5 ms·

> "But with her take-home income averaging only about $2,400 a month, we didn’t make enough to cover our bills because my take-home pay was going straight to th

by aneesh 17y ago

> "But with her take-home income averaging only about $2,400 a month, we didn’t make enough to cover our bills because my take-home pay was going straight to the mortgage." What the heck are you buying if $2,400 per month can't cover your expenses after the mortgage payment is taken care of?

sethg 17y ago
$4,000 a month in alimony and child support. I'm glad my wife has promised that I'll only leave this marriage feet-first. ETA: whoops, I missed the part saying those were automatically deducted. Downmod me.
- jonknee 17y ago
  That was taken out of his salary before he got it, the rest was going to the mortgage.
- aneesh 17y ago
  His salary covered the child support/alimony, as well as the mortgage.
- granular 17y ago
  > I'm glad my wife has promised that ... I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but those promises fly out the window as soon as times get tough. No matter what you think she thinks of you, when the kids come and times get tough, she will look at you and weigh having you around vs. having automatic custody of the kids + child support + alimony.
amalcon 17y ago
Loan payments, most likely. Too much money in car loans, credit cards, and the like are traps that too many people fall into. I personally cannot fathom why anyone would willingly take out a loan to buy a car that was not their first (used cars are not that expensive if you're willing to save for a few years), or why anyone would use a credit card without knowing they have the money to pay it immediately, but I do know that people do this. They also had two kids. Kids are expensive; they genuinely require new clothing every year, lots of doctor visits, etc. Of course, if you're not too proud for it, you can get a lot of this stuff from friends and family with older children, but it's still expensive.
- Periodic 17y ago
  He said what she refused to cut back on, food, clothes, kids. My reaction when I had some financial trouble recently was to quickly to cut back on food purchases and evaluate moving to a smaller house. However, fortunately I still have a positive cash flow. I was surprised when he mentioned paying over $100 for cable/internet with all these money problems. If it were me, that would be the first thing to go and I'd move back to $5/mo dial-up. Sounds to me like they were able to avoid any big costs (like house repairs), but their brains couldn't really understand the cost of recurring payments on so many small things.
  - randallsquared 17y ago
    If you're in the hole a thousand a month anyway, what's another hundred more or less? It won't solve your actual problem to get rid of it (unless you can get rid of enough of them to actually solve the problem), but getting rid of it may well affect your life enough to depress you such that you find it that much more difficult to think of solutions, etc. I've been in that situation many times over the past twenty years (though never nearly to that degree!), and I don't regret spending $x when I was going to be short $(x*10) or more.
    - Chocobean 17y ago
      ... you have to think of the 10% cut as a 10% discount on your debt PLUS recurring interests. Heck even 1% matters when it comes to paying down mortgages and debt.
    - HSO 17y ago
      That's really fatal thinking. Actually, it's a well-documented psychological bias. To many people, a dollar earned != a dollar saved (or a dollar less in loss), although they are all conceptually the same.
      - nostrademons 17y ago
        A dollar earned is actually more like $0.60-0.70 saved after taxes.</pedantic> Anyway, I know a bunch of people that think the same way. I knew one girl who basically couldn't afford to eat - she'd go hungry for several days at the end of each pay period because there was no money to buy food. (Not too surprisingly, she ended up with an eating disorder.) But she had more "stuff" - big screen TV, DVD-player, IPod, home entertainment system - than I've ever had. Her logic was that a few hundred bucks might by food for a couple weeks, then she'd just be hungry again. Or it could buy a big-screen TV, and she'd be hungry longer, but at least she'd be entertained in the meantime. When she put it like that, it almost seemed rational. Being able to save and invest for the future is a luxury I have because I've never really had to want for the basic necessities.
gojomo 17y ago
That $2400 has to cover two adults and two live-at-home young children: all utilities, food, transport, education, property maintenance, out-of-pocket medical, and entertainment. (They each also have older children who, despite not living at home and the alimony, might need some support.)
earl 17y ago
Aneesh: it's really not that hard. For two adults and three kids that is not much money for food, utilities (particularly heating + ac), internet, two cell phones, transport, clothes, pets and the inevitable accidents life throws at you, eg $35 to go to the doctor plus $50 for medicine for even simple illnesses. Don't mock them until you've tried it, particularly given how expensive groceries are on the E coast. My data point is that when I moved from WI to NYC my grocery bill for purchasing basically identical food rose by 130%.

