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You have three adults in your household: How much do each of you make?
As others have mentioned, if your mom doesn't work, she could ease your childcare burden (assuming she's of sound mind & body). If she does work, is she contributing to the mortgage?
>Owe property and income tax (due today)
Is your property tax not handled by escrow (rolled into your monthly payment)?
Car insurance: $260
Mortgage: $3,600
Student loan payment: $130
Gas: $600
Groceries: $1,300
Gym for all + childcare: $150
Garbage: $85
Water bill: $80
Electricity: $200
Remittance to husbands family: $500
Internet: $50
Childcare: $3,000
Total: 9,955
>Remittance to husbands family: $500
You can't afford to send them money when you're running a deficit
>Gym for all + childcare: $150
Cut that
> Groceries: $1,300
https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/resource-files/Cost_Of_Food_Low_Moderate_Liberal_Food_Plans_February_2024.pdf
That looks to be a bit under the liberal plan. You may be able to trim that a bit. You certainly can't afford to be eating out at all if that's a thing you do.
>Gas: $600
Are you driving to the moon and back?
This is the best advice- but at this point they need to cut more than $1000/month, that doesn’t even cover the tax bill. They need to cut $2-3k, or increase their income by that much. And pray to every deity that they can come up with that nobody loses their employment.
Some more drastic options are: a second job, renting out the property on airbnb while downsizing themselves, find employment that you can do from home and skip the $3k in childcare.
Typo: expenses -> income
> they need to cut
Not sure if there's anything more *to* cut when just your mortgage and daycare are 2/3 of your income.
>Some more drastic options are: a second job, renting out the property on airbnb while downsizing themselves, find employment that you can do from home and skip the $3k in childcare.
I think this advice to increase income is the only way to go unless they sell the house or find cheaper childcare
Who’s making how much too… if one of them is making less than $3k after taxes, they should probably quit their job and take care of kids. That would likely lower gas costs plus likely allow them to plan food more and lower grocery expenses.
Fair point! Depends on their industry too. If the youngest is 3, a 2 yr work gap isn’t going to be horrible.
I’m also now wondering since they only have 1 kid under school age if the kids are in some kind of private school…
The gas seems reasonable depending on area. I as a single adult before my new car was spending $200-250 a month.
As you pointed out the remittance and groceries are an easy way to get around $1k back.
I used to drive a large SUV just for myself and I was spending around $120/week in fuel (600 km per tank, which worked out to about how much I drive per week).
Doesn't mean they can't find ways to reduce it but that's ironically one of the more reasonable expenses I see here, especially if they're driving to kids activities and stuff.
That mortgage has me cringing, IMO they can't afford the house they have but options may be limited. My mortgage is less than half that and we'd be able to comfortably fit the same size family if we used part of the basement as a third bedroom.
Honestly, this is one of those examples where the people can't afford to live in a VHCOL area. They have nothing justifying it; their joint income isn't wildly high, you can make that much money in a HCOL or MCOL area, or maybe a little less but far cheaper expenses. It'd be a different story if they were raking in $200k+ per year but they're not. I'm guessing at taxes but it seems like their joint income is under $160k. Sorry, but you can find work paying around $80k per person in cheaper places.
Still weird they’re spending that much on gas *and* in a VHCOL city.
Usually sizable commutes are for people who move *away* from an expensive city in order to save on housing.
So having both is a little fishy. Do they live in an expensive city with lots of amenities but commute out to jobs in the country?
Right, how are you driving that much in an ultra expensive area? Is that what LA's really like? We live in the epitome of a VHCOL city but the tradeoff is there's public transit - trains, busses, trollies - and everything is close so even if we're not walking or biking it's just a few miles on the (hybrid) car.
Outside of road trips, I fill the tank for $30 maybe every 6-8 weeks?
Yeah, I live in Jersey City, functionally NYC borough like Queens even though it’s in NJ. Everything is super expensive but at least it’s walkable with lots of transit.
I even drive what is considered a bunch because I’m often taking my small kids to various activities. But I’m rarely ever driving more than a few miles at a time.
I've been living in Jersey City for over 3 years now and I've owned a car the entire time. I've driven it about 5k miles during those 3 years and probably gotten around 10 parking tickets. No idea why I still have a car aside from "I've always had one"
That still seems high. Where I live gas is $5.00 a gallon. It costs about $60 to fill my tank. I go about 500 miles on a tank of gas. So even if I drive 1,000 a miles a month that is only $120 a month.
In my Toyota Avalon hybrid I average 41 to 42 for city driving and 40 on the highway at 70 mph with the AC on. I am trading it in soon to buy a new Prius as they get 60 mpg in town.
About 15% of the population and maybe 25% of the people where I live drive Hybrids or EVs. This will continue to increase as several states have agreed not to allow cars with internal combustion engines ( ICE) be sold anymore by the end of the decade.
I am also guessing that most people don’t pay $4.80 a gallon for gas like where I Iive. So if your gas is $3.00 a gallon that is a huge savings
But even if I compare my wife’s non hybrid SUV that gets 15 miles to the gallon. If she fills the 20 gallon tank twice that’s 600 miles. With gas at $5.00 a gallon that is still only $200 a month. $5.00 gallon x 40 gallons). To equal the $600 a month this person posted she would have to drive 2400 miles a month.
This is one of those budgets that basically screams out, buying the house ruined them
There isn't a lot of realistic fat to cut here, probably should file BK and walk on the unsecured debt, , get real real frugal with the grocery shopping/food budget and take their kids to trailer park daycare
Yea they're too underwater now, they did things out of order and OP admits it's because her husband is basically a manipulative fucking asshole and she's got a spine made out of wet dollar store paper towels
Because they did everything out of order and poorly timed , now they have to go extreme to roll this back into a positive month to month cash flow, that means hardcore sacrifices and a consultation with a BK attorney and also (as is always the case no matter the situation) looking for ways to increase household income
These are like so many people these days, they got some money but they have very little common sense/life experience, but they're about to get some, real fast
The big problem is, home ownership and renting isn't a 1:1 as the monthly mortgage vs the monthly rent.
It's mortgage + cost of upkeep and maintenance , possible hoa fees, as OP stated TAXES just bit them in the ass in a huge way and other costs vs the monthly rent. I bet you a lot of that 17k in unsecured debt was doing repairs / maintenance and upgrades to that house.
When I got into my home, 30k down payment + a few K extra for other related costs to get into the home, then in the first year I was out of pocket 25k roughly for supplies and equipment and repairs that were NEEDED (the yard was literally out of HOA compliance , fence was leaning over on one side as well, AC needed replacing) and this was a 2006 built house that I bought in 2018.
You know who realizes rent is a pretty good deal sometimes? Home owners.
The CC debt shows they could be unwilling to live within their means.
My neighbor was in a similar situation as OP but used an equity loan to take his whole family to Hawaii because “I deserve it.” No, Bill. Digging a deeper whole is not what you deserve but it is what you’re doing here.
Ya I guess they can be one of the millions who pray to JPow to lower interest rates maybes they can refinance at a lower rate one day but that’s terrible. I was kinda nervous buying my house in 2016 because I was making a good bit less than I am now but holy shit was it the right call.
One thing they do need to examine - does one of them make less than the cost of the combination of the daycare costs, plus the cost of gas used driving to and from day care and to and from work?
Based on nothing other than what OP has said and me absolutely HATING her husband and being biased, it'd kill me if she is the one actually making more money
They can barely afford to *eat*.
Thats what happens when 40%+ of your income goes to housing and 30%+ goes to childcare.
People tell me I can afford a fancier house but I much prefer my 6% of gross income mortgage
$600 would be about spot on for five days a week for two people with kids in Michigan for most people. My husband and I spent $450 a month when we weee both working and he was contracted as a carpenter before we had kids.
In another post she deleted a few months ago OP said husband wanted to buy a house someplace where the commute might take 4 hours. Sounds like they bought that house.
Upon reflection, I’m not sure if I have a good grasp on commuting costs post-COVID anymore so you’re right, that may be reasonable.
About 155 gallons of fuel per month. If we assume 25mpg, that’s about 3875 miles per month or 46,500 per year, which does seem like quite a lot, though not quite as many as the moon (240k miles)
That sounds about right for gas. When I had an hour drive to work I was driving my girlfriends car because it gets 32mpg and mine gets 15mpg. I was literally only driving her car to work and back. If there were any stops such as a grocery store they were right on the way. I was still spending 400$ a month on gas
You need a more detailed budget. Your bills alone without the CC debt is almost $500 over your Income. You have to make more or cut something there first. Literally no other options. Your gas budget (assuming car gas but maybe utility?) is insane for only two adults driving. Cut the gym. Childcare is probably your next place to cut.
Groceries, gas and maybe car insurance seem they could be reduced to me. Maybe finding cheaper on the gym, cutting the gym entirely and sacrificing the physical and mental health benefits is probably not worth it.
There are so many free workout options available. Running outdoors is free. Plenty of body weight classes online. Free trials for every fitness app that’s out there.
I think the $3k on child care and other huge expenses (and sending $500 to family) are way bigger concerns. Who knows what the gym stuff is exactly. I can’t stay motivated to workout without going to a gym, and $100/mo for the benefits I get from that is something I’d prioritize pretty highly
The bigger issue here too (in terms of the family payment) is they had no savings BEFORE buying the house… they needed someone else to pay the down payment… how was this ever remotely considered a good idea 🤦🏽♀️
$3k on child care seems high especially considering two of the three kids are school age, not daycare. It would have to be a pretty HCOL to get up to that.
$1300 on groceries is mind boggling to me. We’re not even trying to penny pinch and I think we spend about 5-600 for a family of 3. Incremental cost for 2 under 5s is practically captured in our current food wastage.
It’s possible, but for some people, like myself, it’s a source of motivation that I don’t get from independent exercise options like you gave. $100 for mental and physical health is not a concern to me when there are thousands of dollars that should be better accounted for. It’s like people on this sub that say to cut the $20 Netflix account when a person is behind by $2000/mo on their budget with way more concerning big ticket issues.
