How do I crawl out of this debt? - Fixing my life before a recession happens

[Rapier Ape]

You could feasibly knock all of that out in a year making 120k. Especially if you're willing to put your foot down and be frugal about everything. Yes it'll suck for the year because I'm going to assume that 120k is before taxes.
Credit card should be your first priority. I would honestly buckle down on that and chucking money at it like mad to just avoid interest for the entire year. Anything that you save at the end in interest you can effectively use elsewhere.
Another poster suggested working out some sort of payment plan with the IRS. You need to do this. Those guys are going to be hitting with you with interest as well. But that'll all depend on what you work out with them.

 

[Septictic]

Don't over do it or you'll give up. It's like when fatties try to lose weight. They go all or nothing and give up.

I disagree. Like giving up smoking or drinking; it's better to be tough. I'm 10 months in a no-spend year, and the benefits have been plentiful. It's a refreshing way to live. And I'm scheduled to be debt free next month.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Stop spending on credit cards. Rewards are nice but you are in a drowning situation. Literally put your cards in a goddamn block of ice or something.

Start sending some money to the IRS immediately. Even if a small amount. Get on a payment plan ASAP but sending payments shows you’re trying. https://www.irs.gov/payments/payment-plans-installment-agreements

pay the ass minimums on student loans and the car.

those debts are relatively small and can’t increase. Pay down the credit cards as fast as you can. Use cash to buy shit, and don’t carry it with you. The idea is if you see the new SexBoxWhoreRaper9000 at Walmart for only $399.99 you have to actually drive to the damn bank and get the cash out by which time your laziness will have overcome the spend for euphoria desire.

Whatever your job allows for retirement, maximize it in steps. Money you never see is easiest to save, and there may be matching available. If not, run the numbers on whether an IRA contribution can tax-help. If you are a contractor or self employed or something investigate SEP-IRA.

If your girlfriend makes not much money look into a Roth for her, the government basically pays you to put money into it and it has advantages when you house buy.

Read the bogleheads forum for fun insanity.

Now for the advice tending towards potentially disastrous.

Marry the girl and knock her up fast. Married with kid triggers EITC and would reduce your federal tax burden quick. Get triplets and you might even be eligible for government cheese.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

Have taxes withheld from your payroll and/or pay quarterlies from now on. Hopefully you’ve already done that.

Stop spending on credit cards. Rewards are nice but you are in a drowning situation. Literally put your cards in a goddamn block of ice or something.

Start sending some money to the IRS immediately. Even if a small amount. Get on a payment plan ASAP but sending payments shows you’re trying. https://www.irs.gov/payments/payment-plans-installment-agreements

pay the ass minimums on student loans and the car.

those debts are relatively small and can’t increase. Pay down the credit cards as fast as you can. Use cash to buy shit, and don’t carry it with you. The idea is if you see the new SexBoxWhoreRaper9000 at Walmart for only $399.99 you have to actually drive to the damn bank and get the cash out by which time your laziness will have overcome the spend for euphoria desire.

Whatever your job allows for retirement, maximize it in steps. Money you never see is easiest to save, and there may be matching available. If not, run the numbers on whether an IRA contribution can tax-help. If you are a contractor or self employed or something investigate SEP-IRA.

If your girlfriend makes not much money look into a Roth for her, the government basically pays you to put money into it and it has advantages when you house buy.

Read the bogleheads forum for fun insanity.

Now for the advice tending towards potentially disastrous.

Marry the girl and knock her up fast. Married with kid triggers EITC and would reduce your federal tax burden quick. Get triplets and you might even be eligible for government cheese.

Do not marry and spit out a bunch of kids. I too was once a young woman with no kids and a shitty job out of college who marveled at the pile of money EITC got my co-workers in tax season. But the thing is EITC is usually only awesome if you are poor or lower income. (Or maybe if you have a dozen kids it’s awesome idk)

I remember my first tax return with a kid thinking “oh goody I get EITC” and it amounted to taking a whopping $1500 off my fucking $25k tax bill that year. Whooptie fucking do. My kid cost obviously a fuckload more than $1700 that year too.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Pretty sure if you make 120k+ and your debt is 40k-ish you can make your case that you will pay the debt gradually in 2 years.

Just look determined and make a strong case.

 

[WelperHelper99]

In terms of spending you can cut... food man. Go beans and rice. Slash that grocery bill, and use that to go pay off your cards and the IRS.

 

[The Tall Man]

83000 in debt.
Let's face it it's over for you, you will never recover, this will only get worse.
At the end of this year your debt will have at least tripled.
Might as well start playing the lottery and pray for a miracle.

