Can anyone help me?
Question: I am 34, 4 kids and a wife, no house (I rent), and about 50K in debt (credit cards, vehicles and a student loan). The ONLY thing I have that could possibly ever be worth anything is 2000 shares of Zingit (ZNGT) stock. Which last time I checked was worth about 0.23 a share. I didn’t buy the stock, I received it as part of an agreement. I don’t know if it will ever be worth anything.
I need help with my finances – I’m sinking and becoming desparate. I’m the only person I know who has a full time job, making 44K a year and am completely broke.
Does ANYONE have any useful advice ?? Or 50K to loan/grant me?
Answer: Well, 6 mouths to feed on 44K/year? Can be done without bankruptcy.
1st thing to do is restructure your loans. Get the interest rates down to 10 or there abouts from 20. You can do that by calling the bank and telling them about the offer that another bank sent you. Cut up the @#$@#$@# credit cards except for ONE card that you seal in an envelope for absolute emergencies.
If your employer has a credit union, open an account there with the minimum but as $20-40 comes your way, deposit it in the account.
Sell everything that you don’t immediately need. Clean out your basement. Sell it all. If you find some junk along side the road, sell it to the scrap dealer.
Stop buying anything unless you absolutely need it, no newspapers, cigarettes, beer, corn chips, magazines, frozen pizza, soda pop, stay out of 7-11.
Red beans and rice are your friend. Buy 20 lbs of dried beans and red pepper at the Hispanic store; 50 lbs of Korean rice at the Asian market, canned tomatoes, as much as you can get when it’s on sale.
Here’s the recipe:
1/2 pound of whatever cheese is on sale 1 sweet onion (these are the yellow flat onions) 1 lb ground beef 2 lbs dried red beans 1 pint of canned tomatoes or tomato sauce 2 tbl spoons of olive oil 1 lb of rice
Soak the beans overnight.
cook the rice separately, 1 lb rice + 1 quart of water, bring to rolling boil, cover and let sit for 20 minutes.
fry the ground beef in olive oil season with red pepper and salt mince the onion toss it in to saute add beans, tomatoes, simmer for 15 mintues.
Serve over rice. Add cheese. Make it 6 huge servings for about $5.00 If your kids are small, there’ll be enough left over to take for your lunch. This is world-class peasant food, hearty, filling, high in protein and fibre, and cheap.
There are lots of variations on this theme, pasta, corn, potato based with different mixes of flavors and seasonings.
Breakfast is bulk oatmeal and other cooked cereals flavored with real cream, butter, cinnamon, strawberry jam, orange marmalade, vanilla, brown sugar. All cheap and filling and a fraction of the cost of store bought items. Strawberry jam comes in 2 lb and larger jars. Buy those. Cook a big pot of hot oatmeal, add lots of brown sugar and butter, spoonfuls of strawberry jam, this is high in sugar but it tastes good.
After two months of peasant fare, you should have diverted some cash to the credit union. If so, ask for a loan to pay off the high interest credit cards, cut them up, close the accounts.
$44k/year is 3600/month.
300/month for food. 1000/month for rent and utilities. 1000/month for debt servicing. 50K debt is 500/month if long term. You gotta get the rates down, then you have some headroom to apply against the principal. Short term, high interest and it’ll suck you dry.
Not much left over after taxes and insurance.
You gotta hit the interest rates and squeeze every penny you can out of your budget.
It ain’t gonna be easy but you can do it.
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