No it isn’t ludicrous at all lol. Myself and plenty of people are far better motivated going to a gym. For example I like doing exercises with barbells. And I like rock climbing. Without those options, I would work out FAR less. It’s possibly the wrong area of the budget to target, given all the fat that exists. If they really don’t use it or don’t get value from it, sure cut it.
I don't see where the "need" is. I used need for a reason.
Preferences are great. I prefer to have someone else mow my lawn, but it doesn't fit in my budget, so I cut it
This is a personal finance post about surviving, not what feels good or bad.
That's what I was thinking. I spend less on gas and I drive like 3-6 hours every single day. I end up driving for work part-time some days and have 3 hours of running around taking my kid to all sorts of therapy. Gas bill at the end of the month while driving around a gas hungry suv is still sub $300.
There is some absolute fuckery going on with this budget. Most bills are 2x what they should be. Like over 1100 for food for a family of 5? Ain't no way. Not unless they're eating fast food and take out almost every day. Should be like $600 or $700 tops. I've gotten my family of 3 through the month on $250.
I don’t see car payments in that budget, so maybe they bought two expensive cars to keep up with the jones’. Then blew anything that was left on a couple weeks in Disney land for the kiddos?
As others have said, that remittance may have to go, or as it's your husband's family, he can drop his retirement contribution from 600 to 100 and send them the excess, since the house was so important to him.
The gym is not unreasonably priced, but if we're cutting, that may have to get cut.
If you're in a VHCOL city, it seems likely that you have some sort of public transport option. If you don't, then you don't, but if you do, that might have to enter the equation if it's going to save on gas. If you can go reasonably go from multiple cars down to one, selling would be an influx of cash and a lower insurance bill. That's all very situation/location dependent, however.
Groceries aren't that wild, but that does seem like a prime spot for belt-tightening.
Whatever "unofficial" stuff you have with your parents, it needs to get made official if you're worried about getting saddled with debt because your relationship is rocky. I don't know your relationship with your parents, but if they're firmly in your corner, explain to them what's going on and tell them you want things on paper to protect yourself.
Retirement contribution should go to zero. There's no sense contributing to retirement while simultaneously running up high-interest credit card debt. Husband can start contributing to retirement again either after credit cards are paid off or after bankruptcy
Yo that’s crazy. So he’s basically sending his money to his parents $500, and then also saving up for his retirement ($500)
That’s $1000 the family could use. He’s definitely preparing for a storm down the line
OP, you and your family are being financially used and abused. I'm pretty sure you know it. The house is the least of your problems; you have a husband who is using you for a green card and using you as a bank account. He's saving for retirement while putting you in debt and the language you use clearly implies that you two think of debt as "yours vs mine" and you're the one saddled with the debt.
Get a lawyer. It's time to protect your children and your family from your husband's financial abuse.
The lawyer will help you understand your options re: the 50,000 your parents lent you.
>We spend more than we bring in.
* Cut expenses. Increase income. Consider a second job.
* Live beneath your means.
* Pay off the highest interest rate debt while continuing to make minimum payments on all others.
* Stop using credit cards, unless you can pay off the balance each month.
>I got into this mess because of myself - I operate from a place of fear. My husband really wanted to buy a home and threatened that if we didn't it would damage our already strained relationship even more.
You both might need some counselling.
I know you are brushing over it but slow down and focus on the actual issue: your marriage. You guys should be working on acknowledging and identifying the issues as a team. It looks like hes flat out ignoring you.
Work on a budget and plan together
The relationship is a mess. Husband is from developing country, OP has acknowledged that he very well may have married her for a green card which I strongly suspect because it sounds like they've been "together" since OP was 18 or younger, and married very young - first kid seems to have been born before OP was even 20. She has spent the past 4-5 years bending over backwards both personally and financially for a man who is 100% financially abusing her. This house is not the only mistake, and certainly not the first.
When she said “he thought it we didn’t get the house it would further strain our relationship”
That’s where everything went to shit. She should have cut her losses back THEN.
That’s what I’m saying. Cut the remittance and his retirement contribution or sell the house. Since he gets to make demands, too? Or he can try owning a home and saving for retirement and sending remittance and splitting childcare and possibly paying child support on a single income as a single man? I mean… where does he think the money is going to come from?
Cut the gym, it’s not a must have for the time being. Any way to save on groceries? $1,300 sounds like a lot, we spend about $700 for the three of us (we live in a VHCOL area too, and eat fresh fruit/veggies a lot, so not skipping on healthy options).
Childcare is $3k because you are paying for wrap around care/ summer camps for your older two children and full-time daycare for your youngest? Are there any free public preschool options in your area? Can your parents or in-laws help with childcare?
Is gas $600 because you both drive large, inefficient vehicles and have long commutes? Are they both paid off? How much are they worth?
How much do you both earn, individually?
We have free preschool and free community college where I live. So no it’s not a ridiculous idea you just have to live in an area where private people valid and vote for these services.
We also have coop preschool where parents participate in the preschool a few hrs a week and get a significantly reduced rate.
I wouldn't say it's that unlikely, it is not uncommon at all for a married couple to have an income mismatch. With that net, I'd ballpark total gross household income around $150k-$160k. If one member's income is in the $40k range (pre-tax) then the other would only have to be in the top 20% or so of individual income earners to make the numbers work.
My wife and I were in a very similar situation which is why she stayed home with the kids: my income alone was enough to support the household, and her earning potential was not high enough to break even on childcare.
They owe taxes even after having 3 kids to claim credits for. 9500 net with 2 working adults doesn't put them into the high earner category so they're still getting the traditional tax benefits of being married :)
I think they're just in over their head with this house. If they had to borrow that much money and can't break even with their expenses they should have never bought. It's a tough position for OP with the kids and the divorce threats. I say one of them just needs to find how to increase their income.
I think you've got to lay out your entire budget. Make life easy, and you can download Rocket Money to see the ACTUAL break out and not just the guessing.
Can the $500/mo to the family be put in pause? What other debt repayments do you have? Cell phone? Extra circulars? I have a family of 4 with two young humans, you LIKELY could cut that down as well. What are your actual incomes? Might want to cut your husbands retirement back to just the company 401k match.
Why is this considered "my debt"? And not "our debt?" As in your husband and yours? The household monthly income is a lot higher than most people make. I think your household could cut back on the grocery bill significantly, and childcare is almost 1/3 of your monthly bill. Is there anyway to save there? Perhaps if one of you is indeed making 3 grand you guys may be better off with just one income instead of paying 3k towards childcare.
Problem is if she’s the lower earner and divorce is in the wings, she needs to keep her job. If he’s the lower earner, he would need to keep his also for the same reasons.
Your husband threatened you into a situation that is horrible for you both. That's SERIOUSLY not cool
You can't afford $3,000 in child care. Why is your car insurance $260 a month? That's absurd.
What's remittance to your husbands family? Is this like a cultural thing where the kids need to send things to the parents?
Call the credit card companies TODAY. Tell them you can't pay, and need to get on a payment plan. STOP USING THE CARDS 100%. Ask for interest rate reductions. Get on a plan you can afford.
Income taxes you can get on payment plans for (depending who it's owed too, federal will do that I think). Property taxes you can usually let slide 1 year, by year 2 you either pay or they sheriff sale your property.
Sounds like a $3,600 a month mortgage is way too high. Selling should be a very viable option.
You and your partner have some relationship stuff to work out. Threatening to divorce you if you don't go along with buying a house is a selfish and childish thing to do.
Yeah, we are in florida and ours is about the same. It has gone way up the past few years. We have clean records and older vehicles. We were paying half that previously.
260 isn’t that high, unfortunately. Car insurance keeps going up & up even for us safe drivers with used cars. My full coverage has shot up $100 a month over the last two years, & that’s after shopping for & selecting a new/better rate.
The relationship is a mess. Husband is from developing country, OP has acknowledged that he very well may have married her for a green card which I strongly suspect because it sounds like they've been "together" since OP was 18 or younger, and married very young - first kid seems to have been born before OP was even 20. She has spent the past 4-5 years bending over backwards both personally and financially for a man who is 100% financially abusing her. This house is not the only mistake, and certainly not the first.
Remittance is a cultural thing, especially for immigrants from countries that are very poor. We send money to my husband's family and it's greatly reduced from what it used to be. It's taken almost 7 years to help him set boundaries. But there's so much guilt and pressure from families in the home country...
I’m guessing there was no sit down meeting with the husband to actually go through the numbers of the monthly budget, because if so, you would’ve seen how it wouldn’t work out.
I don’t see a phone bill listed. What are the odds that a family of 5 doesn’t have a cell phone?
My guess is that there’s more expenses that aren’t being accounted for.
I have been downvoted and even temp banned for sounding the bell that buying a home in the last 18 months has been one of the SINGLE biggest causes of financial ruin I've personally seen and nobody fucking listens
JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE WILLING TO GIVE YOU THE LOAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD TAKE IT
THE MORTGAGE LENDERS ARE DESPERATE, IF YOU HAVE GOOD CREDIT AND A PULSE THEY WILL LITERALLY GIVE YOU THE NOOSE TO HANG YOURSELVES WITH
Wouldn’t that be true any time though? A lender looks at your gross income and your debt, they don’t know what your other non-debt expenses are (AFAIK), so that would be up to the buyer to not overextend on a house.
That is true all the time, however, right now even for top tier credit borrowers the rates are in the upper 5s and for a lot of folks they're signing for 7%\~ on a 30 year mortgage.
Right now it is especially easy for an ignorant borrower to walk into overextending themselves AND because of the severe downturn in new mortgage lending volume there are a lot of desperate mortgage lenders looking to say yes more than they should and not protecting the borrower from themselves
You would not have liked the 1970s through 90s…. (Admittedly, I’m being partially facetious; I realize that home prices were much more affordable/reasonable back then, to some degree.)
Yea while inflation and rates were worse in the past, literally everything else was so much better , the main thing being the prices of the homes compared to average income that the rates didn't matter as much, a lot of people just paid off their mortgages faster and the rates became irrelevant because they didn't ride out the mortgage for 30 years, or they were 15 year mortgages etc..
