Since meeting my lovely hubby, I have inherited his debts. Of course, I had debt as well, but not like Clint's. Being newlyweds, it has really pulled us together and made us work as a team. Sometimes, it was not the easiest task, but we are starting to see the results!
Poor guy...not his fault that he didn't understand how it all worked! Those shiny cards are addicting! But he has learned now. His debt has really put us in a tight spot at times. I think I counted about 7 cards...yes, 7! In 2 years, I have successfully gotten his debt down to 2 cards! Not an easy task. Lets just say, things we really wanted to do, had to wait...lots of boring nights at home. Most of the time, he would get offers from other credit card companies to transfer a balance at a 0% interest rate for a year. I was constantly doing this with him. Boy did that help! I felt better knowing all our hard earned money was not going towards interest rates.
After all that hard work, I decided to look into our home mortgage and see if I could get a better rate....and I did! From 7% down to 5.5%! That saved us over $150 on our mortgage per month! Chi-Ching!
Next, was our cell phone plans. We do not have a home phone, but both have cell phones. He has a lot of horrible luck with phones. They are always breaking before he can get a discount on a new one and the warranty is usually expired. So, I decided to buy him out of his plan and switch him over to my plan. I know, I know...why would I buy him out of his plan and pay around $200! Well, I did the math. A new phone would cost around that for him to buy, with no discount. That $200 smack-a-roos is going to save us $80 per month and here's how! I changed my plan to a family plan, with shared minutes, and was able to get him a new phone for nothing! Chi-Ching, Chi-Ching!
It's nice to be able to breathe every now and then. We aren't out of the water just yet, but these little things have really started to pay off.
Any other helpful tips that you can give, would be, in Clint's words, swwwwwwweeeeeeeeeettt!
7 comments:
That's so awesome - I'm sure you must feel so happy! I love saving money! :)
Not sure if this will help (or hurt), but we just switched to one of those credit cards that gives you cash back. You only get 1% (2% on groceries/gas), but I imagine that that will add up. I pay all of our bills via this credit card and then pay off the credit card each month, so I don't accumulate finance charges/interest, but I'll still get the cash back.
Just out of curiousity - how do you guys manage your bills? Do you have separate checking accounts? We each had a separate checking acct and then joint checking and savings accts, but have just switched banks, and now have 5 accounts and it's just too much, so I'm trying to simplify... wondering what other couples have done. I pay all of our bills (except J's student loans), so I like that he has a separate acct and can secretly buy me presents without me knowing what they cost, but shuffling money between all of these accounts is getting to be a bit much...
Hello Homeinthecountry friend! We actually have a joint savings and checking and that is it. When I first started living with Clint, we had seperate accounts. He was losing track of his bills so I started helping. Then I was getting confused. So, once we started planning our wedding, we just put everything in one account and decided our money would stay together. I was able to keep track of everything much better and didn't have to worry about where the money was.
I know tons of people frown on this, but it works for us.
Wow, sounds like you guys are doing a great job so far.
My only suggestion is to get on a rigid, well defined spending budget. It's done wonders for me and my man.
Congrats! Cute blog!
I hear ya, sista. We recently went throught the same credit card crunch (a few less cards, tho!). I paid off my debit right as we started dating and then as soon as I could get my hands on his monthly payments, I did it! Aren't we the best wives ever?! :D
We so are! One person handling the money instead of the two of us was the best option for us.
want to come handle some of my debt? haha
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