Serious Financial Advice

[MV88]

Ok so being that I dont feel comfortable talking about this with anyway I know in my life, I've come to strangers for some advice. I am in debt. $6,000. Over the past few years I've accumulated this debt from just careless spending and blowing through money at college when I didnt have a job. Well, the no interest for a year and a half is over, and now I have to seriously take care of this shit! Its become a serious weight on my shoulders because I'm barely able to save. Luckily I still live at home and only give my parents $100 a month for food and stuff.

Heres my situation, I make around $400-$500 a week. I spend around $80 a week for gas and food and $100 dollars for my car insurance. So lets say for the month I have no choice but to spend up to $300 (rounding up including rent.)

Can anyone give me any advice in terms of how to handle this debt as fast as possible? Some sort of a financial plan or advice that would help? This is really bugging me that I've been irresponsible with my credit cards. Any help or advice would mean a lot to me. Thanks

[Probability]

I would get another short term no interest deal if possible and then pay it down as quick as you can.

[JamesMa]

Put in any spare time into grinding poker and just start chipping away at it with whatever residual income you have left over after expenses.

[RikaKazak]

I would recommend quitting poker/gambling for the time being. Having as much stress as you do on your shoulders right now, will weigh heavily on your game. If you have a poker bankroll, I'd cash it out and pay off as much debt as possible.

Also I'd check out a guy named dave ramsey. A lot of poker players aren't a big fan of hi because his investing advice is horrible (which it is) but his get out of debt advice is fantastic imo. You can listen to his radio show for free in almost all parts of the country, and you can even listen to archived shows for free on his website: http://www.daveramsey.com/home/ (they're 1+ day old, so not like they're 10 year old shows).

I would also recommend buying his book, the total money makeover by dave ramsey. It's less then $20, and worth every penny.

[WhiskeyFish]

I assume now that the interest free period is over, your cards are ballooning to some ridiculous rate like 25%, that's how the companies stick people. Like probability said, your ideal option would be to roll the debt onto another card. The card companies usually call this a balance transfer.

If you still have good credit, make sure you continue to make the minimum payments. This will protect your score. If you miss even one payment it can hurt your score dramatically. Once your score drops, your chance of finding a card company that will do a balance transfer will go way down.

Assuming your credit score is intact, call some of the major card companies (chase, citi, BofA, etc) to see if they can do a balance transfer for you at a low promo rate. I have two cards that are currently offering 0 and 1.9% for the first 6 months. If you can knock down that interest rate then you can use your savings to start paying off the principal instead of just trying to keep up with the interest.

Begging your parents might also be a good option...it's better than wrecking your credit.


Once the fire is put out, consider imposing some strict financial discipline on yourself. I run a business, and for the business I track every single payment I make or receive in a spreadsheet, grouped by category. I have monthly projections for each category and I check at the end of the month which categories miss or exceed projections. I use excel but you can also do this with software such as Quicken.

I believe in running your personal finances like a business, so I do the exact same thing for my personal spending. I have categories for phone, food, misc cash expenses, mortgage, insurance, gas, utilities, etc. If you do this I can almost guarantee it will be eye opening...before I started doing it about 5 years ago I had no idea where my money was going.

[MV88]

whiskey fish thank you for the response

[MV88]

do you guys think i should speak to a financial advisor or something like that ?

[robbyd86]

^^^they basically just tell you what you already know in my experience. Just throw whatever money u can at your debt, try to eliminate as much spending as possible etc.

That Dave Ramsey guy that Rika mentioned is actually pretty good, I would just listen to some of that stuff. Read up on whatever you can. Unless a financial advisor is really cheap then i wouldn't bother. Ppl on here are probably just as qualified imo.

[Probability]

You would be better of educating yourself a little bit. My experience with financial advisers has been lol worthy.

[WhiskeyFish]

Originally Posted by MV88

do you guys think i should speak to a financial advisor or something like that ?

Not a financial advisor, the good ones only deal with multimillionaires. If anything you should be talking to a debt or credit counselor. They may be able to give you some good advice for restructuring your debt or negotiating down your rates with your current card companies. There are lots of organizations, many of them nonprofit, but I don't know which the best ones are.

You very well may be able to negotiate down your interest rates, at least temporarily. If the card companies believe that you won't be able to keep up with the interest and will go into default, it's in their interest to lower your rate. It's something that's done frequently but I don't know the best way to go about it.