Credit Card Debt Anyone?

ekz13

none here, learned my lesson early on... that hole just gets deeper and deeper if you don't watch it...

put your nose to the grindstone, knuckle up and pay it off, no going out, no splurging, get it paid off and don't go there anymore ... family will understand that you can't.. if they can't, then that's thier issue. write a nice letter or card telling them how much you appriciate them and their help. There will be plenty of time to pay back when you're on top in life.



side note, Mint is a good program, but I prefer Quicken. Main reason is that it allows me to budget for the future... for example if it is the 3rd of the month and I have a bill do on the 15th, I can input that into quicken to allow me to "pre spend" the money to see what I will have left until next payday.

from what I've found Mint doesn't allow you to "budget" like that.. Am I wrong? anyone found this.

Quicken is awesome.
That being said, a simple Excel spreadsheet can do the basics, too. I had Quicken in the past but when I was married to my ex husband and there was literally NOTHING left for me to spend on myself (including budgeting software that could make things better), I set up a budget in Excel. Simple spreadsheet with line items for "Carryover" (amount in my account at the end of the week), income, and different categories of expenses. It adds the Income to the Carryover, and subtracts all of the expenses. It puts the ending number in the next week's Carryover space, and so on. I have it set up by week through 2022 and I love it because I can easily see how the choices I make with my spending today impact things 6 months down the road (or even several years down the road). For instance, if I want to buy something nice and I have plenty in my account right now, I can add that to my "discretionary" field for the week and see that, although I may have plenty now, I am going to have a pretty lean week in March and that splurge could make a big difference. It's easy to adjust so if I spend more or less in each category, I can override the budgeted with the actual amounts. I can look ahead and figure out when I will be able to afford a better car, or when I will need to be more frugal (which is sort of a joke, because I am super frugal). I also budget a portion of my rent with each check so I don't look at my account and think I have tons to spend but then have a huge chunk taken out at the end of the month (actually, I set money aside in a separate account specifically for that purpose).

And if you can't afford Quicken, and can't even afford Office, Google Drive has a spreadsheet program. That's actually where my current budget is.

excellent points... as for the office thing... Open Office is a free MS office like equiv that can even save the formats of ms office if desired. I find quicken worth the 30 or whatever it is now.. but true about excel, simple yet effective.

wheird

Didn't need this to be a bashing session...I'm 20 years old who wanted to treat my family for once rather then them spending all of their money on me.

When you are older than 20 and have $$ in the bank, THEN you treat your family. Until then, bake them a cake. If you want to splurge, use sprinkles.

This really isn't fair to assume that people in the early 20 range don't have $$ in the bank, which is kind of what I think you are doing.

Well, if there HAD been $$ in the bank, then there wouldn't be 2G's in credit card debt.

"When you are older than 20" implies that 20 year olds are notorious for not having money. Every single person in my social circle (20-early 30s) have their finances impeccably well done; and *usually* much better than older folks. The stigma that young people don't know what they're doing with money is very irritating.

Are you privvy to your friends finances? Because appearances are deceiving. And most people in general suck at personal finance.

Yes, I am or I wouldn't have opened my mouth on behalf of others.

That is odd. Most friends dont share that stuff.

Maybe your friends aren't business owners who do business with one another and have to be honest about how much they can spend on merchandise without going too far in the red. Or maybe your buddies aren't buying houses left & right, or vehicles, or dropping thousands in cash on whatever they want that day. But, hey! Maybe it's a south thing.

Oh please. :laugh:

wheird

Didn't need this to be a bashing session...I'm 20 years old who wanted to treat my family for once rather then them spending all of their money on me.

When you are older than 20 and have $$ in the bank, THEN you treat your family. Until then, bake them a cake. If you want to splurge, use sprinkles.

This really isn't fair to assume that people in the early 20 range don't have $$ in the bank, which is kind of what I think you are doing.

Well, if there HAD been $$ in the bank, then there wouldn't be 2G's in credit card debt.

"When you are older than 20" implies that 20 year olds are notorious for not having money. Every single person in my social circle (20-early 30s) have their finances impeccably well done; and *usually* much better than older folks. The stigma that young people don't know what they're doing with money is very irritating.

Are you privvy to your friends finances? Because appearances are deceiving. And most people in general suck at personal finance.

Yes, I am or I wouldn't have opened my mouth on behalf of others.

That is odd. Most friends dont share that stuff.

Maybe your friends aren't business owners who do business with one another and have to be honest about how much they can spend on merchandise without going too far in the red. Or maybe your buddies aren't buying houses left & right, or vehicles, or dropping thousands in cash on whatever they want that day. But, hey! Maybe it's a south thing.

lol this simply shows you have no idea what their finances are like. You know the image they would like to portray of their finances, but you dont know whats really happening behind closed doors

It shows that she has a skewed opinion of what healthy finances are as well. But...she was taking raspberry ketones, so what can you expect?

VelvetMorning

The problem with the holidays in general is the expectations of copious amounts of presents. In some people's situations, $20 might be a lot - in other people's, $2,000 might be a lot. Either way, it's an over expenditure of money spent that will never generate income for you and the recipient - in most cases - will likely not utilize the product enough times to make the expense worth while. Unfortunately, society has developed to where children require gifts 'lest they want to be picked on in school, or whatever else comes with not getting a 60 inch HDTV, a PS12, Wiis and so on. I think our ancestors had it right - buy an orange, make a scarf and spend time together. No credit cards needed, and the *time* spent together was the real gift. That and fruit cake.

pinkraynedropjacki

Don't have a credit card. I have a thing called savings. Every Wednesday money it taken from my bank account & placed into a high interest savings account. Even while I was not working & could not afford to even save $10 I still had the money transfer over.

It's what normal people do.

Actually no.



