Now what?

I haven't written on this blog for a long time. But I am here to tell you that things HAVE improved substantially since my last post. How, you might ask? Well, let me tell you!

As I was telling you my story, let me break down a little of how our finances looked. We owed (and still owe) quite a bit of old debt that neither of us was paying for. We have about $16,000 in student loan debt. My husband still owes $9,000 on his car. My car was paid off as of July, but it was a two door car that was falling apart and that couldn't fit my daughter in the back seat with her seat required by law, so we had to finance another one, which is about $13,000. We were living in an apartment (stuck is more like it) that was costing us around $1400 a month. We had take home pay of about $3400 monthly. We were paying $660 monthly for childcare. So, just with daycare, car payments, auto insurance, gas, and rent, we paid about $3000. This doesn't include diapers, groceries, or incidentals (tolls). With all of that said, there were many debts that just fell by the wayside. Our needs outweighed what we were making.

It was going to cost us money to get out of our apartment. We were in desperate need of space, but getting a house seemed out of the question. We put a status on FB one day about needing a house. We had someone offer us a rental property, at half of what we were paying in rent, with no security deposit. It was in a lower income area than where we were currently living, but it was closer to work and wouldn't cost tolls (which were equaling about $250 monthly!), We moved a couple of months back. I got another job, so our take home pay has increased from about $3400 a month to about $5000 a month. So, we increased our income and reduced our monthly expenses by about $700.

So, NOW WHAT?

Against my better judgment, we took out a couple of payday loans to help cover some costs we were behind on, which was the dumbest thing ever. The fees are not worth it. But now, we owe them back. So, that's something to consider. We had to get a fridge and some new furniture for the living room, as ours fell apart the first month we were in the new apartment. Like, the leg fell off on one couch and the bar came through the top of the cushion on the other. We decided to finance new a new fridge and new furniture, as we would keep them a very long time. We also have alot of unpaid tolls to pay for, as we were using the tollways out of necessity but couldn't always afford it. Right now, these are our top three things to catch up on, as they are the most pressing.

We are still behind on most of our bills, but all by no more than 30 days. We are still getting charged fees, though. So that is another place we need to fix.

Right now, our goal within the next six months is to stop paying for additional fees and interest and to pay off all tolls (which is about $2,000), as these can lead to citations. So basically, all of our extra money will go to old debt and past due bills. Yuck, but necessary.

It still feels like we are about two years away from getting all of this figured out, but I am trying to chronicle the steps along the way.

I don't feel discouraged anymore, nor do I feel hopeless. I feel hopeful, actually, like there is an end in sight. We'll see!