what you spouse is not on the same page as yiu are?

How big?We have a mortgage of 117,00 on our house, 25,000 on home equity line of credit and about 10,000 in CC.....I want to throw up. The house is very reasonable where we live and we have it on a 20 plan, instead of 30. the Home equity thing was repairs we had to make because of a mold problem and had to rip the whole top of our house off ....an unplanned expense. The CC are mostly left over from DH first marriage and a vacation we took and that ended up sosting a lot more than we expected (not good, I know).

We just can't seem to make headway. My husband is not open to cutting out things like baseball games and cable TV...stuff like that. I need ideas as to how to go about it.

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Illini Bob's wife....mom to 3 little chiefs

I wouldnt worry so much about the mortgage and equity line. Suze Orman counts that as good debt bc hopefully you are gaining equity in that property.

As far as the credit card, set a time frame and stick to it. say $10K paid off in 5 years. divide the 10K into 60 apyments for your first payment. divide the new balance by 59 payments for the second month payment. etc. I find that keeps me aware of how far along we are toward the debt as well as makes me think twice before getting into it again. also prevents me from getting used to one payment amount, kind of like torturing myself with numbers and interest realizaton so credit doesnt become comfortable.

What are you husband's reasons for not wanting to pay it off sooner?

Okay, I'm sort of mean... But I would hit him where it hurts...
Get your plan together with it all worked out for your goal date etc to pay off that CC debt. Have a sit down with him and tell him that the two of you are going to get that paid off because as annoying as it is to pay off his debt from before you were with him, it's even MORE annoying to be paying interest on things he enjoyed with his FORMER wife!! I might put a few stronger words in there, but like I said, I'm mean-you sound much more reasonable. (I also might throw in that it's really hard to think about sex when you are so worried about the finances...)

I agree with the post about not worrying yourself sick about your mortgage-just make SURE never to default on it...When you are through with the CC debt, start on the LOC.

Good luck!

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"Children are the most important Natural Resource"

It's not that he doesn't want to pay things off sooner....it's that he doesn't want to change his lifestyle to do it. Does that make sense?

I guess i am wondering how to go about cutting back without everyone feeling the shock of doing nothing and going nowhere. You know?

Yes, he got screwed in his divorce. It stuck in my craw for a long time, but now it's just a bill. She filed bankrupcy years after they split and the conpanyies went after DH since it was a joint CC in the beginning. We went through lawyers, but still got stuck with a ton of debt.

Do you have a plan to pay off debt and how do you make one?

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Illini Bob's wife....mom to 3 little chiefs

First thing I would do is read dave ramsey's total money makeover! then make your dh read it. Since most of the cc debt was before you I don't see why your dh is being difficult about cutting things out! I would just have a long talk after you read the book and see what can happen!

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I am only one, but I am one. I can not do everything, but I can do something. I must not fail to do the something that I can do. -Edward Hale

since you posted this, im assuming that you want a straight foward answer...so i'll give you one!


1. you have to have seen by now (by hanging out on here) the name dave ramsey typed a thousand times. get his book from the library (total money makeover) and read it, then have your hub read it. its a very very easy read and not boring or lengthy.

2. you're not going to really get anywhere if your hub is not on board, and you know that.
by pretending that its not an issue and continuing to live like you are, you'll be caught in that endless cycle

3. and no, you cant cut back without sacrifices. thats how you truly get ahead. you guys can either choose to make it a prision sentence or a personal challenge to overcome.


believe me, i know what im talking about. my cc debt was 16k in october - now im cash only and the balance is now 7k. BIG ACCOMPLISHMENT - and we sleep better at night and we are HAPPY .... its a great feeling to have control over your money.


get dave ramsey...and good luck

I haven't read the Ramsey book, but I trust the gurus on here enough to say I'm sure that would be a great start. I think I am going to check that out this week too!

For me the first step is: Take an HONEST inventory of what you have spent your money on in the past few months to a year. I found we were spending hundreds on fast food because I was too exhausted to make dinner.
For this problem, I came up with a less expensive solution to get a babysitter twice a month while I caught up on all the things that were wasting my time. This freed me up to make more dinners at home...That might not make sense to everyone, but it worked for me & spending $60 on a babysitter each month actually saved me about $200 on take-out.
Sometimes it's not so much sacrifice (although you do have to commit to cut some things out) but CREATIVITY.

After I cut the fat, I looked at what was available for the month & based on the cuts & what we were spending each month made a budget that sent as much money as possible to the cc debt.
I don't know if all this is helpful to you or not, if you want to PM me, I can share our budget with you, or more detail of how we got there. I'm certainly no expert. We've been completely out of debt before & now we are working on it again (that second baby can really pack a wallop!).

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"Children are the most important Natural Resource"

I can relate to you on this one. My dh is not willing to give up his lifestyle either, but is doing better than he was before. We had quite a bit of cc debt when we married. I finally sat down and made a list of all of our monthly expenses from your house expenses to groceries to car payment to credit cards (everything). I also made a list of all of our debts (not including our mortgage). This really put things into perspective. Then either make a plan and show your husband or make a plan together. To pay down the credit cards, I started with the card with lowest balance first. Some people might start with the highest interest rate first, but paying a card off at a time worked for me and gave me a sense of accomplishment. I put as much as I could toward that card and paid a little on the others. Once that card was paid, I put more money towards the next card. I made a spreadsheet tracking what we have paid and what we have left to pay so I can see how we are doing. We also used our tax refund to pay off two of our cards which wasn't fun, but we are also releived not to have them hanging over our heads. If you need to make cuts in other areas, start with your grocery bill and eating out. Then maybe your cable. If you need more info PM me!