets paid down that month, plus the mortgage.

Our expenses are roughly:

$1100 mortgage

$300 office rent

Our 14-year-old KIA is close to giving out.

Thanks to our high utilization rates, both of our credit scores are pretty bad (about 560).

How on Earth can we ever hope to pay our CC debt without winning the lottery? We don't want to go bankrupt....

I don't work, I only have a Hungarian HS diploma with no US work experience, figuring in gas, car, ect. costs I'd never even make enough to cover childcare (only the oldest will go to school starting next month).

MIL has less than $1000 in Social Security, she pays for her own gas ($100), house & car insurance ($250), electric bill ($200-250), water ($100, I think) and she also buys most of our groceries.

The house is in her name, we can't sell it without her consent. We're thinking of refinancing. We'd be left with a 10-year mortgage (as opposed to about 5 years left on the current one) BUT could pay twice the monthly amount (which works out to roughly the same monthly payment) and pay it off in 5 years. Advantage would be 1) if we are having a rough month we can just pay the minimum required amount 2) after closing costs we'll get $10k+. MIL will claim this as hers. (Which it is legally, but it's even less than her half of the mortgage that we've been paying all these years)

 

Anyway, I will look for work (hoping to make it to ALDI, it pays well for entry level and no prior retail experience is required), but childcare will be a problem. MIL refuses to watch the kids as she has her own business painting knick-knacks & selling them (makes an extra $500-700 a month on average, I believe), even though that's flexible.

 

Any suggestions are welcome.

 

PS I know husband needs to make more money. He's working on getting more jobs.

 

[Cyberfx1024 7,978]

23 minutes ago, EM_Vandaveer said:

First of all, thank you for reading my long post/novel LOL & thank you very much in advance for your contribution.

cross posted to reddit (edited here)

 

Please no bashing, thanks.

So husband & I are in a financial pickle. We live with my MIL, whose Social Security is less than $1000/month. (We have 3 kids who are almost 6, 4 &1)

We pay in full the approx. $1100/month mortgage otherwise she'd lose her house. There are about 5 years left until it's paid off. Our monthly income is roughly $3500 (not counting MIL's Social Security as we are on separate budgets). This comes from S1200/month my husband's self-employment & $1900-2300/month gas royalty (it changes month to month, once in a blue moon we'd have a month when we don't even get a check).

This is where it gets bad: in our 7 years of marriage we accumulated $30k in CC debt. My bad, hubby didn't want anything to do with credit cards, I should have listened to him.

We have an empty lot that's worth about $25K. We bought the lot for 18.5k & it'll be worth $50k+ once a driveway is put in. (Long story.)

At the moment our monthly income is spoken for (I'm talking necessities LOL). Just the minimum payments & some miscellaneous bills that go out directly from the bank account amount to 1k/month plus 1k bills going on credit card, ideally this part also gets paid down that month, plus the mortgage.

Our expenses are roughly:

$1100 mortgage

$300 office rent

Our 14-year-old KIA is close to giving out.

Thanks to our high utilization rates, both of our credit scores are pretty bad (about 560).

How on Earth can we ever hope to pay our CC debt without winning the lottery? We don't want to go bankrupt....

I don't work, I only have a Hungarian HS diploma with no US work experience, figuring in gas, car, ect. costs I'd never even make enough to cover childcare (only the oldest will go to school starting next month).

MIL has less than $1000 in Social Security, she pays for her own gas ($100), house & car insurance ($250), electric bill ($200-250), water ($100, I think) and she also buys most of our groceries.

The house is in her name, we can't sell it without her consent. We're thinking of refinancing. We'd be left with a 10-year mortgage (as opposed to about 5 years left on the current one) BUT could pay twice the monthly amount (which works out to roughly the same monthly payment) and pay it off in 5 years. Advantage would be 1) if we are having a rough month we can just pay the minimum required amount 2) after closing costs we'll get $10k+. MIL will claim this as hers. (Which it is legally, but it's even less than her half of the mortgage that we've been paying all these years)

 

Anyway, I will look for work (hoping to make it to ALDI, it pays well for entry level and no prior retail experience is required), but childcare will be a problem. MIL refuses to watch the kids as she has her own business painting knick-knacks & selling them (makes an extra $500-700 a month on average, I believe), even though that's flexible.

 

Any suggestions are welcome.

 

PS I know husband needs to make more money. He's working on getting more jobs.

 

Your  husband needs to get more jobs or you start working as well and let your MIL take care of the kids. 

