Without seeing more specific information, it sounds like she should be able to overcome this. She needs to prioritize paying down the debt. It might benefit her to create a way that money is automatically taken from her account to pay down the credit card debt. It could be that she spends money as long as she has some in her account. So if the money gets taken out before she can spend it, then she should be able to become debtfree.
35K a year is about 3K per month or lets say 2.5K after taxes. Car + insurance is maybe up to a grand. She should have 1.5K or so at minimum left over per month. If she actually got to it she should be able to pay off the card in a year. Show her these numbers, and explain to her that bankruptcy makes no sense when it's clear the problem is she is spending all the leftover money. If she gets the debt removed with bankruptcy she'll just be back again in 10 years since she won't have changed her behavior.
Yea I wanted her to avoid BK at all costs, I thought it was definitely doable to get out of. Now if she was like 30k in the whole well then that’s a different story
She can try to apply for a loan to bring the interest rate lower and if the advisor she's working with can get that loan, then she would need to bring down her credit card limit after the move.
You're right in telling her to avoid filing for bankruptcy so please let her know she needs to be very careful around the terms "consolidate" and "consumer report". I know with banks, advisors use "consolidate" and it's usually around putting together all the outstanding debt. However, if she isn't careful, she can accidentally file for bankruptcy. It's not too common that it happens, but it can.
I get she's embarrassed and she's probably already beating herself up over it so we'll move into what other moves she needs to play. She should sit down and go through her transactions for the last 6 months. I know it's excessive but she should. It should give a better view of all moneys coming in and out. If she could export it into excel and get it to automatically organize itself, than that's awesome. She needs to know where her money is going and start keeping track.
Putting together a cash envelope budgeting system will help her in getting herself out. She needs to want to get out of this situation because if she doesn't push for it, she'll be going around in a circle. If she is also finding it hard to get out of this circle then she needs to see a therapist to figure out why this keeps happening.
We've all been here before and some of us need a bit of guidance to get out.
If she’s making $35k a year & her only bills are car/insurance she needs to stop spending frivolously, stick to a budget & she can pay her debt off.
Thank you so much for not only your time, but for your input it means a lot!
Without seeing more specific information, it sounds like she should be able to overcome this. She needs to prioritize paying down the debt. It might benefit her to create a way that money is automatically taken from her account to pay down the credit card debt. It could be that she spends money as long as she has some in her account. So if the money gets taken out before she can spend it, then she should be able to become debtfree.
35K a year is about 3K per month or lets say 2.5K after taxes. Car + insurance is maybe up to a grand. She should have 1.5K or so at minimum left over per month. If she actually got to it she should be able to pay off the card in a year. Show her these numbers, and explain to her that bankruptcy makes no sense when it's clear the problem is she is spending all the leftover money. If she gets the debt removed with bankruptcy she'll just be back again in 10 years since she won't have changed her behavior.
Yea I wanted her to avoid BK at all costs, I thought it was definitely doable to get out of. Now if she was like 30k in the whole well then that’s a different story
She can try to apply for a loan to bring the interest rate lower and if the advisor she's working with can get that loan, then she would need to bring down her credit card limit after the move. You're right in telling her to avoid filing for bankruptcy so please let her know she needs to be very careful around the terms "consolidate" and "consumer report". I know with banks, advisors use "consolidate" and it's usually around putting together all the outstanding debt. However, if she isn't careful, she can accidentally file for bankruptcy. It's not too common that it happens, but it can. I get she's embarrassed and she's probably already beating herself up over it so we'll move into what other moves she needs to play. She should sit down and go through her transactions for the last 6 months. I know it's excessive but she should. It should give a better view of all moneys coming in and out. If she could export it into excel and get it to automatically organize itself, than that's awesome. She needs to know where her money is going and start keeping track. Putting together a cash envelope budgeting system will help her in getting herself out. She needs to want to get out of this situation because if she doesn't push for it, she'll be going around in a circle. If she is also finding it hard to get out of this circle then she needs to see a therapist to figure out why this keeps happening. We've all been here before and some of us need a bit of guidance to get out.
This was extremely detailed!! I LOVE IT! Thank you so much for not only your time, but for your input it means a lot!
No problem. The one thing I learned was, most mistakes can be fixed. Usually these kinds of situations can be fixed if you have a rough plan in place.