Here you go my friend do a flip with dignity.

California | Death With Dignity

California

deathwithdignity.org

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

here you go, feel better

https://twitter.com/sportynory/status/1645918001651421184

I remember my first tax return with a kid thinking “oh goody I get EITC” and it amounted to taking a whopping $1500 off my fucking $25k tax bill that year. Whooptie fucking do. My kid cost obviously a fuckload more than $1700 that year too.

yeah, it really hits hardest if you're in the "sweet spot" but don't pop out a kid just to get EITC (make sure you get WIC and all the other g'vt cheese if you go that way)

i once helped a military dude with taxes and that nigger got all sorts of cheese on the return, ended up being like $8k on $30k income lol

 

[Equal Rights for Androids]

those debts are relatively small and can’t increase. Pay down the credit cards as fast as you can. Use cash to buy shit, and don’t carry it with you. The idea is if you see the new SexBoxWhoreRaper9000 at Walmart for only $399.99 you have to actually drive to the damn bank and get the cash out by which time your laziness will have overcome the spend for euphoria desire.

The sexbot would cost less in the long term than having a romantic partner. More cost effective option is to ditch the human, buy bot. Women are cash sinks.

 

[Cornfed]

Take your normal paycheck and pay down the highest interest debt first you stupid fuck.
Then, don't get in debt again. Your either trolling or just plain fucking dumb.
Here is an idea, learn how to fill out your tax forms correctly, file as single 0, and fill out a 1040EZ with nothing weird.

 

[Colloid]

Unless I misread something here, you’re 83 grand in the hole despite making 6 figures, which means you’ve either got the money you need to solve this mess already and are just being a penny pinching Jew about it, or you spent money on something you probably shouldn’t have. I don’t know what your circumstances are exactly but like others have implied here you’re not going to solve this anytime soon if your spending habits are the root; regardless of how efficiently you chip away at this debt.

 

[(((Obar Lazcano Kamz)))]

@Da Brony Unchained dont pay the debt off and ittl go away eventually when you die

 

[melty]

You should probably look into Dave Ramsey

 

[BBJ_4_Ever]

I think I’ll keep my liver if my kid ever needs one lol

Livers have the ability to regenerate. You could sell multiple parts of it and save some for your kid.

"The liver has a unique capacity among organs to regenerate itself after damage. A liver can regrow to a normal size even after up to 90% of it has been removed." source , < archive >

 

[SpergioLeonne]

“Do you think that it’s possible to be happy and get it together by the end of this year? Should I think about the next two years?”

Happiness is a function of some neurotransmitters and your sensitivity to them. Nobody on earth can stay at peak indefinitely. You’ll burn your little dopamine receptors out of your brain.

I recommend stopping being paranoid, accepting that things can be worse and you’ll be fine, etc.

“Should I be concerned about the recession? A lot of things are changing.”

Yeah, especially if you’re a six figure office middleman. But you don’t NEED that kind of money to live. Be open to moving to a smaller city or some shit.

“How would you go about handling the $$? Just saving it? Do I pay it all off or hold on to all the money?”

Dave Ramsey used to do a call-in show about personal finances. He always said to pay off your smallest debts first just to clear them off the board and simplify the situation.

Also you have like six years or something that you can just not file your taxes. I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re just going to dig the hole deeper, but like wtf, man.. Maybe you’re not cut out for contractor work? You can just call them and set up a payment plan.

“Am I going to be okay?”

Always. This is the worst question IMO. Nothing you’re complaining about is cancer or will kill you.

“Me and my girlfriend want to get a home before we get married.”

Ok, but.. are you afraid she wouldn’t want to marry you if you don’t buy a house? That opens the door to a whole bunch of other questions.

“I didn’t think I’d ever make this money in my entire life, and dysfunctional family shit / bad habits followed me late into my life until now. Thank god I’m at least self aware.”

Ok

 

[🔪Cold Steel Brand Rep🔪]

It's not hard to find a new, better job. I know your idea of better is the ability to do the exact same thing that got you into this mess and have better results, but it's time to get to WORK nigga. Pack a PB&J and an apple every day instead of hitting McDicks three times a week, don't get into arguments with your hoe about getting your way and be with/around someone that cares that you get what you need and succeed the way you want to, stop whining on internet message boards like a 13 year old girl to people that are funnier and more put together than you and asking for the secrets to life, take the bus for once in your life, and for Chris's sake cut your length down with the dumbass rhetorical questions at the end of your post, nobody cares about your musings and there's better threads for that. Nobody even gives a shit about money anymore, it's about social value and having skills, if you have those two things you'll be just fine to ride out this mess we call life. Yeah, I feel bad for you, but I don't feel bad for me being in worse debt than you because I have the wherewithal to not make posts like this and keep to the funi.