Edited August 2, 2018 by Cyberfx1024

[JFH 12,189]

Have you looked at working from home? Solves the issue of gas money and also childcare. Many customer service jobs that are home-based don't require previous experience. You could even do it evenings and weekends when hubby is home to care for the children. 

[Jaquelly 1,647]

Hi!

I looked over the thread on reddit, as well, just to get an idea of what you've already been told.

 

I will echo a few points:
 

1. Get the land appraised. See if you can sell it to someone. You cannot afford, at this time, to put a driveway in just to see if it sells for more. Sitting on that is not helping.

2. You need to get a job. You can work from home, there are lots of various hours and different companies you work for. 

3. Your husband needs to teach you to drive. No excuses. 

4. He needs to get something stable, full time, no more waiting for calls. 

5. VERIFY YOUR DEBT. Do not call the collections agencies. Get free credit reports, dispute what is incorrect, and then try to make payment arrangements.

 

This is not going away overnight, and you are going to have to make sacrifices. The good news is that even with your high school education you can work. Lots of people in America aren't college educated and we scrape by just fine (myself included).

[EM_Vandaveer 2,368]

28 minutes ago, JFH said:

Have you looked at working from home? Solves the issue of gas money and also childcare. Many customer service jobs that are home-based don't require previous experience. You could even do it evenings and weekends when hubby is home to care for the children. 

Yes, but does not work. They don't allow kids' noises in the background which is unavoidable. My cousin-in-law lost a similar job for that reason.

37 minutes ago, Cyberfx1024 said:

Your  husband needs to get more jobs or you start working as well and let your MIL take care of the kids. 

MIL refuses to watch kids (dumb, I know) because she has her own thing + for whatever reason she does not want me to work, even part-time (!).

[JFH 12,189]

Just now, EM_Vandaveer said:

Yes, but does not work. They don't allow kids' noises in the background which is unavoidable. My cousin-in-law lost a similar job for that reason.

I understand. I worked from home in the U.K.and company policy was "no children under 12 in the house at the same time as your working hours". I work for an airline and I get calls from home-based travel agents daily and can always hear children in the background. It is distracting and I wonder if they speak to clients in such situations or if it's only when they call an airline to query a contract fare. But what about once they are asleep? Or weekends whilst your husband takes them to a park or something? 

 

 

[EM_Vandaveer 2,368]

12 minutes ago, Jaquelly said:

Hi!

I looked over the thread on reddit, as well, just to get an idea of what you've already been told.

 

I will echo a few points:
 

1. Get the land appraised. See if you can sell it to someone. You cannot afford, at this time, to put a driveway in just to see if it sells for more. Sitting on that is not helping.

we are going to start building on it soon. on the long run it makes no sense to give up a 5 acre spot.

2. You need to get a job. You can work from home, there are lots of various hours and different companies you work for. 

I have been looking for a long time & have not find anything that's doable AT THE SAME TIME while watching kids. Phone operator ect, is not allowed to have background noise.

I am VERY open to suggestions on this one.

3. Your husband needs to teach you to drive. No excuses. I 100% agree.

4. He needs to get something stable, full time, no more waiting for calls. He doesn't want to. However, he recently made business cards, started to rent an office ect. so he is working hard on improving the business.

5. VERIFY YOUR DEBT. Do not call the collections agencies. Get free credit reports, dispute what is incorrect, and then try to make payment arrangements.

I keep an eye on debt & credit. It's all CC, no collections (except one small one and it's correct). It's verified.

 

This is not going away overnight, and you are going to have to make sacrifices. The good news is that even with your high school education you can work. Lots of people in America aren't college educated and we scrape by just fine (myself included).

My hubby doesn't even technically have a HS diploma. He was homeschooled, his parents did not make one (which you can legally do in TX). He's a complete genius with computers, had one since he was 5, can program, graphic design, make websites, fix software & hardware, set up phone systems & security systems ect. His skills are HIGHLY sought after and in our little town, I know that he IS the most qualified IT person.

Edited August 2, 2018 by EM_Vandaveer

[Jaquelly 1,647]

Just now, EM_Vandaveer said:

My hubby doesn't even technically have a HS diploma. (He was homeschooled, his parents did not make one (which you can legally do in TX). He's a complete genious with computers, had one since he was 5, can program, graphic design, make websites, fix software & hardware, set up phone systems & security systems ect. His skills are HIGHLY sought after and in our little town, I know that he IS the most qualified IT person.

 

That's great and all, but it's not enough money for your family.

 

Your husband can go take his GED course if that's what he needs to do to get an entry level IT helpdesk job at a company in town. I am familiar with where you live, as I live in DFW myself. 