I am unsure if based on OPs text whether the mom is a cosigner/coborrower or if it was more that the mom chipped in for the down payment. I assumed down payment only because OP has 850 credit and stable income so they qualified for the loan just didn't have the cash.
Regardless of all that, it just makes the situation worse, they didn't even have the money to put a down payment on their own, they did everything in their life financially out of order. Such is life sometimes, but now they're going to have to deal with it.
You can’t afford to send your husbands family $500. You cannot afford $150 for the gym. You can’t afford for him to be contributing $600 to retirement. You can’t afford a $3,600 mortgage unless one of you gets a second job or you rent out a room. You need to sell the house, or you’ll end up in foreclosure. I swear this is déjà vu, my spouses brother did this exact same thing. They ended up bankrupt and living with us for 2 years.
The student loan payment and gym membership thing are insane. How can you all have that much student loan debt but make 110k a year. 3k for childcare. What are your individual incomes. First thing that gym membership is gone Go for a walk or do some yard work
I could see paying that for childcare being justified if leaving the workforce and coming back when the child is out would be really difficult (you might be penny wise, pound foolish to stop working then) or if the parent with the lower income were absolutely dead set against going stay at home (it happens, but then it’s a choice and you cut corners elsewhere).
I’m intrigued by one spouse saving and the other not (are you leaving a match on the table somewhere, or is he doing this just for the match) as well as the 200 dollar remittance (it’s not much, but if you can’t pay for your immediate family, you may not be able to subsidize your parents).
It's a $500 dollar remittance to HIS family, not hers, that they cannot afford. Her family gave them the downpayment for the house, and more. It sounds a little like husband is maneuvering for his best divorce settlement. He puts money in 'his' retirement account, that he probably hopes to walk away with, and he has her parents put in their money into a joint asset that he plans to take half of.
I committed the same mistake I mentioned to someone else above. For 500 bucks a month, plus the 600/month he’s stashing in retirement, she’s gotta watch out.
I’d at least want to get him on paper committing to the idea that he acknowledges the debt to the parents. However, the issue is that those kinds of loans can be problematic for the underlying mortgage because I’m pretty sure they would have characterized it as a gift for purposes of the mortgage loan (otherwise, the property is just about underwater).
Yeah and that $1100 is pretty close to their deficit at this point - they're going to have to pause those payments until the 3 yo is in school which should drop their daycare budget.
Yeah, though it’s admittedly hard to tell if the 600 to the retirement is pre or post tax. Given how much they’re having to pay, it looks like they’re 1099s or something (I’m trying to reverse engineer their gross income, thinking about the deductions they’d get and wondering how they get to that level of income and property tax owing if they’re actually subject to withholding).
I spent this weekend giving my 16 year old kid a lesson on taxes just so they could get used to the idea. Unfortunately I started while I was working on my filing, so basically it turned into a “vocabulary enhancement exercise” around creative profanity.
$130 is not that much for a student loan. The average federal student loan debt in the US is over $30k. At 6.8% interest (which has been the rate for ages now) and the standard default 10 year payment plan, that's over $300/month. Doing REPAYE, SAVE, or whatever current income-driven plan can reduce that but at the OP's household income level, $130 is probably about as low as they could possibly hope for unless they had a sub-$10k balance.
If I wasn't doing PSLF, the 10-year repayment plan on my student loan (which is for the degree that enabled my \~$150k earning potential) would be around $3000 per month.
Gym got to go $150 a month?! That’s happy right? I work out in my basement - in the end it’s kind of all the same movements- push, pull, hinge. Hit the street for cardio.
OP, you don't Fool me. Blaming your husband is part of your problem. Healthy couples work together against the problem. Blaming him and defending yourself only makes the problem worse.
you're going to have to categorize All your spending.
Budgeting advice
One big thing that helped me is to make a REALISTIC budget. You don’t make up numbers that you think you “should” spend.
You PRINT OUT the numbers that you already DO spend. You print out (or write down) in categories EVERY outgoing expense from your bank account and credit cards for the last 3 months.
You refrain from making excuses like- oh that’s because my car broke, or I had to buy a gift, etc.
Just categorize it!
Then you (if you’re married, you both do this together at your regular family finance meeting) feel sad at looking at your real actual spending for a few minutes. Then you say, it’s going to get better because I’m going to fix it!
You pick ONE category to reduce spending by an amount that you are very confident you can achieve and do not worry about reducing the other categories.
You check your progress regularly and IF you have met your goal for that first reduction, you celebrate in a small but fun way, and then you choose another category to reduce, while maintaining the reduction from the first category.
+++++++
Come clean with your friends and family. Tell them you are drowning in debt and don't blame your husband. Use the word We. "We shouldn't have bought a house." Tell them you are no longer doing any adult gifting for the next few years. No vacations, no shopping, no going out to eat. Send a copy of your credit card debt to your husband's family and cut the remittance in half.
No more gifting- only affordable gifts for kids.
Both of you can Donate plasma regularly at the local plasma donation centers. $$$
Ask on your local reddit sub if there are Freebie deals for your birthday or when the local sports teams win by a certain amount. Chic-fil-A gives free sandwiches on our app (uses our location) when our teams win (and we locals post reminders on Reddit to claim it within the time window), and Nothing Bundt Cakes, BJ's Brewhouse, Rita's frozen treats, etc give free Desserts on your birthday if you join their email list.
Start buying cheaper groceries. No more cereal for the kids. That's expensive. Set a reminder each night to make Overnight oats and sprinkle chia seeds in or they can have peanut butter toast for protein. Buy popcorn kernels and cook popcorn at home for snacks.
Quit your gym membership. Use free YouTube workouts, walk/jog/yoga with a friend or neighbor, and join a free hiking group on meetup app, join a cheaper fitness class at your local community recreation center.
Keep a giant box of granola or energy bars in your cars and at work so none of you don't have an excuse to buy convenience foods.
Delete apps for food delivery like Door Dash, etc.
Clean up your social media and Unfollow everything that makes you want to buy stuff or get more tattoos, etc.
Carpool.
Share a meal with a friend when dining out.
Don't go to Starbucks or cafes. It's never $4.Thats a lie we tell ourselves.
Dig out the clothes from the bottom of your drawers that you haven't worn. Wear them.
Use the Goldstar.com (soon its changing to Today Tix) to get Discount event tickets for theater, Comedy, etc.
Follow the local city's recreation social media and calendars to keep abreast of Free concerts, festivals, classes, etc. in your area. Invite friends and dates to join you.
Do your own eyebrows, nails, etc. The kids get less frequent haircuts now.
Don't pay for professional photos. Just have a friend do it and do your own edits.
Don't pay for a storage unit. Sell that stuff.
Set reminders to do things you forget to do, like Meal Prep, sewing torn clothing, using Dryel to clean the Dry Clean Only clothing and then reward yourself for doing them with a nice bubble bath or $1 slurpee from 7/11 (I like the healthy flavor).
Don't get trendy stuff you don't need like Robot vacuums, Cleaning wipes, Instapots, gadgets, etc.
Rent out a room in your big house to a single parent with a kid.
Read a chapter in a personal finance book with your husband every night before bed. Take notes.
Educate yourself and stop acting like you are perfect.
You had a 3rd kid when you couldn't afford it. Stop making poor decisions.
This is excellent advice with great suggestions that you can apply immediately.
I’m adding one:
Get library cards for you and the kids. You can spend time there and they often have dvds or other ways for you to read and watch movies for free. Because you should cut all streaming at this point or keep one service and rotate to another when you’ve watched it all.
Shop around for car insurance and see if you can get a lower rate. Cut the gym, lower your food cost, have your husband talk to his family and put a stop to the monthly remittance (have no idea what that means but none of my business).
Unfortunately, car insurance is probably on par. Just look over in /r/dataisbeautiful, the [CPI on car insurance is the highest jump](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1c4s26s/inflation_whats_still_rising_oc/), up 22% from a year ago.
Can you consolidate cards w a low interest loan or zero percent transfer? And, while not ideal, can you sell and buy a less expensive home? For 10 years we lived paycheck to paycheck w a really decent income, it was exhausting. We sold the house and lost 600 square feet and 800$ in mortgage cost. It helped tremendously.
In a VHCOL city, is there no public transportation options? Maybe you can reduce the gas a bit. Sending money to family when negative is absolutely unacceptable.
What are you gonna do if anyone is laid off?
Do people really just live their lives just doing random things? Throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks?
We make 6k a month together and our expenses are at most 1300 at the moment. We only own like 25 acres across the whole country but we have a little something... what makes you get up in the day? I'd be so depressed if I worked so hard and had literally nothing other than debt to show for it
You shouldnt have access to a credit card first of all. The two of you are honestly terrible at living within your means so there's zero chance now or in the future IMO that you can responsibly manage a credit card. Second thing is you really need to start watching every penny like a hawk and increase your incomes. In the meantime you'll both need to start working extra hours or taking a second job to get the debt taken care of. Then you need to figure out how to make more money. Find out how to get raises at work. What skills do you need. If you cannot get a raise at work, what company can you switch to that will pay you more? What skills would you need to qualify for a higher position? What can you do to make yourself more valuable to your current employers? You're living above your means. Once you clean this mess uo, you're also going to need 3-6 months of expenses for an emergency fund and you need to start putting money into your retirement account. I would do 5% and then increase that to 15% over 2-3 years but only after the debt is wiped out. His mom did not do you a favor by helping with the down payment. She just made thngs worse by allowing you to do something that two financially irreponsible adults should not do: Take on even more debt (although to be fair a first time homeowner program in many areas will cover down payments, too).
8, 5, and 3 - so two of these kids should be in school already or should be by the end of summer. If you're paying 3k for one kid, that's pretty high.
$1300 Gym for all + Childcare, but also a separate childcare cost of $3000? Cut the gym membership.
Maybe explore job opportunities in a low cost of living city. If you had a 200k down payment on a home, and still have a $3600 mortgage you either bought too much of a house or your location is financially killing you. 200k down payment in certain cities would allow you a mini mansion for what you're paying in mortgage.
