There's good news and bad news. What's the good news? Since I got married in 2012, I can file jointly and I'm in a significantly lower tax bracket. I also get to take advantage of my student loan interest deduction again now that I'm within the married limits. What does this all amount to. Approximately 10 grand in a tax refund. Ridiculous. I've gotta change my withholding at work, but just bear with me. 10,000. That's over 1/6th of my existing credit card debt. Or it's 1/5th of my student loan debt. I know. It sucks to have over 100k in student loans & credit card debt. That's not the reason for FML.
There's a saying that it's not how much you make, but how much you keep/spend. I used to dream about making 6 figures. Well guess what. I just got my W2s and 2012 yielded me 106,000. What. The. Fuck. 106k and I'm still living paycheck to paycheck and my wife's picking up odd shifts here and there for a hundred here and a hundred there to cover our monthly expenses? Most of you out there would see 100k+ and go, well this guy is a touch nuthead. He's making 6 figs and is scraping by to pay his bills? What a pity.
So what are some of the things that I've promised my wife?
- I'll take the first 1k and she can have anything over that from the tax returns. Fuck. I'm barely going to pay down debt.
- I'll fly her back home every several months to see her family.
She's helping by making more money, but she's totally not helping by wanting to buy new shit. What are the things she wants to buy? I compiled a list and figured that conservatively getting everything she wants will cost 6k. She's kind of verbally commited to putting maybe ~1-2k from taxes into her debts, but, that leaves 2k left from 10k. Of course she wants to save that 2k for a vacation. God Damnit. 10k and my debt is going to go from maybe ~58k to 56k. What a fucking joke.
January sucked ass. I spent way too much money on my wife's wants and needs. We NEED this thing. We NEED that thing. So I floated our trip to my wife's parents place on my 4k credit card that I paid off. Guess what. I maxed it out again. Please shoot me in the head. The plan way maybe to spend about ~1k or so. 4k spent on what? Bullshit. Presents, Gas, Travel. Ugh....
How the fuck do you communicate with a spouse that claims to be commited to saving money, paying down debt, working extra hours to bring in more money, but wants to spend spend spend.
My current revolving & short term (med bills) debt totals have been trending as follows:
| Month | Chase 2% | Chase 3% | Discov 0% | Boa 20% | Cap1 18% | OldNavy 25% | Citi Dia 6% | Chase Amzn 20% | Citi Plat | Advanta 8% | Barclays 18% | Cap1 18% | Kay 25% | GE Amzn | Hosp | Cap1 12% | Total |
| 2012-06 | N/A | 63139 | |||||||||||||||
| 2012-07 | N/A | 56709 | |||||||||||||||
| 2012-08 | N/A | 57386 | |||||||||||||||
| 2012-09 | N/A | 58353 | |||||||||||||||
| 2012-10 | N/A | 59132 | |||||||||||||||
| 2012-11 | 16290 | 12806 | 1660 | 7214 | 4376 | 2455 | 2380 | 1960 | 1518 | 1547 | 1573 | 1200 | 766 | 542 | 450 | 200 | 57275 |
| 2012-12 | 16027 | 12669 | 1580 | 7143 | 4926 | 2318 | 2357 | 2040 | 1503 | 1547 | 1392 | 1200 | 0 | 520 | 420 | 200 | 55738 |
| 2013-01 | 15895 | 12417 | 1500 | 7200 | 4952 | 2320 | 2311 | 4098 | 1473 | 1498 | 1399 | 1179 | 0 | 662 | 370 | 263 | 58266 |
So I've made about $1400 in payments. I'd guess that about $700 went to interest. The debt load increased from 55.7k to 58.2k so my total debt increased $2528 for January. So I credit carded over $3k. Jesus Christ. Someone kill me now.
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