 

I suppose, after reading everything, my question is this: What do you WANT people to say? We are all trying to help you, but you're in a lot of debt and the only way out of that debt is to work really hard at it. It's going to suck, your MIL needs to make some sacrifices, your husband needs to help with the kids 100% of the time when he is not working. You guys are a team. You gotta figure it out.

[Cyberfx1024 7,978]

17 minutes ago, Jaquelly said:

Hi!

I looked over the thread on reddit, as well, just to get an idea of what you've already been told.

 

I will echo a few points:
 

1. Get the land appraised. See if you can sell it to someone. You cannot afford, at this time, to put a driveway in just to see if it sells for more. Sitting on that is not helping.

2. You need to get a job. You can work from home, there are lots of various hours and different companies you work for. 

3. Your husband needs to teach you to drive. No excuses. 

4. He needs to get something stable, full time, no more waiting for calls. 

5. VERIFY YOUR DEBT. Do not call the collections agencies. Get free credit reports, dispute what is incorrect, and then try to make payment arrangements.

 

This is not going away overnight, and you are going to have to make sacrifices. The good news is that even with your high school education you can work. Lots of people in America aren't college educated and we scrape by just fine (myself included).

link to the reddit thread?

[Jaquelly 1,647]

7 minutes ago, EM_Vandaveer said:

My hubby doesn't even technically have a HS diploma. He was homeschooled, his parents did not make one (which you can legally do in TX). He's a complete genius with computers, had one since he was 5, can program, graphic design, make websites, fix software & hardware, set up phone systems & security systems ect. His skills are HIGHLY sought after and in our little town, I know that he IS the most qualified IT person.

 

How are you going to start building a house when you are 30k in debt and cannot afford to live outside of your means currently. This sounds like a real bad idea.

[Cyberfx1024 7,978]

7 minutes ago, EM_Vandaveer said:

My hubby doesn't even technically have a HS diploma. He was homeschooled, his parents did not make one (which you can legally do in TX). He's a complete genius with computers, had one since he was 5, can program, graphic design, make websites, fix software & hardware, set up phone systems & security systems ect. His skills are HIGHLY sought after and in our little town, I know that he IS the most qualified IT person.

So why doesn't he commute to Fort Worth for a CS job, or why don't y'all move there?

 

If your MIL doesn't want to look after the kids then get the hell out of the house and stop supporting her. It takes a family to raise those kids trust me I have 4 myself that are 11, 9, 4, and 1. If I lived with my mother and helping her keep the house then I would expect her to watch the kids while I worked. 

[yuna628 9,528]

So... you live in your MIL's house, pay her mortgage, and she won't help you in any way by watching the kids or contributing? Something has to give you know and your husband needs to back you up on this.

 

That is indeed a considerable amount of CC debt, and it needs to be paid down. You know what would go a long way to help paying that down? The land you have and you should consider selling that. Your husband was homeschooled and it sounds like he has a lot of self taught knowledge (which is very common in HSers), without a diploma though he's going to be left behind by some employers. My suggestion is to invest the effort in obtaining a GED at a community college. I also was part of the HSing community, but I do have a diploma. Even with a diploma some HSers can be left behind. As he's self-employed what do you do about health insurance costs? It's quite obvious that he may need to find something else more stable for work and that you need to also find employment too. Likely you'll be starting out small.

[JFH 12,189]

Working from home doesn't have to involve the phone. Amazon, for example, uses home-based workers for their online chat operators or email handlers. You may have noticed this feature on many websites. You look at a product and a window pops up with a "hi can I help you?" message. Amazon uses chat operators for post-sale questions. I once chatted with one regarding an item that didn't arrive. 

Edited August 2, 2018 by JFH

[Cyberfx1024 7,978]

33 minutes ago, Jaquelly said:

 

How are you going to start building a house when you are 30k in debt and cannot afford to live outside of your means currently. This sounds like a real bad idea.

Also the hubby is really only working a part time job right now making $800 a month really after expenses. Sorry but someone needs to step up and get more jobs, you need to get a Driver's License and a job. He needs to get a better job making more than that. Does he have any type of Certs at all, how old is he? 

 

You have been here how long now and still don't know how to drive? I taught my wife the first year she came to the USA and it's not hard at all. 

Edited August 2, 2018 by Cyberfx1024

[doggieandsam 765]

i agree, there are lots of online jobs that do not need you to use the phone. since you are hungarian, there maybe some niche but highly lucrative gigs out there translating english to hungarian and vice versa.

 

check out: upwork.com and fiverr.com