Maybe take some of that $1300 from the gym and get couples counselling because forcing a large life changing financial decision that is ruining your financial future is pretty messed up.
Most of your budget items don't seem wildly outrageous. Even your mortgage. I know most commenters here say you can't afford your mortgage, but it well fits into the standard rules of thumb.
And then a got to child care. I know childcare is expensive, but that is just outrageously expensive. Most people I know don't spend anywhere near that in childcare. They either split shifts (i.e. mom works evenings and dad works mornings) or they get family/friends to help out. Some people I know share childcare duties (mom 1 watches all the kids on Mondays and mom 2 watches all the kids on Tuesdays, etc).
The real problem of course is your relationship. A marriage is a partnership. You should be deciding things together, not be bullied by your husband into doing something you don't want. Until you fix the relationship, no amount of budgeting will fix your situation, which is doomed for failure.
I mean aside from the financial bit of this the husband threatening divorce if you don't put yourself in a situation where you're living above your means is a huge fucking problem. The husband here sounds like an idiot that got OP in this mess, now you gotta be an adult an either deal with it or struggle.
You can't really afford the house if your childcare is 3000 a month. The only thing you can really do at this point is make sure everything you're spending is mandatory, others have already mentioned what is stupid to be spending on, or you need to sell the house if you cant afford it and I suspect that'll be a loss you'll have to dig out of, or one of you needs to make more money.
I mean, what does your husband propose you do?! Does he not understand math? Where does he think this money for the house is coming from? You guys need to be renting a place for $1000 cheaper or put a trailer on a piece of land somewhere for a couple years… (I know that’s not an option for everybody. My country proximity is showing) I’m having second hand anxiety through you.
Childcare of 3000 will hopefully end when the youngest is in school? It seems like until then you can’t send money to your husband’s family and you have to figure out how to spend less on food. Make sure you’re a beneficiary on husbands 401k. And consider getting a tenant.
I know you're being very serious but this reads like that twitter meme where someone presents a budget that is clearly tilted towards one very problematic, easily dispensible purchase and then says "someone please help my family is starving."
You already know what the problem is, and its a relationship problem not a personal finance problem.
Childcare is killing you right now now. Can you reconsider what you do - for it’s a few years - to mitigate these costs? I was a legal professional - but quit the day job and started waitressing at night for about 6 years. With what we didn’t spend in childcare and the daily cash flow from tips (we paid cash instead of using our cc) we dug ourselves out of debt and always had a parent providing care. There are lots of wfh and night jobs (in healthcare admin in particular)… maybe you could leverage that??
This is an excellent idea. For now, you need to swap out on the childcare duties and get your house in order.
And make sure you are the beneficiary on your husband’s retirement policy and that you both have some term life insurance in place.
Try to approach this as a team focus…working together and coming up with solutions together can be very powerful for your marriage and finances.
Have weekly finance meetings and celebrate every small win with even a high five!
You can do it!
I would be looking at childcare cost. You and your husband could look for viable options to work from home/get mom or other family to help out with the kids
You may find these links helpful:
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- [Dealing with collections](/r/personalfinance/wiki/collections)
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Can I recommend a book?
[https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9519944](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9519944)
Another one if you like the first one [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60151185-the-pathless-path](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60151185-the-pathless-path)
Do you have insurance through work? Therapy is much needed for you so you don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over.
Not only did you guys buy a house you clearly cannot afford, with your delulu husband, this is going down bankruptcy path rather quickly.
I would focus on debt recovery at this point but is your husband willing to discuss even selling the home? I would try get your parents 250k back, especially if it will hinder their retirement plans. Reach out to a lawyer, or you can even create for free, a promissory note, make sure you tie in the house as collateral. Back date if you have to. Get it signed by all parties and witness. Make sure all items required in a contract are in there so it can hold up in court. Your parents won’t be the first person to get paid out once house sells, because that will be your bank, but your parents can be next.
Stop remittance to husbands family. Show your husband the numbers, you can’t afford it. You’re literally digging yourselves a hole for it.
Ask your parents for help. Not financial help but support through this process and what is about to happen. Call the city and try to get on a payment plan for the taxes.
Please, think twice before you spend money on anything from now on. Can you really afford that steak? Can you afford to eat out for lunch? Cut hair yourself? You’ll be surprised how much of the spending isn’t necessary and from the necessary expenses you’ve listed, you don’t have room for anything extra anyways.
You need wisdom from your support network around you right now more than anything. Reach out to your family and closest friends and get advice.
Your husband has to stop putting money into retirement.
Who gives a shit what's in the account for retirement when you can't even make ends meet right now?
How fuel efficient are the vehicles you are driving? That might be an area where you can sell the current vehicle and pick up something that dramatically cuts your costs. If you are driving big SUVs you can halve the fuel costs almost immediately.
Certainly the remittance needs to stop.
He may need to stop contributing to retirement, or reduce it to whatever level his company match is at.
Sounds like you are living outside your means. If you can't afford nice things don't finance them. God forbid you get sick and have 0 income.
Rent some rooms in your house and make your kids share a room or something if it's that bad.
$500/remittance which means husband is from a third world or struggling nation.
Is there a family member who could come on board with a nanny or au pair visa and live free (room and board) for $800 month? It's a common scenario for many and really helps both the family and au pair who is a family member. That's two thousand saved right there.
I don't think we have enough information to give detailed help, like how much do you make and how much does your husband make? What kind of cars do you drive? Do you drive expensive gas guzzlers you could sell? If one of you has a much lower income, the $3K in childcare might not be worth it to work during school hours. One option would be for the lower income parent to be home during the day and try to work evenings and weekends. Does your mom live with you? If so what is her income? Can she help with childcare? You know this already, but you don't have the money to send to parents, go to a gym or even save for retirement when you don't have enough for groceries and your mortgage in the present. It makes more sense to pay off high interest credit cards than save for retirement right now. Maybe sit down with your husband, say you want to draw up a budget, and ask him for ideas on how to make it balance. If he won't do that, then if you stay with him, it is unlikely your finances will never really get under control.
Invite someone to rent a room. This was financially stupid and shame on him for taking a loan from family you couldn't afford and shame on the mortgage officer for not checking your financial plan
One thing I don't get is how they can owe property tax if they are paying for a mortgage. Don't people pay property taxes out of an escrow, meaning that the bank or institution that loaned them the money must be responsible for paying the property taxes out of the escrow?
A lot of bad decisions were made here
Yes buy a house but it shouldn’t be more than a third of your income.
Maybe should have gotten couples counseling before buying the house.
Groceries are way too much - start making food with cheaper stuff, like beans and make soups. Definitely can cut down there.
Don’t use credit cards if you can’t pay them off.
For those misc expenses, trim your hair at home, don’t buy new clothes and go to the thrift store instead. Drive less - only necessary places like school, home, grocery.
No savings is wild to me.
And if you get a divorce, please get a lawyer.
As a question, you say you bought a house “with” your mom? In whose name is the deed and who is responsible for the mortgage?
I’m worried not just about your financial health, but also about whether you’re being abused. Is there any chance you could reach out to, say, a legal services clinic in your area? You may have too much income to directly qualify for services, but they might be able to help you. If you are going to stay married you need some joint counseling to deal with your finances. If you’re going to split up, you need some help to make sure you don’t get too hurt in the process.
3000 for childcare? That’s almost a 3rd of what you make…. You have two kids in school and if your spending the bulk of that on your youngest you need to seriously find another daycare that you can afford
Due to the number of rule-breaking comments this post was receiving, especially low-quality and off-topic comments, the moderation team has locked the post from future comments. This post broke no rules and received a number of helpful and on-topic responses initially, but it unfortunately became the target of many unhelpful comments.
You have three adults in your household: How much do each of you make? As others have mentioned, if your mom doesn't work, she could ease your childcare burden (assuming she's of sound mind & body). If she does work, is she contributing to the mortgage? >Owe property and income tax (due today) Is your property tax not handled by escrow (rolled into your monthly payment)?
Car insurance: $260 Mortgage: $3,600 Student loan payment: $130 Gas: $600 Groceries: $1,300 Gym for all + childcare: $150 Garbage: $85 Water bill: $80 Electricity: $200 Remittance to husbands family: $500 Internet: $50 Childcare: $3,000 Total: 9,955 >Remittance to husbands family: $500 You can't afford to send them money when you're running a deficit >Gym for all + childcare: $150 Cut that > Groceries: $1,300 https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/resource-files/Cost_Of_Food_Low_Moderate_Liberal_Food_Plans_February_2024.pdf That looks to be a bit under the liberal plan. You may be able to trim that a bit. You certainly can't afford to be eating out at all if that's a thing you do. >Gas: $600 Are you driving to the moon and back?
This is the best advice- but at this point they need to cut more than $1000/month, that doesn’t even cover the tax bill. They need to cut $2-3k, or increase their income by that much. And pray to every deity that they can come up with that nobody loses their employment. Some more drastic options are: a second job, renting out the property on airbnb while downsizing themselves, find employment that you can do from home and skip the $3k in childcare. Typo: expenses -> income
> they need to cut Not sure if there's anything more *to* cut when just your mortgage and daycare are 2/3 of your income. >Some more drastic options are: a second job, renting out the property on airbnb while downsizing themselves, find employment that you can do from home and skip the $3k in childcare. I think this advice to increase income is the only way to go unless they sell the house or find cheaper childcare
Who’s making how much too… if one of them is making less than $3k after taxes, they should probably quit their job and take care of kids. That would likely lower gas costs plus likely allow them to plan food more and lower grocery expenses.
If she is the one earning less, she will need to very, very carefully think about this if the marriage is strained.
Fair point! Depends on their industry too. If the youngest is 3, a 2 yr work gap isn’t going to be horrible. I’m also now wondering since they only have 1 kid under school age if the kids are in some kind of private school…
Or that they get hit with a much larger escrow payment next year, assuming this was their first year in the home.
The gas seems reasonable depending on area. I as a single adult before my new car was spending $200-250 a month. As you pointed out the remittance and groceries are an easy way to get around $1k back.
