Medical Expenses

Unforseen Medical Expenses

This can be a real killer even with health insurance. We have pretty good health insurance but that still does not cover everything with the dedeuctables and copays. Already this month we have shelled out over $600 in various medical expenses. Back in April I had to take my wife to the emergency room because she was experiencing extreme stomcah pain. We thought it was her appendix but it actually turned out to be an ovarian cyst. She has gotten these before but never one this painful. This is all related to her Endometriosis which continues to get worse. A month later she had laproscopic surgery so we could prove to the insurance company that she did indeed have this disease and we could get the six months worth of shots she needed paid for. The doctor found Endometriosis in her abdomen, with one big patch on her left ovary, which they cauterized.

So now we have proof that my wife has Endometriosis and needs to get a series of six shots over six months at over $400 per shot. The insurance company will cover half of that. So we need to come up with a little over $200 per month to pay for these shots. Right now we can't afford this.

Endometriosis is not life threatening but it is very disabling and painful. And with my wife beginning nursing school this fall we need to get it taken care of.

If I can squeeze a little more money out of my internet ventures we can come up with the extra money for her shots, but I'm having a hard time keeping any momemtum going with my part time internet marketing business. More about this later.

[endometriosis]

Child Custody and Lawyers

I've come to the conclusion that I should have gone to law school. My wife and I are currently in a child custody battle with her ex-husband for our 10 year old daughter. I won't go into details about the actual case but he's been accused of some rather sick things. At this point we don't think our daughter has been harmed and it's our intention to keep it that way.

Anyway we have had to retain two lawyers. One where we currently live and one in the town we moved form and where the ex-husband still lives. Of course they both wanted retainers of $1500 and $2000 respectively. Now for someone with their back to the wall financially this is a big burden, but the safety of our daughter outweighs all considerations.

Luckily I was able to borrow money against my holiday bonus from my place of work and we have also gotten support from various family members, which helps.

But this just proves the point of how important it is to be prepared for this kind of financial burden, which we were not. Our debt is such that all our credit cards are pretty well maxed out and we have very little savings. Sometimes living for today instead of planning for tomorrow is not a very good idea.

[Child Custody and Lawyers]

Back State Income Taxes

It just keeps piling up. Back in 2003 I moved my family because of a job transfer. We moved 400 miles to our new town and promptly moved into a rental house. At the time of our move we were having a house built in our new town. 5 months later our new house was complete and ready to move into. So in the span of 6 months we moved twice and during this time I somehow forgot or misplaced filing our state income taxes. I did file our federal taxes and got a refund. Unfortunately we owed on the state taxes, about $600.

I was informed of this earilier this spring by the state we live in. At that time they said we owed over $1700 with interest and penalties. I pulled up my Turbo Tax from that year and checked what had happened. I had filled out the entire state form and had even printed it out. For whatever reason I never sent it in. All this happened right around the time our new house construction was being completed and we were getting ready to move from our rental to our new home.

Anyway according to Turbo Tax our state income tax was only supposed to be $600 or so dollars. I called the state taxing office and they said send in a copy of your federal and state forms and we'll see what we can do. I sent them in and they lowered my tax by over half. From $1700 to a little more than $600 which I can macke payments on. So for around $113 a month for the next 6 months I will have paid off my state income tax for 2003. That doesn't sound bad but it's one more thing to worry about and stretches our finances a little farther.

[Tax Debt]

In Debt - How Do I Get Out Of Debt?

Right now I'm so far in debt that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. It's that $44,000 of credit card debt that's killing me (and by me I mean me and my family). My wife and I understand how bad this debt is for us and we are trying to work towards a solution. One of the first things we did is to start tracking everything we spend money on. I built a quick little spreadsheet in Excel that divided our spending up into categories and began putting from the checkbook into it. It's a nice way to actually see where the money is going and how much we are spending.

How much are we spending? Way to much. We average between $8000-$9000 in cach per month spent on various things. This does not include credit card purchases. Do we need to spend that much? No. As we look at what we spend on our handy little spreadsheet we can ses where we need to cut back.

The other problem is we don't send enough to pay down the credit cards. You would think with that kind of cash outflow every month a good portion of that would go to the credit cards. But it hasn't worked that way. In fact last month we sent a little over $1000 to the credit cards. Not good, not good at all. This month has been better as we've managed to send over $2500 to our credit cards.

The thing is with this much debt getting it paid down and gone is going to be a slow painful process, but it's something we have to do for not only our future but also our kid's future.

[Get Out of Debt]

Mortgages and Car Loan

As promised here is the rest of my outstanding debt. Some people call this good debt because it can be viewed as an assett, but to me it's still just debt. The way I see it I still owe it and I have to make a payment every month.

Mortgage - $189,804
2nd Mortgage - 47,599
Car Loan - $6998

Now I know what you are thinking. Cars are not really considered an assett and they depreciate pretty rapidly. The car in question is a 1968 Chevy Camaro RS. It's a classic muscle car that's worth more than we paid for it. My wife and I are going to restore it and once that's done it will be worth a whole lot more. The only draw back is we can't start restoring it until we get out of debt.

The total of my "good debt" is approximately..... $244,401

The grand total of all my debt is a whopping...... $288,401

ouch

[Mortgage and Car Loan Debt]

How Much Credit Card Debt

One easy way to get in debt is the misuse of credit cards. How does this happen? Sometimes I'm not really sure. I think one of the problems I have is they are to easy to use. It's just so simple to pull one out of my wallet and bingo, I've been able to buy whatever I want. That is until my credit limit is reached.

So now I'm so far in debt all I can do is try and dig myself out. How much credit card debt do I have. As of today it is approximately........ $44,000.

This is how my debt is divided up amongst my various credit cards.

Credit Card #1 - $15,874
Card Limit - $15,000

Credit Card #2 - $12,922
Card Limit - $12,200

Credit Card #3 - $5000
Card Limit - $5,000

Credit Card #4 - $2632
Card Limit - $2800

Credit Card #5 - 2502
Card Limit - $2500

Credit Card #6 - $800
Card Limit - $3500

Credit Card #7 - $4433
Card Limit - $5000

As you can see I either over my limit or right at it on most of these. What's scarry about this is this amount of credit card debt is more than my yearly salary that I get from my full time job. So not only do I have to pay these down but I have to live as well. Bear in mind this credit card debt is just one part of the equation. I also have a mortgage, a second mortgage and a car loan and i will divulge this in my next post. I am also learning to make money using the power of the internet and I will share how I learned to do this in the near future. I'm hopefull this supplemental income will help me pay down this debt and lead me to a life of being debt free.

[Credit Card Debt]

In Debt and Out of Money

Hello fellow debtors.

If your like I am you're seriously in debt and you just don't have the money to get out. You know that being in debt is a vicous cycle that's hard to break. Being in debt takes on a life of it's own and everything you try doesn't seem to help, it just keeps getting worse as time passes.

I have started this blog to chronicle my journey from the depths of debtors hell to the promised land of being completely debt free. Over the next few days and weeks I will share how deeply my family and I are in debt and how we have been working to get out of debt. I will share how much we owe on each credit card, our mortgage and second mortgage, a car loan and anyother loans or credit balances we have.

I will also share why we have gotten ourselves into this situation and what we have learned from it. Being in debt sucks and it affects how we live our lives and what we can do with our lives. If I can share our journey out of this hole we have dug ourselves into maybe it will help not only my family and I but you as well.

I will put together what our debt is over the next couple of days and share that on this blog. I will also start to share some of the steps we have started taking to help relieve our debt burden.

To a debt free future

[Debt]