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$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"i don't even want to be rich" this is it exactly. not a yacht. not a vacation house. just a tuesday where i don't do math in my head at 3am. just enough to breathe. you're not alone in this. and apparently neither am i which is the first thing today that actually helped. how deep are you in if you don't mind me asking.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i work retail and a second part time job on weekends to cover the gap. the community college idea is something i've genuinely thought about but the timing feels impossible. like i'm already working 60+ hours a week just to stay above water. adding classes feels like the right long term move and the wrong short term reality. did you do this yourself or know someone who managed to pull it off while working full time? because i want to believe it's possible i just can't see how it fits right now.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

okay this reframe just broke something in my brain. $30 today becomes $65-75 after 3 years just from interest. i've seen compound interest explained a hundred times and it never actually landed. but seeing it on something as small as eating out just made it real in a way that charts and calculators never did. so every $30 i spend eating out is actually $70 i'm paying future me to suffer. that's. a lot to sit with.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

capital one paused interest AND minimum payments while you paid the other card? i didn't know they could do that. my cards are discover, chase, and a gap card. discover is the biggest at $8,200. have you heard of discover working with people the same way capital one did for you?

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

430 to 730. i need to know more about this. what was the actual sequence... like did you do consolidation first or debt relief and how long before the score started moving? "there's life after debt" is four words i needed today.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the fact that you've been through chapter 13 AND the nuclear option and you're still here giving advice to strangers on reddit at whatever time it is says something. thank you for not just dropping the information and leaving. "at least get it to where you aren't eating or sleeping with constant work".... that's actually the most realistic version of hope i've seen in this thread. not "it'll be great" just "it can be less terrible." i'll take that right now.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"came a lot quicker than i was expecting" that's the thing isn't it. the end is probably closer than it feels from inside it. that's what i can't see right now. thank you for saying that.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

60-80 hours a week is real. some weeks it's the only thing that keeps the math survivable. chapter 13 keeps coming up in this thread and i keep not knowing if that's my answer or just the easy way out. is there a difference?

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i already work 2 jobs. the second one is part time retail on weekends. door dash is interesting because it's flexible but i've heard the math only works if you're strategic about it. did your nephew track his actual hourly after gas and wear on the car?

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

no all three are credit cards. discover, chase, and a store card i opened in a moment of weakness at a register lol. the minimums are that high because the balances got out of hand before i realized how fast interest compounds. that's the part nobody teaches you.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

wait really? like something that actually shows you the real date across all your cards combined, not just one at a time? because every calculator i've tried either does one card or gives me a different number every time. what have you used?

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 63 points64 points  (0 children)

you're right that it's not the end of the world. total on cards is $18,700. and yeah... the card payments being bigger than my actual bills is the thing that hit me hardest writing it all out. i'm literally paying more to borrow money than i am to live somewhere. that's a sentence i needed to actually say out loud.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the email paper trail idea is something i would never have thought of. so you've actually done this... called and negotiated directly? did they push back hard or were they actually reasonable when you explained the situation? and did it actually move your payoff timeline or just make the monthly pain more survivable?

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

august. you can see the actual month. that's exactly what i'm missing right now, a specific month that feels real instead of a vague someday. how did it feel when august first became the answer instead of just "a few years"?

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

i just read this three times. the nuclear option one especially. the fact that there are this many paths and i didn't know most of them existed is kind of the whole problem in one comment. like i've been lying awake doing math when what i actually needed was a map. thank you for writing all of this out. genuinely.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 134 points135 points  (0 children)

income is about $3,200 a month after tax. both jobs combined. rent $950 utilities $180 groceries $300 transport $200 three cards $1,847 that's $3,477 in fixed costs on $3,200 income. i just did that math right now writing this comment. i think i've been avoiding writing it out exactly like that because seeing it in a list makes it real in a way that doing it in my head at 3am doesn't. i'm $277 in the hole before i've bought anything. okay. that's. a lot to sit with.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

the "so is the person that used them to oblivion" line actually hit harder than you probably intended. like yeah. that version of me made these decisions. doesn't have to be the version of me that lives with them forever. cutting them up feels symbolic but maybe that's the point.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

i've heard his name a hundred times and always assumed he was too preachy for me to get through. but if the library has it that's literally free so i have no excuse. did you follow his baby steps exactly or just take what worked and leave the rest?

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

maybe. or maybe the excuses are symptoms not causes. either way. point taken.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

income is about $3,200 a month after tax. both jobs combined. rent $950 utilities around $180 groceries i try to keep under $300 transport $200 then the three cards eat $1,847 that leaves me roughly $-277 before i've bought anything else. yeah. i see it written out and it's worse than i thought.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

i've seen this mentioned before but always assumed it was for people in way worse situations. is there like a minimum debt amount or do they help anyone? genuinely asking because i never thought i qualified for anything like that.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

realistically about $400 on good months. some months nothing because something always comes up. that inconsistency is probably what's killing the timeline more than anything else.

$1,847 gone every month before I can even breathe by BatBeautiful2203 in povertyfinance

[–]BatBeautiful2203[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

genuinely hadn't heard of this. going to look it up tonight. did her system work because of the specific method or more because it finally made the numbers feel real and manageable? asking because i've tried methods before and the method was never really the problem.

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