Debt, Stress, Depression & Pain
I know that my typing about our financial situation is a recurring trend, but as my wife does not seem to take our situation seriously, this blog is my main outlet to vent, other than my UK based friend James, who listens to me bitching about our financial/debt problems weekly and never complains.
I’ll start with this; we live roughly 5 minutes from where my wife works and we spent $434 at Samsclub on groceries on my AMEX card last Friday because we did not have enough funds in our checking account to pay for the groceries. And, this week, every working day she bought fast food, using all but a couple of dollars in our checking account, and today, payday, the first thing she did is to buy Starbucks.
In the past six weeks, she has given Starbucks $220 of our income, despite increasing our overall debt by $500. I find this wholly irresponsible when we have just maxed out our bank credit card. I had to quickly transfer $1.70 to the VISA credit card to avoid being hit with an over-limit fee. I feel like I have to check our online banking at least twice a day, to make sure that we are not overdrawn or over-limit, stressing me out to no end and pushing me further underwater in terms of depression, I feel like I am drowning.
Last night, I sat down with my wife and showed her our bank statements, our credit card and loan balances, and how much money is going towards interest charges. And she said “maybe I should cut back on Starbucks”, only for her today to buy fucking Starbucks. But what does she have to worry about, she is only on the hook for about 22% of the total debt, 80% of that 22% is a joint responsibility, the rest of it is on me as I consolidated her debt into a loan in the hope of getting back on an even keel, which failed!
My wife complains about how she is fed up with renting, and she wants to buy a home. I would also like to own a home too, but I am not even remotely interested in acquiring another $125k+ of debt in the form of a mortgage when we have no savings and $21k of existing debt eating up about 1/4 of our income. I want to have $5k+ savings or at least no balances on credit cards to cover those unforeseen costs of owning a home. At least with renting, when those things happen, it’s the landlord’s responsibility.
My depression has gotten so bad that I am struggling to do my day job, I find it hard to concentrate, and I’m in constant pain, my back, my shoulders, and a constant headache, feeling like there is no hope, my thoughts, when left to my own devices, turning to self-harm. And because I elected to not take up the option of medical insurance from my employer, a doctor’s office visit is too expensive. I chose to not take insurance coverage as my wife and children’s insurance more than doubled in price, so I had to sacrifice my insurance to make sure they have coverage, as my wife is chronically sick, and needs extensive care.
What do I do? just say, fuck it, I’m not paying the almost $21k of debt anymore, to hell with it, I don’t care about maintaining a good credit score. Or do I just take 100% control of the finances, paying all the bills, then immediately buy groceries, put fuel in the cars, and the remainder gets paid onto credit card balances, leaving nothing for my wife to spend on fast food, forcing her to come home to eat?
I feel like I should not have to do either of these things, my wife should be more responsible with money, but that seems like it’s never going to happen, based on the evidence I have seen. My mother in law has loaned us thousands of dollars that she has now said, don’t worry about paying it back, which is so amazing of her, but I feel like such a fucking deadbeat for not being able to pay her back.
Maxing out a credit card has had an extremely negative effect on me. I should have never allowed myself to have credit cards, like the first 38 years of my life, it has brought me nothing but misery.