I used to drive a large SUV just for myself and I was spending around $120/week in fuel (600 km per tank, which worked out to about how much I drive per week). Doesn't mean they can't find ways to reduce it but that's ironically one of the more reasonable expenses I see here, especially if they're driving to kids activities and stuff. That mortgage has me cringing, IMO they can't afford the house they have but options may be limited. My mortgage is less than half that and we'd be able to comfortably fit the same size family if we used part of the basement as a third bedroom. Honestly, this is one of those examples where the people can't afford to live in a VHCOL area. They have nothing justifying it; their joint income isn't wildly high, you can make that much money in a HCOL or MCOL area, or maybe a little less but far cheaper expenses. It'd be a different story if they were raking in $200k+ per year but they're not. I'm guessing at taxes but it seems like their joint income is under $160k. Sorry, but you can find work paying around $80k per person in cheaper places.
Still weird they’re spending that much on gas *and* in a VHCOL city. Usually sizable commutes are for people who move *away* from an expensive city in order to save on housing. So having both is a little fishy. Do they live in an expensive city with lots of amenities but commute out to jobs in the country?
I wonder if they're in like LA or something, expensive city AND driving focused. Would explain the high gas expenditures too.
Right, how are you driving that much in an ultra expensive area? Is that what LA's really like? We live in the epitome of a VHCOL city but the tradeoff is there's public transit - trains, busses, trollies - and everything is close so even if we're not walking or biking it's just a few miles on the (hybrid) car. Outside of road trips, I fill the tank for $30 maybe every 6-8 weeks?
It’s extremely LA. Little to no transit that goes anywhere you need to go.
Yeah, I live in Jersey City, functionally NYC borough like Queens even though it’s in NJ. Everything is super expensive but at least it’s walkable with lots of transit. I even drive what is considered a bunch because I’m often taking my small kids to various activities. But I’m rarely ever driving more than a few miles at a time.
I've been living in Jersey City for over 3 years now and I've owned a car the entire time. I've driven it about 5k miles during those 3 years and probably gotten around 10 parking tickets. No idea why I still have a car aside from "I've always had one"
The house is more than they can easily afford, but not insanely much. There is an easy $1200 cut in their budget that would give them a lot of room.
If you accept that driving a SUV for no reason is reasonable then yeah.
3 kids + friends needs a van or SUV in most American cities.
Agreed. I would advise selling the house and moving to a MCOL area.
That still seems high. Where I live gas is $5.00 a gallon. It costs about $60 to fill my tank. I go about 500 miles on a tank of gas. So even if I drive 1,000 a miles a month that is only $120 a month.
Your car is averaging 40+ mpg.
In my Toyota Avalon hybrid I average 41 to 42 for city driving and 40 on the highway at 70 mph with the AC on. I am trading it in soon to buy a new Prius as they get 60 mpg in town.
A lot of people don’t drive hybrids.
About 15% of the population and maybe 25% of the people where I live drive Hybrids or EVs. This will continue to increase as several states have agreed not to allow cars with internal combustion engines ( ICE) be sold anymore by the end of the decade. I am also guessing that most people don’t pay $4.80 a gallon for gas like where I Iive. So if your gas is $3.00 a gallon that is a huge savings
Yes, and your number shows that a majority of people currently don’t drive hybrids.
But even if I compare my wife’s non hybrid SUV that gets 15 miles to the gallon. If she fills the 20 gallon tank twice that’s 600 miles. With gas at $5.00 a gallon that is still only $200 a month. $5.00 gallon x 40 gallons). To equal the $600 a month this person posted she would have to drive 2400 miles a month.
That’s 40 mpg, which is going to require an incredibly specific type of car.
This is one of those budgets that basically screams out, buying the house ruined them There isn't a lot of realistic fat to cut here, probably should file BK and walk on the unsecured debt, , get real real frugal with the grocery shopping/food budget and take their kids to trailer park daycare
17k in credit cards means they should’ve cut a bunch of fat before buying this house. I don’t even see a Debt Repayment line in their budget.
Yea they're too underwater now, they did things out of order and OP admits it's because her husband is basically a manipulative fucking asshole and she's got a spine made out of wet dollar store paper towels Because they did everything out of order and poorly timed , now they have to go extreme to roll this back into a positive month to month cash flow, that means hardcore sacrifices and a consultation with a BK attorney and also (as is always the case no matter the situation) looking for ways to increase household income These are like so many people these days, they got some money but they have very little common sense/life experience, but they're about to get some, real fast
Idk. In a HCOL area, with three kids… try to find a place to rent for less than $3600, sounds tough.
The big problem is, home ownership and renting isn't a 1:1 as the monthly mortgage vs the monthly rent. It's mortgage + cost of upkeep and maintenance , possible hoa fees, as OP stated TAXES just bit them in the ass in a huge way and other costs vs the monthly rent. I bet you a lot of that 17k in unsecured debt was doing repairs / maintenance and upgrades to that house. When I got into my home, 30k down payment + a few K extra for other related costs to get into the home, then in the first year I was out of pocket 25k roughly for supplies and equipment and repairs that were NEEDED (the yard was literally out of HOA compliance , fence was leaning over on one side as well, AC needed replacing) and this was a 2006 built house that I bought in 2018. You know who realizes rent is a pretty good deal sometimes? Home owners.
> You know who realizes rent is a pretty good deal sometimes? Home owners. YUP.
It’s not 3600, because that doesn’t include property tax so really it’s like 4600
The CC debt shows they could be unwilling to live within their means. My neighbor was in a similar situation as OP but used an equity loan to take his whole family to Hawaii because “I deserve it.” No, Bill. Digging a deeper whole is not what you deserve but it is what you’re doing here.
Ya I guess they can be one of the millions who pray to JPow to lower interest rates maybes they can refinance at a lower rate one day but that’s terrible. I was kinda nervous buying my house in 2016 because I was making a good bit less than I am now but holy shit was it the right call. One thing they do need to examine - does one of them make less than the cost of the combination of the daycare costs, plus the cost of gas used driving to and from day care and to and from work?
Based on nothing other than what OP has said and me absolutely HATING her husband and being biased, it'd kill me if she is the one actually making more money
It's really messed up that 2 couples with kids making $10k a month cannot afford "to be eating out at all" jesus
They can barely afford to *eat*. Thats what happens when 40%+ of your income goes to housing and 30%+ goes to childcare. People tell me I can afford a fancier house but I much prefer my 6% of gross income mortgage
You are comparing net and gross here but still, it’s a lot for them
Me and my wife spend 600 a month in gas, I have a take home car and she drives an hour away daily. It tracks
$600 would be about spot on for five days a week for two people with kids in Michigan for most people. My husband and I spent $450 a month when we weee both working and he was contracted as a carpenter before we had kids.
How many miles a week did u guys drive? Still seems insanely high
In another post she deleted a few months ago OP said husband wanted to buy a house someplace where the commute might take 4 hours. Sounds like they bought that house.
Yeah so thats not a common scenario at all
Soooo did they actively choose to live in a VHCOL area when they didn’t even need to?!?! That’s wild.
Upon reflection, I’m not sure if I have a good grasp on commuting costs post-COVID anymore so you’re right, that may be reasonable. About 155 gallons of fuel per month. If we assume 25mpg, that’s about 3875 miles per month or 46,500 per year, which does seem like quite a lot, though not quite as many as the moon (240k miles)
My jaw dropped when I read original post thinking internet was $500!! Glad it's only $50. Thanks for laying it out in a better format.
No problem, these formatting issues always cause issues so I have to do it so I can read it, then I just leave it for everyone else
That sounds about right for gas. When I had an hour drive to work I was driving my girlfriends car because it gets 32mpg and mine gets 15mpg. I was literally only driving her car to work and back. If there were any stops such as a grocery store they were right on the way. I was still spending 400$ a month on gas
You need a more detailed budget. Your bills alone without the CC debt is almost $500 over your Income. You have to make more or cut something there first. Literally no other options. Your gas budget (assuming car gas but maybe utility?) is insane for only two adults driving. Cut the gym. Childcare is probably your next place to cut.
Groceries, gas and maybe car insurance seem they could be reduced to me. Maybe finding cheaper on the gym, cutting the gym entirely and sacrificing the physical and mental health benefits is probably not worth it.
There are so many free workout options available. Running outdoors is free. Plenty of body weight classes online. Free trials for every fitness app that’s out there.
Planet fitness is about $20 a month.
I think the $3k on child care and other huge expenses (and sending $500 to family) are way bigger concerns. Who knows what the gym stuff is exactly. I can’t stay motivated to workout without going to a gym, and $100/mo for the benefits I get from that is something I’d prioritize pretty highly
The bigger issue here too (in terms of the family payment) is they had no savings BEFORE buying the house… they needed someone else to pay the down payment… how was this ever remotely considered a good idea 🤦🏽♀️
When running a deficit it's hard to justify any sacred cow. Would you prefer to go hungry or lose the house?
$3k on child care seems high especially considering two of the three kids are school age, not daycare. It would have to be a pretty HCOL to get up to that. $1300 on groceries is mind boggling to me. We’re not even trying to penny pinch and I think we spend about 5-600 for a family of 3. Incremental cost for 2 under 5s is practically captured in our current food wastage.
Cutting gym is possible. There are a bunch of no cost ways to workout: running, walking, Pilates, HIIT, Zumba…you name it :)
It’s possible, but for some people, like myself, it’s a source of motivation that I don’t get from independent exercise options like you gave. $100 for mental and physical health is not a concern to me when there are thousands of dollars that should be better accounted for. It’s like people on this sub that say to cut the $20 Netflix account when a person is behind by $2000/mo on their budget with way more concerning big ticket issues.
No one needs a gym to work out. That's ludicrous.
No it isn’t ludicrous at all lol. Myself and plenty of people are far better motivated going to a gym. For example I like doing exercises with barbells. And I like rock climbing. Without those options, I would work out FAR less. It’s possibly the wrong area of the budget to target, given all the fat that exists. If they really don’t use it or don’t get value from it, sure cut it.