 

[NoReturn]

Spoiler: OP responses

I’m not too stressed because I make 120k+ right now (just received a raise), and I do contract work making an extra 2-5k a month.

Lucky fuck.

A quick overview of debts:
Car- 7k
Credit card- 14k
Irs - 40k
Student debt- 22k

I’m willing to be more extremely frugal and argue with my girlfriend to get my way. I have a goal to save up the whole amount of what I owe by the end of this year. Then pay it all off. For two reasons.

Does she work?
You planning to marry her?

I fucking hate the job I’m working right now, and I want to get out of it and start finding financial success elsewhere, outside of mainstream corpo jobs. They literally cuck the energy out of you. I want to be able to say shit about them and call out how horrible certain people are that I’ve interacted with without fear of repercussion.

The dream, really.

Do you think that it’s possible to be happy and get it together by the end of this year? Should I think about the next two years?

Two years.

Should I be concerned about the recession? A lot of things are changing.

Yes

How would you go about handling the $$? Just saving it? Do I pay it all off or hold on to all the money?

Pay off asap. Debt is money cancer.

Am I going to be okay? Me and my girlfriend want to get a home before we get married. I didn’t think I’d ever make this money in my entire life, and dysfunctional family shit / bad habits followed me late into my life until now. Thank god I’m at least self aware.

Lucky fuck but cautious. Respect.

I’m scared. Seriously. But I know I need to keep going, fix these mistakes. I know I can still be saved.

Yes.

Credit card debt first and as fast as possible. The interest on that is atrocious. Then cut the fucking things up, except for one for emergencies only, and pay it off in full every month without exception.

This desu.
@Da Brony Unchained - Some people look at debt by the base amount, some by the interest rate on the debt, but you should keep both in mind. With credit card debt, the cancer spreads faster, so I'd recommend getting rid of the highest-interest debt first and as quickly as possible.

You make 120k+ a year. You will be fine.

You'll be fine if you don't spend it. Lifestyle inflation is a bitch.

I know you don't like your job, but suck it up, and don't even think about quitting until you either have firm job offer for something better, or 6 months to a year of expenses saved up.

At least. You can also store it differently. So have 6 months of expenses in cash, then the next 6 in something less liquid, and so on.

Learn to budget. Figure out all your monthly expenses.

Learn to budget and learn to spend. That's where a lot of former-poorfags fuck up. Spending lots of money becomes too scary, so you end up making bad decisions that cost more in the long run.

From Terry Pratchett

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.​

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.​

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.​

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.​

​

And also:

The very very rich could afford to be poor. Sybil Ramkin lived in the kind of poverty that was only available to the very rich, a poverty approached from the other side. Women who were merely well-off saved up and bought dresses made of silk edged with lace and pearls, but Lady Ramkin was so rich she could afford to stomp around the place in rubber boots and a tweed skirt that had belonged to her mother. She was so rich she could afford to live on biscuits and cheese sandwiches.​

I'm 10 months in a no-spend year

What constitutes "no spend" for you? Obviously bills and stuff don't count, so where's the line?

 

[Septictic]

What constitutes "no spend" for you? Obviously bills and stuff don't count, so where's the line?

No new clothes, no entertainment (I miss Netflix), no electronics, no makeup, no coffee shops or restaurants, no hobby items. I've been mending a lot, and making due without. I bought things that promote health (running shoes, a rubber mat for jump roping, collagen, dentist.)

 

[Cornfed]

This guy said he makes 6 figures, and does not know how to fill out employment paperwork in order to not have the IRS rape him, does not know how to prioritize debt, gets into stupid debt (consumer), and can't sit down at a desk and crunch some numbers on a fucking piece of paper....but comes on to a shit posting site and asks for advice.
OP...what brain dead non productive "job" do you have? Say something related to HR, please god.

 

[melty]

And also:
The very very rich could afford to be poor. Sybil Ramkin lived in the kind of poverty that was only available to the very rich, a poverty approached from the other side. Women who were merely well-off saved up and bought dresses made of silk edged with lace and pearls, but Lady Ramkin was so rich she could afford to stomp around the place in rubber boots and a tweed skirt that had belonged to her mother. She was so rich she could afford to live on biscuits and cheese sandwiches.

Pro tip, getting into minimalist lifestyle is a good way to LARP not being a poorfag without having to spend a lot of money.