Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliforniaChief
Your story is all too common. What I like is your attitude through this, that you're looking to the future and have hope. You will recover and make a great future for yourself largely because that's your attitude. Obviously you recognize all the hurdles you have to success, though.
My wife and I never went through foreclosure, but we did have to move out here from Texas (I lost my job) and we couldn't sell our house in TX. We lived in a small apartment and had about $20,000 in debt. We took a class called "Financial Peace University" through our church (Dave Ramsey) and started taking the right steps. Budgeting, Emergency Savings, Debt Snowball, 3-6 months savings, insurance, investments, giving, etc...and now we still struggle but we only have about $1,500 in debt, our car is paid off, we own a home (which in Southern California is not easy...well wasn't), and are moving forward.
I can't imagine how tough this is for you guys and I really am sorry to read...but you'll get back on your feet again.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaliforniaChief
This is great feedback in that cash is so powerful now. Find a way to stash as much cash away as you can and any credit concerns will be alleviated if you're bringing all cash or mostly cash to the table.
|
Thanks for the input guys.
The thing I’m trying to emphasize to my wife is; we WILL make it through this.
Sure, we will need to make concessions as far as where we live, or not having the ‘popular’ car etc…but we will get out. The ultimate goal (I’m trying to get her to understand) is not going to happen in 2 years. 3. Hell, maybe not even 5. But we can be debt free.
At that point, who gives a sh*t what our credit score is. Doesn’t matter with cash. That’s one reason I’m not too worried if we do go through foreclosure and it shows up on our credit. Big deal. My goal (“If you’re here, and I’m here…isn’t that “Our” time Mr. Hand”?) is to have no need for a credit score, except leading up to the purchase of another house. After that…back to a cash basis.
I trying to get her to realize that if you don’t do this, you become a slave to your chit/credit/credit card companies etc. You have no flexibility. Imagine how nice it would be to have large chunk of $ in the bank and little cash committed/going out each month – if you didn’t like your job….you could find a new one. One that didn’t drive you crazy. You wouldn’t “NEED” to make tons of money simply to cover the cost of financing all your stuff.
As it is now (with probably 90% of Americans I suspect), everyone is trapped. They NEED to stay at their job. The CAN’T quit. They must continue to go in order to PAY for everything they were too eager to pay cash for.
When we got in the house we had a reasonable house payment (compared to income); had money for a lot of things. Didn’t have unsercured debt. Then BAM…layoff. Uh oh. Now that ‘reasonable’ payment is n’t so ‘reasonable’.
She’s coming around slowly; I just need to keep stressing this stuff to her.