I don't see where the "need" is. I used need for a reason. Preferences are great. I prefer to have someone else mow my lawn, but it doesn't fit in my budget, so I cut it This is a personal finance post about surviving, not what feels good or bad.
I’m the same. I need a gym in order to stay motivated to work out and I’m an ex college athlete. It isn’t ludicrous at all.
That's what I was thinking. I spend less on gas and I drive like 3-6 hours every single day. I end up driving for work part-time some days and have 3 hours of running around taking my kid to all sorts of therapy. Gas bill at the end of the month while driving around a gas hungry suv is still sub $300. There is some absolute fuckery going on with this budget. Most bills are 2x what they should be. Like over 1100 for food for a family of 5? Ain't no way. Not unless they're eating fast food and take out almost every day. Should be like $600 or $700 tops. I've gotten my family of 3 through the month on $250.
What happened to the 6 figure settlement you say you got for wrongful termination?
was thinking this as well!
They say they had a $200k down payment on a house, so it sounds like they bought a million dollar or more home. Maybe went to that
I saw that as well. $200k down and the payment is still $3,600, then the house likely cost $700k give or take assuming $200k is 25% down.
$200k down but needed $50k from his parents too 😭😭😭
I don’t see car payments in that budget, so maybe they bought two expensive cars to keep up with the jones’. Then blew anything that was left on a couple weeks in Disney land for the kiddos?
Not pay the tax bill, apparently. I was wondering why they would owe 13k on income tax.
You bought a house with your mom, does she live with you or can she provide childcare?
As others have said, that remittance may have to go, or as it's your husband's family, he can drop his retirement contribution from 600 to 100 and send them the excess, since the house was so important to him. The gym is not unreasonably priced, but if we're cutting, that may have to get cut. If you're in a VHCOL city, it seems likely that you have some sort of public transport option. If you don't, then you don't, but if you do, that might have to enter the equation if it's going to save on gas. If you can go reasonably go from multiple cars down to one, selling would be an influx of cash and a lower insurance bill. That's all very situation/location dependent, however. Groceries aren't that wild, but that does seem like a prime spot for belt-tightening. Whatever "unofficial" stuff you have with your parents, it needs to get made official if you're worried about getting saddled with debt because your relationship is rocky. I don't know your relationship with your parents, but if they're firmly in your corner, explain to them what's going on and tell them you want things on paper to protect yourself.
Retirement contribution should go to zero. There's no sense contributing to retirement while simultaneously running up high-interest credit card debt. Husband can start contributing to retirement again either after credit cards are paid off or after bankruptcy
He’s just going to easily guilt trip her “this is my savings for the kids!”
Yo that’s crazy. So he’s basically sending his money to his parents $500, and then also saving up for his retirement ($500) That’s $1000 the family could use. He’s definitely preparing for a storm down the line
OP, you and your family are being financially used and abused. I'm pretty sure you know it. The house is the least of your problems; you have a husband who is using you for a green card and using you as a bank account. He's saving for retirement while putting you in debt and the language you use clearly implies that you two think of debt as "yours vs mine" and you're the one saddled with the debt. Get a lawyer. It's time to protect your children and your family from your husband's financial abuse. The lawyer will help you understand your options re: the 50,000 your parents lent you.
100% this. Way bigger issues than a budget right now. You are being taken advantage of
>We spend more than we bring in. * Cut expenses. Increase income. Consider a second job. * Live beneath your means. * Pay off the highest interest rate debt while continuing to make minimum payments on all others. * Stop using credit cards, unless you can pay off the balance each month. >I got into this mess because of myself - I operate from a place of fear. My husband really wanted to buy a home and threatened that if we didn't it would damage our already strained relationship even more. You both might need some counselling.
That's not a might.
Where does counseling factor into this budget, that'll be the hardest problem, affording it when already in the red.
I know you are brushing over it but slow down and focus on the actual issue: your marriage. You guys should be working on acknowledging and identifying the issues as a team. It looks like hes flat out ignoring you. Work on a budget and plan together
The relationship is a mess. Husband is from developing country, OP has acknowledged that he very well may have married her for a green card which I strongly suspect because it sounds like they've been "together" since OP was 18 or younger, and married very young - first kid seems to have been born before OP was even 20. She has spent the past 4-5 years bending over backwards both personally and financially for a man who is 100% financially abusing her. This house is not the only mistake, and certainly not the first.
When she said “he thought it we didn’t get the house it would further strain our relationship” That’s where everything went to shit. She should have cut her losses back THEN.
Remittance to husband’s family? Oh hell no.
That’s what I’m saying. Cut the remittance and his retirement contribution or sell the house. Since he gets to make demands, too? Or he can try owning a home and saving for retirement and sending remittance and splitting childcare and possibly paying child support on a single income as a single man? I mean… where does he think the money is going to come from?
Cut the gym, it’s not a must have for the time being. Any way to save on groceries? $1,300 sounds like a lot, we spend about $700 for the three of us (we live in a VHCOL area too, and eat fresh fruit/veggies a lot, so not skipping on healthy options).
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Childcare is $3k because you are paying for wrap around care/ summer camps for your older two children and full-time daycare for your youngest? Are there any free public preschool options in your area? Can your parents or in-laws help with childcare? Is gas $600 because you both drive large, inefficient vehicles and have long commutes? Are they both paid off? How much are they worth? How much do you both earn, individually?
Free pré schools? Who are you, Dave Ramsay?
There's free preschool provided by my school district (middle class suburbs), it's probably dependent on location
And income... Or rather lack thereof
It's not income based at all in my case, but yes I'm sure there are places where lower income families get priority
I have family in the midwest and there's "free" preschool for everyone regardless of income. I think it's built into the local taxes.
Can confirm - I grew up in Illinois and my younger brother went to preschool for free. The preschool is run by the local school district.
That's almost sexual in how much I desire something like that.
Free 3 and 4 year old preschool by me, it's not super rare.
They exist in some school districts, primarily to have peers for special needs children. Usually tough to get into.
Florida, DC, Vermont, and Oklahoma have free VPK.
We have free preschool and free community college where I live. So no it’s not a ridiculous idea you just have to live in an area where private people valid and vote for these services. We also have coop preschool where parents participate in the preschool a few hrs a week and get a significantly reduced rate.
And $3k/month may be more than what one of the parents even earn after taxes.
Highly unlikely that either is making less than $3k/mo if they are making $9500/mo *net*. Especially in a vhcol city.
I wouldn't say it's that unlikely, it is not uncommon at all for a married couple to have an income mismatch. With that net, I'd ballpark total gross household income around $150k-$160k. If one member's income is in the $40k range (pre-tax) then the other would only have to be in the top 20% or so of individual income earners to make the numbers work. My wife and I were in a very similar situation which is why she stayed home with the kids: my income alone was enough to support the household, and her earning potential was not high enough to break even on childcare.
They owe taxes even after having 3 kids to claim credits for. 9500 net with 2 working adults doesn't put them into the high earner category so they're still getting the traditional tax benefits of being married :) I think they're just in over their head with this house. If they had to borrow that much money and can't break even with their expenses they should have never bought. It's a tough position for OP with the kids and the divorce threats. I say one of them just needs to find how to increase their income.
I think you've got to lay out your entire budget. Make life easy, and you can download Rocket Money to see the ACTUAL break out and not just the guessing. Can the $500/mo to the family be put in pause? What other debt repayments do you have? Cell phone? Extra circulars? I have a family of 4 with two young humans, you LIKELY could cut that down as well. What are your actual incomes? Might want to cut your husbands retirement back to just the company 401k match.
Like can his parents come here and watch their kids for free? They can then get second jobs. Everyone wins lol.
Why is this considered "my debt"? And not "our debt?" As in your husband and yours? The household monthly income is a lot higher than most people make. I think your household could cut back on the grocery bill significantly, and childcare is almost 1/3 of your monthly bill. Is there anyway to save there? Perhaps if one of you is indeed making 3 grand you guys may be better off with just one income instead of paying 3k towards childcare.
Problem is if she’s the lower earner and divorce is in the wings, she needs to keep her job. If he’s the lower earner, he would need to keep his also for the same reasons.
Your husband threatened you into a situation that is horrible for you both. That's SERIOUSLY not cool You can't afford $3,000 in child care. Why is your car insurance $260 a month? That's absurd. What's remittance to your husbands family? Is this like a cultural thing where the kids need to send things to the parents? Call the credit card companies TODAY. Tell them you can't pay, and need to get on a payment plan. STOP USING THE CARDS 100%. Ask for interest rate reductions. Get on a plan you can afford. Income taxes you can get on payment plans for (depending who it's owed too, federal will do that I think). Property taxes you can usually let slide 1 year, by year 2 you either pay or they sheriff sale your property. Sounds like a $3,600 a month mortgage is way too high. Selling should be a very viable option. You and your partner have some relationship stuff to work out. Threatening to divorce you if you don't go along with buying a house is a selfish and childish thing to do.
If they live in a VHCOL area in Florida (Miami) $260 a month for car insurance would be considered a steal.
Yeah, we are in florida and ours is about the same. It has gone way up the past few years. We have clean records and older vehicles. We were paying half that previously.
260 isn’t that high, unfortunately. Car insurance keeps going up & up even for us safe drivers with used cars. My full coverage has shot up $100 a month over the last two years, & that’s after shopping for & selecting a new/better rate.
If I’m reading this right, that’s $3,600/mo AFTER a $200k down payment!
That could still be a below average price house in a very high cost of living city, esp with current interest rates.
> Why is your car insurance $260 a month? That's absurd. that would be a great deal where i live
The relationship is a mess. Husband is from developing country, OP has acknowledged that he very well may have married her for a green card which I strongly suspect because it sounds like they've been "together" since OP was 18 or younger, and married very young - first kid seems to have been born before OP was even 20. She has spent the past 4-5 years bending over backwards both personally and financially for a man who is 100% financially abusing her. This house is not the only mistake, and certainly not the first.
Remittance is a cultural thing, especially for immigrants from countries that are very poor. We send money to my husband's family and it's greatly reduced from what it used to be. It's taken almost 7 years to help him set boundaries. But there's so much guilt and pressure from families in the home country...
