I've been living my life on credit cards for the past 12 years.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > I've been living my life on credit cards for the past 12 years.

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

You make a net $36k a year after taxes (so like low 40's gross?) and owe $40K (including $10k on ultra high interest cards), own a house with barely positive equity, and have no savings, but also have bonus income + a shared household coming up next year and no student loans. You also want to be responsible going forward and are taking some steps in that direction.

My dude, please for the love of God just declare bankruptcy yesterday. You are the exact definition of the person that should do this. Don't do this balancing on a knife's edge while paying off 27% interest on cards that correctly tagged you as high risk for the next three years - take your get out of jail free card and then live smart from that point on.

The alternative is that you sit there taking baby steps for two years until oops the economy gets worse and you're back to square one with nothing built up for that.

Adar fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Sep 11, 2018

# ¿ Sep 11, 2018 01:20

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:13

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

metallicaeg posted:

I was really hoping to avoid bankruptcy. Between student loans that went into default many many years ago, to a stolen identity leading to fraudulent accounts, to the previously 95% across the board card usage, I had worked my credit score from lol to nearly 700 FICO. Didn't want a bankruptcy tanking that and being a mark on there for years to come.

At the moment, you're thinking about spending the next three years on a tightrope without a safety net in order to pay ~$70,000 to strangers so that a number goes up. This number will, one day in the distant future, let you take on more debt at a lower interest rate if you really want to walk on a tightrope again afterwards. The other thing the number does is lets you own a house, but you already have one so that doesn't apply.

There are no reasons for you to pay this off. None. The only bad financial decision on the table for you today is paying any of it.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2018 12:13

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

metallicaeg posted:

Yeah, living off of cash is completely foreign to me. I don't believe I've done so in at least 10 years.

All the better to declare bankruptcy and start now. It might even help you habits-wise.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2018 22:38

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

Let's be really clear here: selling things works if you are zaurg-type bad at math and want to shave a couple of months off a 3 year live off ramen repayment plan by giving up any and all assets that would help you out if you still had to file for bankruptcy several years later once that plan failed.

Selling stuff is a great idea if you declare bankruptcy as you're supposed to and then get laid off, because without credit for the first year or two those things are your emergency fund. What goons are telling you to do now is to start the tightrope walking act between two skyscrapers right after setting fire to the building you're starting from.

Anything except filing right now, today, is an awful idea. If you get through 2021 with a clear slate it will be because the economy doesn't turn bad and absolutely nothing even a little unexpected happens to you i.e. blind luck.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2018 16:04

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

Droo posted:

You are going to be poor forever so you can have a box of decorative watches? In 2018?

much worse than that. he's got a get out of jail free card that he can use right now and keep the watches and it's even the right thing to do. instead he's going to keep the poverty and the watches because using the card feelsbadman

# ¿ Oct 11, 2018 20:02

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 12:13

Adar: Jul 27, 2001

metallicaeg posted:

While I'm still mulling over bankruptcy, that itself doesn't fix what caused all of this in the first place. It fixes the desperation of having $100 in interest charges push a $4950 balance over the 5k limit just to make a $150 payment and do the same thing on 4 other accounts the next month. But it doesn't fix the spending that got me to that point. It doesn't fix buying a bottle of whiskey telling myself I want to try something new when I already have 9 bottles in the house. It doesn't fix buying a box of cigars because they're deeply discounted this weekend with free shipping and a free lighter thrown in when I already have a year or more worth of smokes on hand. It doesn't fix dropping $100 on a handful of movies during Criterion's 50% off sale that they do 2-3 times a year when I have a stack of a few dozen movies to burn through in the 'to-watch' pile. It doesn't fix buying that grill/griddle with included waffle irons that'll sit unused but I wanted it and it hasn't been priced this low on Amazon in the last 9 months.

So yeah. Bankruptcy would wash away debt and allow me to properly save money now as opposed to grinding away at the debt and doing so 2-3 years later instead. But would I? How would I treat a clean slate? I don't know. Would I end up in the same spot 5 years from now?

But this past month has been good. I've been tempted on the usual items and I've said no and not given in. It's been one month. I've had expenses that briefly put me just over $40k total like quite a large grocery run (which a fairly empty kitchen left me eating out and spending way more than I should have been) and some maintenance items on my car for inspection. But that month has been a good month, and the same end of year goal I set last month to finish 2018 under $36k, dropping ~$4k from September through the end of December is still entirely feasible if I continue to not be an idiot. And it would be the first time I could say in a decade that I made a real effort, pulled through, and actually cut ~10% off of my total debt.

You doing the wrong thing on purpose in order to teach yourself a lesson is not how you get to be your brain to be less broken, but it's definitely how we get more zaurgposting so you do you

# ¿ Oct 16, 2018 23:29

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > I've been living my life on credit cards for the past 12 years.