I think that's very rare even among people with six figure (and higher) incomes.

It's a good idea but no, not the NORM

I earn less than 20k a year. Yeah it is the norm. It's called being responsible. Rare my *kitten*, I've never had a credit card & yet somehow I have been able to afford everything I need.


The problem is that people want things NOW rather than save. It's that type of generation that actually end up in debt & then complain about it. Or ask others to help pay it off.

just_Jennie1

Don't have a credit card. I have a thing called savings. Every Wednesday money it taken from my bank account & placed into a high interest savings account. Even while I was not working & could not afford to even save $10 I still had the money transfer over.

It's what normal people do.

Actually no.



I think that's very rare even among people with six figure (and higher) incomes.

It's a good idea but no, not the NORM

I earn less than 20k a year. Yeah it is the norm. It's called being responsible. Rare my *kitten*, I've never had a credit card & yet somehow I have been able to afford everything I need.

While I have credit cards, when I was bringing home a regular paycheck (work for myself now) every week I had money taken out of my pay check and put into two separate accounts: One was an account I didn't touch and the other was my spending money.
Hell even when I was a teen working one day a week at a store for piddly money I STILL took some of my paycheck and stuffed it into a savings account.

It is very do-able.

Even if all you can afford is $10 a week or every other week it still adds up after a while.

StarChanger

Didn't need this to be a bashing session...I'm 20 years old who wanted to treat my family for once rather then them spending all of their money on me.

When you are older than 20 and have $$ in the bank, THEN you treat your family. Until then, bake them a cake. If you want to splurge, use sprinkles.

This really isn't fair to assume that people in the early 20 range don't have $$ in the bank, which is kind of what I think you are doing.

Well, if there HAD been $$ in the bank, then there wouldn't be 2G's in credit card debt.

"When you are older than 20" implies that 20 year olds are notorious for not having money. Every single person in my social circle (20-early 30s) have their finances impeccably well done; and *usually* much better than older folks. The stigma that young people don't know what they're doing with money is very irritating.

Are you privvy to your friends finances? Because appearances are deceiving. And most people in general suck at personal finance.

Yes, I am or I wouldn't have opened my mouth on behalf of others.

That is odd. Most friends dont share that stuff.

Maybe your friends aren't business owners who do business with one another and have to be honest about how much they can spend on merchandise without going too far in the red. Or maybe your buddies aren't buying houses left & right, or vehicles, or . But, hey! Maybe it's a south thing.

Sounds like some trust fund babies to me, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt on the "business owner" aspect. "Dropping thousands in cash on whatever they want that day" sounds exactly like the irresponsible spending that many are alluding to here. Don't get me wrong, if they have the cash and they aren't going into debt spending it, whatever....but cash doesn't grow on trees. It can, and does, run out. There are a lot of broke-*kitten*, bankrupt, former celebrities and sports stars out there....your friends may be next, if they're spending like that.

lozeliz

bump

Beastmaster50

I do all electronic checking and I have it set up tobsend money to my credit card companies each week.

TheSwollMinister

My wife and I have done this for years:

**Decide now what you are going to spend on gifts in 2014 (ie: $2000)
**Open a savings account
**Go to your HR dept and set up a split for your automatic payroll deposit (in this case, $167/mo; or about $77/paycheck if paid biweekly)

*** Catastrophic event in November costs you $2000.
***Pay CASH for catastrophic event from your emergency fund.

**Enjoy paying for all your gifts with cash!

Fixed it for you.:laugh:

Fixed again

I am liking you more and more.

How YOU doin?? :flowerforyou:

Hey there sweet cheeks, wanna see my zero based budget and hefty emergency fund?

ACepero79

I use interest free promotions and I'll rack up the credit card balances all year. I then pay off all the balances in January or before the promotion expires.

PhoenixStrikes

Never owned a CC never will. If I can't afford it I save for it, if I can't save for it I go with out. Simple as that.

boatsie77

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”

kristen2713

had it...almost out of it...want to check out some sites i saw on here...bumping it.

rungirl1973

Never never never carry a balance on a credit card. I use credit cards for the cash back / travel points.

This.

.

Actually carrying a small balance is good for your credit score. Keep it less than 15% of your available credit amount.

Yeah, my credit rating is excellent. Don't need to carry a balance on my credit card for that. I'd have to carry several thousand dollars to be at 15% of my credit limit. That's a silly suggestion, my opinion.

Derf_Smeggle

One credit card for the past 20 years. Usually carrying $500.00 to $800.00 balance that I would prefer not to have. Just paid the entire balance off 2 months ago. Last month had to drop $600.00 into my car and a couple other surprises with stuff breaking down around the apartment.

Ugghh. Christmas shopping not even started at this point. There will be some internet purchases. Hopefully pay the balance off around March or April.

LiftAllThePizzas

Sorry I'm not up on finance, is "business owner" a euphemism for drug dealer or something?

jess7386

I use mint and really like it. Has helped me out a lot in keeping track of my finances. You will really like it once you get everything set up.

Been in trouble with CC's before and never again. I always just set aside x amount per paycheck aside for when the time comes to buy presents. I do make purchases with my CC all of the time but when the bill comes in I always pay what was put on it. I also carry a small balance to help with my credit score but anything outside of that is always paid off once the bill comes in.

I also LOVE mint

jojopel

Didn't need this to be a bashing session...I'm 20 years old who wanted to treat my family for once rather then them spending all of their money on me.
^
As the mother of a 20-year old daughter, the gift I love best is spending time with her, especially during the holidays. I would be quite upset if she had spent money she doesn't have on her loved ones. No gift is worth going into debt.

Sabine_Stroehm

Never never never carry a balance on a credit card. I use credit cards for the cash back / travel points.

This.

If I don't have the money in the bank I don't buy it.