by aneesh 17y ago

sethg 17y ago

$4,000 a month in alimony and child support. I'm glad my wife has promised that I'll only leave this marriage feet-first. ETA: whoops, I missed the part saying those were automatically deducted. Downmod me.

jonknee 17y ago
That was taken out of his salary before he got it, the rest was going to the mortgage.
aneesh 17y ago
His salary covered the child support/alimony, as well as the mortgage.
granular 17y ago
> I'm glad my wife has promised that ... I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but those promises fly out the window as soon as times get tough. No matter what you think she thinks of you, when the kids come and times get tough, she will look at you and weigh having you around vs. having automatic custody of the kids + child support + alimony.

amalcon 17y ago

Loan payments, most likely. Too much money in car loans, credit cards, and the like are traps that too many people fall into. I personally cannot fathom why anyone would willingly take out a loan to buy a car that was not their first (used cars are not that expensive if you're willing to save for a few years), or why anyone would use a credit card without knowing they have the money to pay it immediately, but I do know that people do this. They also had two kids. Kids are expensive; they genuinely require new clothing every year, lots of doctor visits, etc. Of course, if you're not too proud for it, you can get a lot of this stuff from friends and family with older children, but it's still expensive.

Periodic 17y ago
He said what she refused to cut back on, food, clothes, kids. My reaction when I had some financial trouble recently was to quickly to cut back on food purchases and evaluate moving to a smaller house. However, fortunately I still have a positive cash flow. I was surprised when he mentioned paying over $100 for cable/internet with all these money problems. If it were me, that would be the first thing to go and I'd move back to $5/mo dial-up. Sounds to me like they were able to avoid any big costs (like house repairs), but their brains couldn't really understand the cost of recurring payments on so many small things.
- randallsquared 17y ago
  If you're in the hole a thousand a month anyway, what's another hundred more or less? It won't solve your actual problem to get rid of it (unless you can get rid of enough of them to actually solve the problem), but getting rid of it may well affect your life enough to depress you such that you find it that much more difficult to think of solutions, etc. I've been in that situation many times over the past twenty years (though never nearly to that degree!), and I don't regret spending $x when I was going to be short $(x*10) or more.
  - Chocobean 17y ago
    ... you have to think of the 10% cut as a 10% discount on your debt PLUS recurring interests. Heck even 1% matters when it comes to paying down mortgages and debt.
  - HSO 17y ago
    That's really fatal thinking. Actually, it's a well-documented psychological bias. To many people, a dollar earned != a dollar saved (or a dollar less in loss), although they are all conceptually the same.
    - nostrademons 17y ago
      A dollar earned is actually more like $0.60-0.70 saved after taxes.</pedantic> Anyway, I know a bunch of people that think the same way. I knew one girl who basically couldn't afford to eat - she'd go hungry for several days at the end of each pay period because there was no money to buy food. (Not too surprisingly, she ended up with an eating disorder.) But she had more "stuff" - big screen TV, DVD-player, IPod, home entertainment system - than I've ever had. Her logic was that a few hundred bucks might by food for a couple weeks, then she'd just be hungry again. Or it could buy a big-screen TV, and she'd be hungry longer, but at least she'd be entertained in the meantime. When she put it like that, it almost seemed rational. Being able to save and invest for the future is a luxury I have because I've never really had to want for the basic necessities.

gojomo 17y ago

That $2400 has to cover two adults and two live-at-home young children: all utilities, food, transport, education, property maintenance, out-of-pocket medical, and entertainment. (They each also have older children who, despite not living at home and the alimony, might need some support.)

earl 17y ago

Aneesh: it's really not that hard. For two adults and three kids that is not much money for food, utilities (particularly heating + ac), internet, two cell phones, transport, clothes, pets and the inevitable accidents life throws at you, eg $35 to go to the doctor plus $50 for medicine for even simple illnesses. Don't mock them until you've tried it, particularly given how expensive groceries are on the E coast. My data point is that when I moved from WI to NYC my grocery bill for purchasing basically identical food rose by 130%.