Help! In trouble from keeping up with the joneses

Nala

PLavoie you need to talk to your wife and let her know that amount of debt you are in as a family. If, and it sounds like it could be a big if, your wife is shocked enough to want to cut back, there's no reason why she can't get a job and just tell her friends that she's getting a bored of 'lunching' and needs a change of scenery.

You said in an earlier post that earning money is for spending.....to a certain extent that is true - but you are spending money that you AREN'T earning.

Those Joneses have a lot to answer for

smashedbooboo

Are you able to get us over in the US. I think you can. We have had other peeps from US coming for advice

poet123

As someone has said on your salary you cannot live(such) a champagne lifestyle. If it were me I would downsize the house and keep my kids in the school they are used to. You can buy some pretty nice houses for 1m even in California, especially now with the credit crunch, with the profits pay off your debts and change your habits drastically.

view

"Thanks. Really helpful post. As for my neighbor, no, he's one of this big wig corporate executives who brags on daily about his $500k bonus he got last year, so I doubt he is facing my problems."

How do you really know this? I bet he doesn't know of your situation. The people who sing the loudest are usually trying to make themselves feel better about something they're hiding.

Don't worry about neighbours & outside influences, concentrate on yourself and your family, don't be distracted from your situation. You'll be surprised how good you feel when you really sit down and work things out and stop worrying about what everyone else has got. It will set you free.

smashedbooboo

Thank you Golden Jill, I agree with you hun x x

PLavoie_2

debtmuncher wrote: »

hmmmm shes going to find it difficult....i would hate for you to get stuck in to sorting everything out (you really seem to be wanting it sorted) and shes pulling your efforts apart. get a plan in place then sit down and talk it through. can you put your soa (statement of affairs) up...link is somewhere at the top of the page.

yikes - I'd have to get back to you on that soa. I saw the fields and most of the stuff I don't keep track of. It's always been everything billed on credit card and minimum payments are made on it each month. Most of the time I don't even know what's on there.

smashedbooboo

Well now is the time to find out babe. And i think you need to start a spending diary. You will be shocked when you put it all down. x x

smashedbooboo

PLavoie, you have a PM

debtmuncher

PLavoie wrote: »

yikes - I'd have to get back to you on that soa. I saw the fields and most of the stuff I don't keep track of. It's always been everything billed on credit card and minimum payments are made on it each month. Most of the time I don't even know what's on there.

lol take your time!! you could always print a blank off and sit down with your wife to sort it out. mind the snowballing feature ... http://www.whatsthecost.com/default.aspx change currency to american and its fab for playing around with!!!

PLavoie_2

TotallyBroke wrote: »

You don't say how old your children are but i agree with the sit down meeting with all the family.
I'm not sure how things work over in the USA but could you not cut back on the number of tv channels you have (if you pay for them)
Ask your wife to sell things on ebay for example the previous model of electronics that you have just replaced.
Ask the kids to sort out toys etc that they have not played with in the past month. Again these can be sold on ebay or something similar.

Ask your wife to cut back on the spending. Ask her not to meet the girls for lunch or coffee in starbucks. She could come up with some great excuses for meeting them later

my kids are 14, 12, 11, and 6

We have one of those all-in-one packages that includes cable, internet, phone - so we can't cut on that, it's all or nothing.

As for old toys and clothes, we have always had a garage sale for them or just donate, which never generated much money.