Need Help :(

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2005
Need Help :(
13
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 12:06pm
~ Edited ~


Edited 8/1/2006 12:11 pm ET by hrhdragonfly

Pages

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2005
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 12:21pm
It looks like your bills are actually very low. Not much money for food tho. My only concern is the percentage of your income that you are paying for housing -- mortgage, condo association (monthly ?) and twice a year homeowner fee. You also have the HELOC tied to the condo. So how to lower that????? Is this a one or two bedroom condo? If two, then you might consider sharing the condo to get more $$$ -- otherwise, if you can't see a way to increase your monthly income, then you might look at moving to a lower priced place. I know that is a huge pain. I guess what you really need is more money. Is there any other job you could do for your part time job that would pay more?? I'm guessing you have health coverage through work.
Too bad about the car repairs on the car that is not paid off. Is the 1.99 for the repairs for the life of the loan? If so, I'd concentrate everything on paying off the car itself since it has the higheset interest rate and a fairly low balance.
Can you talk to the student loan folks about lowering payments? If you aren't on a 30 year payoff, you could switch.
Hugs,
Megan
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-22-1999
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 12:36pm

I agree with Looking4. Your housing cost is high. There's some guideline I saw that said that your housing cost should be around 25 - 28% of your income....? If you can get a roommate for a while that may help if you don't want to move.

Hang in there! Don't give up! Just keep up doing what you are doing until things get better. You'll find an answer.

Hugs and best wishes, Littlesbigs
(I'm finding new inspiration to do better for myself!)

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2005
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 12:41pm
~ Edited ~


Edited 8/1/2006 12:14 pm ET by hrhdragonfly
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2005
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 1:05pm
~ Edited ~


Edited 8/1/2006 12:15 pm ET by hrhdragonfly
Avatar for 2locachicas
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2003
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 1:52pm

We live in a very expensive area too and would like to lower our cost of living but now prices have risen so high it is cheaper to stay where we are at.

Pay off the 1600 student loan with your tax return. It is your lowest balance and would help you with what you need most-cash flow. Your credit card rate isn't very high and if you don't get some cash flow opened up you are going to end up needing to use your credit cards again. $40 would go a long way every month. That's a week or 2 worth of food.

After that I would consider attacking the car loan. It is your next lowest balance. If you could get rid of those 2 things you would have a little breathing room. That would be $170 a month freed up!!

My husband and I recently did this. We could have paid off our credit card but instead opted to pay off my small student loan and our mini van. That freed up $300 a month. We were able to continue putting some of that on debt but we really needed to free up some $$ on a regular basis so we could stick to our budget. Our credit card minimum was only $94...this way if we can ever ONLY pay minimums they are $300 less than they would otherwise be.

Traditionally this is not how you would handle it but in your case where money is so tight and you need money to eat and drive to work that is what I would do.

Avatar for 2locachicas
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-14-2003
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 1:55pm
I have one more suggestion...do you have a programmable thermostat? If not get one. We set our heat at 55 at night and we have it start to come up an hour before we roll out of bed. Our heat bill has actually gone DOWN this winter when everyone was saying they would go up. We have 3 small children and no one has complained...well once they went to bed early and complained it was too hot. You could also program it to go down once you leave for work and come up before you come home...our bill went down $12 a month. It is only 72 a month and we live in a 4 bedroom condo in the windy city!!
Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 2:00pm

Wow - your housing is over 50% of your take-home.

All my best,
Danni

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-28-2004
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 3:58pm

Maybe you can look for a roommate on www.craigslist.org Lots of nice, normal people visit it to sell old stuff or find roommates.

I agree that the only choices seem to be get a roommate or move.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-21-2003
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 5:18pm

As for the large portion of your income that goes into housing/actually having a roof over your head, I can't offer any advice, sorry. And as others have said before: It looks like you already are doing a very good job of keeping the bills low.

One idea: Try to lower your electricity and heating bills. One poster already had an idea about temps at night. As for electricity: Check your fridge, cooler etc.: What degree are they set at? Are they standing next to the oven and/or heating? If yes, do you have room to move them? What energy efficiency class are they? I still find things to save on energy every year, so for the last couple of years we have had falling electricity bills :-)

Most new household appliances, tv sets etc. still draw power even when they are switched off and not in use. Either they are on stand-by (not much power is being drawn, but it adds up), or they simply have no real 'on-off'-switch anymore. The industry tends to believe customers prefer it that way... don't ask me where they got that idea. Who prefers to have something that raises your electricity bill even when you don't use it? I usually simply pull the plug of these appliances. Do not use an electric dryer or even a wash-dryer (power hungry monsters, they are ;-) ). Clothes dry perfectly well when hung on a line.

That's about it. Switching the light off when not at home, using energy savings light bulbs etc. helps a tiny little bit, too.

Maybe you can use some of these ideas. I wish you good luck in finding a room-mate really soon, too.

Greetings, Jordis

ivy_jordis

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: hrhdragonfly
Sun, 03-05-2006 - 9:15pm
Wow. I really hate to say it...but you are extremely house-poor. You've done an amazing job at everything else...but paying over 50% of your take home pay for a roof over your head is WAY too much, regardless of where you live. I think that your only other option is to try again with the roommate thing. Sure, you can do all the little things to save a few cents here and there, but what you really need is a big chunk, and housing is the only place you can do that. I'm sorry that things are so tight for you...I hope they get better...

Pages