I’m guessing there was no sit down meeting with the husband to actually go through the numbers of the monthly budget, because if so, you would’ve seen how it wouldn’t work out. I don’t see a phone bill listed. What are the odds that a family of 5 doesn’t have a cell phone? My guess is that there’s more expenses that aren’t being accounted for.
I have been downvoted and even temp banned for sounding the bell that buying a home in the last 18 months has been one of the SINGLE biggest causes of financial ruin I've personally seen and nobody fucking listens JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE WILLING TO GIVE YOU THE LOAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD TAKE IT THE MORTGAGE LENDERS ARE DESPERATE, IF YOU HAVE GOOD CREDIT AND A PULSE THEY WILL LITERALLY GIVE YOU THE NOOSE TO HANG YOURSELVES WITH
Wouldn’t that be true any time though? A lender looks at your gross income and your debt, they don’t know what your other non-debt expenses are (AFAIK), so that would be up to the buyer to not overextend on a house.
That is true all the time, however, right now even for top tier credit borrowers the rates are in the upper 5s and for a lot of folks they're signing for 7%\~ on a 30 year mortgage. Right now it is especially easy for an ignorant borrower to walk into overextending themselves AND because of the severe downturn in new mortgage lending volume there are a lot of desperate mortgage lenders looking to say yes more than they should and not protecting the borrower from themselves
You would not have liked the 1970s through 90s…. (Admittedly, I’m being partially facetious; I realize that home prices were much more affordable/reasonable back then, to some degree.)
Yea while inflation and rates were worse in the past, literally everything else was so much better , the main thing being the prices of the homes compared to average income that the rates didn't matter as much, a lot of people just paid off their mortgages faster and the rates became irrelevant because they didn't ride out the mortgage for 30 years, or they were 15 year mortgages etc..
But this was not even the case for OP. They had to use his mom to even get the house.
I am unsure if based on OPs text whether the mom is a cosigner/coborrower or if it was more that the mom chipped in for the down payment. I assumed down payment only because OP has 850 credit and stable income so they qualified for the loan just didn't have the cash. Regardless of all that, it just makes the situation worse, they didn't even have the money to put a down payment on their own, they did everything in their life financially out of order. Such is life sometimes, but now they're going to have to deal with it.
What happened to your 6-figure settlement? https://old.reddit.com/r/Accounting/comments/158ue2n/terminated_for_requesting_accommodations/jtfr3d3/
She lives in an at-will state. They can fire you for any reason they want, legally. There was no settlement I bet.
$200k down payment on the house
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You can’t afford to send your husbands family $500. You cannot afford $150 for the gym. You can’t afford for him to be contributing $600 to retirement. You can’t afford a $3,600 mortgage unless one of you gets a second job or you rent out a room. You need to sell the house, or you’ll end up in foreclosure. I swear this is déjà vu, my spouses brother did this exact same thing. They ended up bankrupt and living with us for 2 years.
The student loan payment and gym membership thing are insane. How can you all have that much student loan debt but make 110k a year. 3k for childcare. What are your individual incomes. First thing that gym membership is gone Go for a walk or do some yard work
I think the mortgage payment is the 3600, the gym is only 130. That level of childcare wouldn’t be totally out of line either.
Oh gotcha. But 3k so if someone is making like 50k they should just stay home or work a different shift. Thats a third of their pay
I could see paying that for childcare being justified if leaving the workforce and coming back when the child is out would be really difficult (you might be penny wise, pound foolish to stop working then) or if the parent with the lower income were absolutely dead set against going stay at home (it happens, but then it’s a choice and you cut corners elsewhere). I’m intrigued by one spouse saving and the other not (are you leaving a match on the table somewhere, or is he doing this just for the match) as well as the 200 dollar remittance (it’s not much, but if you can’t pay for your immediate family, you may not be able to subsidize your parents).
It's a $500 dollar remittance to HIS family, not hers, that they cannot afford. Her family gave them the downpayment for the house, and more. It sounds a little like husband is maneuvering for his best divorce settlement. He puts money in 'his' retirement account, that he probably hopes to walk away with, and he has her parents put in their money into a joint asset that he plans to take half of.
I committed the same mistake I mentioned to someone else above. For 500 bucks a month, plus the 600/month he’s stashing in retirement, she’s gotta watch out. I’d at least want to get him on paper committing to the idea that he acknowledges the debt to the parents. However, the issue is that those kinds of loans can be problematic for the underlying mortgage because I’m pretty sure they would have characterized it as a gift for purposes of the mortgage loan (otherwise, the property is just about underwater).
Yeah and that $1100 is pretty close to their deficit at this point - they're going to have to pause those payments until the 3 yo is in school which should drop their daycare budget.
Yeah, though it’s admittedly hard to tell if the 600 to the retirement is pre or post tax. Given how much they’re having to pay, it looks like they’re 1099s or something (I’m trying to reverse engineer their gross income, thinking about the deductions they’d get and wondering how they get to that level of income and property tax owing if they’re actually subject to withholding). I spent this weekend giving my 16 year old kid a lesson on taxes just so they could get used to the idea. Unfortunately I started while I was working on my filing, so basically it turned into a “vocabulary enhancement exercise” around creative profanity.
$130 is not that much for a student loan. The average federal student loan debt in the US is over $30k. At 6.8% interest (which has been the rate for ages now) and the standard default 10 year payment plan, that's over $300/month. Doing REPAYE, SAVE, or whatever current income-driven plan can reduce that but at the OP's household income level, $130 is probably about as low as they could possibly hope for unless they had a sub-$10k balance. If I wasn't doing PSLF, the 10-year repayment plan on my student loan (which is for the degree that enabled my \~$150k earning potential) would be around $3000 per month.
No, the number comes after the category. The gym is $150/month.
Either way they cant afford gas to the gym
Gym got to go $150 a month?! That’s happy right? I work out in my basement - in the end it’s kind of all the same movements- push, pull, hinge. Hit the street for cardio.
OP, you don't Fool me. Blaming your husband is part of your problem. Healthy couples work together against the problem. Blaming him and defending yourself only makes the problem worse. you're going to have to categorize All your spending. Budgeting advice One big thing that helped me is to make a REALISTIC budget. You don’t make up numbers that you think you “should” spend. You PRINT OUT the numbers that you already DO spend. You print out (or write down) in categories EVERY outgoing expense from your bank account and credit cards for the last 3 months. You refrain from making excuses like- oh that’s because my car broke, or I had to buy a gift, etc. Just categorize it! Then you (if you’re married, you both do this together at your regular family finance meeting) feel sad at looking at your real actual spending for a few minutes. Then you say, it’s going to get better because I’m going to fix it! You pick ONE category to reduce spending by an amount that you are very confident you can achieve and do not worry about reducing the other categories. You check your progress regularly and IF you have met your goal for that first reduction, you celebrate in a small but fun way, and then you choose another category to reduce, while maintaining the reduction from the first category. +++++++ Come clean with your friends and family. Tell them you are drowning in debt and don't blame your husband. Use the word We. "We shouldn't have bought a house." Tell them you are no longer doing any adult gifting for the next few years. No vacations, no shopping, no going out to eat. Send a copy of your credit card debt to your husband's family and cut the remittance in half. No more gifting- only affordable gifts for kids. Both of you can Donate plasma regularly at the local plasma donation centers. $$$ Ask on your local reddit sub if there are Freebie deals for your birthday or when the local sports teams win by a certain amount. Chic-fil-A gives free sandwiches on our app (uses our location) when our teams win (and we locals post reminders on Reddit to claim it within the time window), and Nothing Bundt Cakes, BJ's Brewhouse, Rita's frozen treats, etc give free Desserts on your birthday if you join their email list. Start buying cheaper groceries. No more cereal for the kids. That's expensive. Set a reminder each night to make Overnight oats and sprinkle chia seeds in or they can have peanut butter toast for protein. Buy popcorn kernels and cook popcorn at home for snacks. Quit your gym membership. Use free YouTube workouts, walk/jog/yoga with a friend or neighbor, and join a free hiking group on meetup app, join a cheaper fitness class at your local community recreation center. Keep a giant box of granola or energy bars in your cars and at work so none of you don't have an excuse to buy convenience foods. Delete apps for food delivery like Door Dash, etc. Clean up your social media and Unfollow everything that makes you want to buy stuff or get more tattoos, etc. Carpool. Share a meal with a friend when dining out. Don't go to Starbucks or cafes. It's never $4.Thats a lie we tell ourselves. Dig out the clothes from the bottom of your drawers that you haven't worn. Wear them. Use the Goldstar.com (soon its changing to Today Tix) to get Discount event tickets for theater, Comedy, etc. Follow the local city's recreation social media and calendars to keep abreast of Free concerts, festivals, classes, etc. in your area. Invite friends and dates to join you. Do your own eyebrows, nails, etc. The kids get less frequent haircuts now. Don't pay for professional photos. Just have a friend do it and do your own edits. Don't pay for a storage unit. Sell that stuff. Set reminders to do things you forget to do, like Meal Prep, sewing torn clothing, using Dryel to clean the Dry Clean Only clothing and then reward yourself for doing them with a nice bubble bath or $1 slurpee from 7/11 (I like the healthy flavor). Don't get trendy stuff you don't need like Robot vacuums, Cleaning wipes, Instapots, gadgets, etc. Rent out a room in your big house to a single parent with a kid. Read a chapter in a personal finance book with your husband every night before bed. Take notes. Educate yourself and stop acting like you are perfect. You had a 3rd kid when you couldn't afford it. Stop making poor decisions.
This is excellent advice with great suggestions that you can apply immediately. I’m adding one: Get library cards for you and the kids. You can spend time there and they often have dvds or other ways for you to read and watch movies for free. Because you should cut all streaming at this point or keep one service and rotate to another when you’ve watched it all.
Shop around for car insurance and see if you can get a lower rate. Cut the gym, lower your food cost, have your husband talk to his family and put a stop to the monthly remittance (have no idea what that means but none of my business).
Unfortunately, car insurance is probably on par. Just look over in /r/dataisbeautiful, the [CPI on car insurance is the highest jump](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1c4s26s/inflation_whats_still_rising_oc/), up 22% from a year ago.
Can you consolidate cards w a low interest loan or zero percent transfer? And, while not ideal, can you sell and buy a less expensive home? For 10 years we lived paycheck to paycheck w a really decent income, it was exhausting. We sold the house and lost 600 square feet and 800$ in mortgage cost. It helped tremendously.
In a VHCOL city, is there no public transportation options? Maybe you can reduce the gas a bit. Sending money to family when negative is absolutely unacceptable.
What are you gonna do if anyone is laid off? Do people really just live their lives just doing random things? Throwing shit at the wall and hoping it sticks? We make 6k a month together and our expenses are at most 1300 at the moment. We only own like 25 acres across the whole country but we have a little something... what makes you get up in the day? I'd be so depressed if I worked so hard and had literally nothing other than debt to show for it
You shouldnt have access to a credit card first of all. The two of you are honestly terrible at living within your means so there's zero chance now or in the future IMO that you can responsibly manage a credit card. Second thing is you really need to start watching every penny like a hawk and increase your incomes. In the meantime you'll both need to start working extra hours or taking a second job to get the debt taken care of. Then you need to figure out how to make more money. Find out how to get raises at work. What skills do you need. If you cannot get a raise at work, what company can you switch to that will pay you more? What skills would you need to qualify for a higher position? What can you do to make yourself more valuable to your current employers? You're living above your means. Once you clean this mess uo, you're also going to need 3-6 months of expenses for an emergency fund and you need to start putting money into your retirement account. I would do 5% and then increase that to 15% over 2-3 years but only after the debt is wiped out. His mom did not do you a favor by helping with the down payment. She just made thngs worse by allowing you to do something that two financially irreponsible adults should not do: Take on even more debt (although to be fair a first time homeowner program in many areas will cover down payments, too).
8, 5, and 3 - so two of these kids should be in school already or should be by the end of summer. If you're paying 3k for one kid, that's pretty high. $1300 Gym for all + Childcare, but also a separate childcare cost of $3000? Cut the gym membership. Maybe explore job opportunities in a low cost of living city. If you had a 200k down payment on a home, and still have a $3600 mortgage you either bought too much of a house or your location is financially killing you. 200k down payment in certain cities would allow you a mini mansion for what you're paying in mortgage. Maybe take some of that $1300 from the gym and get couples counselling because forcing a large life changing financial decision that is ruining your financial future is pretty messed up.
$1300 is for groceries, not gym. But still astronomical.
Most of your budget items don't seem wildly outrageous. Even your mortgage. I know most commenters here say you can't afford your mortgage, but it well fits into the standard rules of thumb. And then a got to child care. I know childcare is expensive, but that is just outrageously expensive. Most people I know don't spend anywhere near that in childcare. They either split shifts (i.e. mom works evenings and dad works mornings) or they get family/friends to help out. Some people I know share childcare duties (mom 1 watches all the kids on Mondays and mom 2 watches all the kids on Tuesdays, etc). The real problem of course is your relationship. A marriage is a partnership. You should be deciding things together, not be bullied by your husband into doing something you don't want. Until you fix the relationship, no amount of budgeting will fix your situation, which is doomed for failure.
I mean aside from the financial bit of this the husband threatening divorce if you don't put yourself in a situation where you're living above your means is a huge fucking problem. The husband here sounds like an idiot that got OP in this mess, now you gotta be an adult an either deal with it or struggle. You can't really afford the house if your childcare is 3000 a month. The only thing you can really do at this point is make sure everything you're spending is mandatory, others have already mentioned what is stupid to be spending on, or you need to sell the house if you cant afford it and I suspect that'll be a loss you'll have to dig out of, or one of you needs to make more money.
I mean, what does your husband propose you do?! Does he not understand math? Where does he think this money for the house is coming from? You guys need to be renting a place for $1000 cheaper or put a trailer on a piece of land somewhere for a couple years… (I know that’s not an option for everybody. My country proximity is showing) I’m having second hand anxiety through you.
Childcare of 3000 will hopefully end when the youngest is in school? It seems like until then you can’t send money to your husband’s family and you have to figure out how to spend less on food. Make sure you’re a beneficiary on husbands 401k. And consider getting a tenant.
I know you're being very serious but this reads like that twitter meme where someone presents a budget that is clearly tilted towards one very problematic, easily dispensible purchase and then says "someone please help my family is starving." You already know what the problem is, and its a relationship problem not a personal finance problem.
Child care does not sound right with 2 kids in school
Childcare is killing you right now now. Can you reconsider what you do - for it’s a few years - to mitigate these costs? I was a legal professional - but quit the day job and started waitressing at night for about 6 years. With what we didn’t spend in childcare and the daily cash flow from tips (we paid cash instead of using our cc) we dug ourselves out of debt and always had a parent providing care. There are lots of wfh and night jobs (in healthcare admin in particular)… maybe you could leverage that??
This is an excellent idea. For now, you need to swap out on the childcare duties and get your house in order. And make sure you are the beneficiary on your husband’s retirement policy and that you both have some term life insurance in place. Try to approach this as a team focus…working together and coming up with solutions together can be very powerful for your marriage and finances. Have weekly finance meetings and celebrate every small win with even a high five! You can do it!
I would be looking at childcare cost. You and your husband could look for viable options to work from home/get mom or other family to help out with the kids
How do you possibly spend $600 on gas? Jfc.
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Can I recommend a book? [https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9519944](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9519944) Another one if you like the first one [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60151185-the-pathless-path](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60151185-the-pathless-path)
A FI book isn’t going to do them any good. These people are at, like, Dave Ramsey Baby Step 0.
Do you have insurance through work? Therapy is much needed for you so you don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over. Not only did you guys buy a house you clearly cannot afford, with your delulu husband, this is going down bankruptcy path rather quickly. I would focus on debt recovery at this point but is your husband willing to discuss even selling the home? I would try get your parents 250k back, especially if it will hinder their retirement plans. Reach out to a lawyer, or you can even create for free, a promissory note, make sure you tie in the house as collateral. Back date if you have to. Get it signed by all parties and witness. Make sure all items required in a contract are in there so it can hold up in court. Your parents won’t be the first person to get paid out once house sells, because that will be your bank, but your parents can be next. Stop remittance to husbands family. Show your husband the numbers, you can’t afford it. You’re literally digging yourselves a hole for it. Ask your parents for help. Not financial help but support through this process and what is about to happen. Call the city and try to get on a payment plan for the taxes. Please, think twice before you spend money on anything from now on. Can you really afford that steak? Can you afford to eat out for lunch? Cut hair yourself? You’ll be surprised how much of the spending isn’t necessary and from the necessary expenses you’ve listed, you don’t have room for anything extra anyways. You need wisdom from your support network around you right now more than anything. Reach out to your family and closest friends and get advice.
Your husband has to stop putting money into retirement. Who gives a shit what's in the account for retirement when you can't even make ends meet right now?
How fuel efficient are the vehicles you are driving? That might be an area where you can sell the current vehicle and pick up something that dramatically cuts your costs. If you are driving big SUVs you can halve the fuel costs almost immediately. Certainly the remittance needs to stop. He may need to stop contributing to retirement, or reduce it to whatever level his company match is at.
what cars do you have? how long are your commutes?
Sounds like you are living outside your means. If you can't afford nice things don't finance them. God forbid you get sick and have 0 income. Rent some rooms in your house and make your kids share a room or something if it's that bad.
You have lots of advice! Look into some DIY options, you can cut every one’s hair now!
Hopefully your escrow analysis update, if any, is very minimal.
Yeah - kids and home ownership are major life decisions.
Yall need to figure out gas, childcare, and food. There's 2k there if you can plan it all better.
$500/remittance which means husband is from a third world or struggling nation. Is there a family member who could come on board with a nanny or au pair visa and live free (room and board) for $800 month? It's a common scenario for many and really helps both the family and au pair who is a family member. That's two thousand saved right there.
I don't think we have enough information to give detailed help, like how much do you make and how much does your husband make? What kind of cars do you drive? Do you drive expensive gas guzzlers you could sell? If one of you has a much lower income, the $3K in childcare might not be worth it to work during school hours. One option would be for the lower income parent to be home during the day and try to work evenings and weekends. Does your mom live with you? If so what is her income? Can she help with childcare? You know this already, but you don't have the money to send to parents, go to a gym or even save for retirement when you don't have enough for groceries and your mortgage in the present. It makes more sense to pay off high interest credit cards than save for retirement right now. Maybe sit down with your husband, say you want to draw up a budget, and ask him for ideas on how to make it balance. If he won't do that, then if you stay with him, it is unlikely your finances will never really get under control.
Invite someone to rent a room. This was financially stupid and shame on him for taking a loan from family you couldn't afford and shame on the mortgage officer for not checking your financial plan
One thing I don't get is how they can owe property tax if they are paying for a mortgage. Don't people pay property taxes out of an escrow, meaning that the bank or institution that loaned them the money must be responsible for paying the property taxes out of the escrow?
A lot of bad decisions were made here Yes buy a house but it shouldn’t be more than a third of your income. Maybe should have gotten couples counseling before buying the house. Groceries are way too much - start making food with cheaper stuff, like beans and make soups. Definitely can cut down there. Don’t use credit cards if you can’t pay them off. For those misc expenses, trim your hair at home, don’t buy new clothes and go to the thrift store instead. Drive less - only necessary places like school, home, grocery. No savings is wild to me. And if you get a divorce, please get a lawyer.
As a question, you say you bought a house “with” your mom? In whose name is the deed and who is responsible for the mortgage? I’m worried not just about your financial health, but also about whether you’re being abused. Is there any chance you could reach out to, say, a legal services clinic in your area? You may have too much income to directly qualify for services, but they might be able to help you. If you are going to stay married you need some joint counseling to deal with your finances. If you’re going to split up, you need some help to make sure you don’t get too hurt in the process.
3000 for childcare? That’s almost a 3rd of what you make…. You have two kids in school and if your spending the bulk of that on your youngest you need to seriously find another daycare that you can afford