Fhyujk

I am 35 years old, single, and live in the US. My income is 78K to 80K after taxes and insurance.

I pay $1,500 for rent+utilities, $150 for phone bill, $450 for auto loan, $300 for auto insurance (for two people; I am helping a friend who can't pay auto insurance), $750 for a personal loan and $750 to $1,000 for credit card. I also need to send $100 to $200 to my home country. Total monthly expenses are $3,950 to $4,200.

I have a $16k auto loan at 7%, $32k of credit card debt at 20-22% and a personal loan of $18k at 17%. Total debt = $64k.

After the above expenses I need money for groceries, clothes, gas and other monthly needs.

I want to be debt free or at least decrease my total debts from $64k to $10k.

I can't consolidate my debts, because I already have a personal loan and I have a poor credit score.

Please advise me how to reduce my debt.

Can I be debt free or should I file for bankruptcy (I don't know if that's possible, because I am not a US citizen).

Can I be debt free or should I file bankruptcy

There's no reason to file bankruptcy with $64k in debt and a $80K net salary. You can get out of debt in 1-2 years if you're willing to sacrifice. The harder you sacrifice, the less time it will take.

Please advise me how to reduce my debt.

• Stop creating any more debt. Cut up all credit cards


• Put $1,000-2,000 in a cash savings account to cover "emergencies" while you are getting out of debt.


• Get on a cash budget. List out all of your expenses in order of priority (housing, food, utilities, transportation, etc.). Put debts last.


• Cut expenses to the bone. No restaurants, no vacations. Every discretionary dollar you spend restricts how quickly you get the debt paid off.


• Once you have all of your expenses laid out, all remaining cash goes to your highest interest-rate debt (I normally suggest the smallest balance, but the interest rates and balances are so high here it might make more of a difference that most cases). Once the cash runs out, stop spending.


• Pay minimum payments on all other debts. Do not skip payments unless you're already in default.

Once you determine how much per month you can pay towards debts, you can figure out how long it will take you to pay them off. Don't expect any quick solutions. Your debt has been building up over time; there's no reason to expect to get rid of it quickly.

Some things you can do to jump-start your journey:

• Sell the car. Use the proceeds to get a cheap car that you can pay for in cash.


• Sell other stuff. Anything you can sell online will help you get out of debt sooner.


• Get extra work. You can probably find part-time work that pays $1-2,000 per month.

You need to change the way you think. First, understand compounding. Not just intellectually, but viscerally. You need to develop an aversion to spending borrowed money.

A debt with 22% APR doubles every 38 months.

Every dollar you pay down your debt, cuts the total length of time you will be paying that horrible interest. Every $1 you spend now increases your time to get out of debt, and costs you around $3.70 if it takes you 6 years to get debt free.

Take a look at graphs of compounding interest. They're designed to excite you about saving, but debt grows exponentially too. That should scare you. Set one of those graphs in front of you until it does.

Then, use your intellectual knowledge of compounding to change your real-world behavior. Learn to turn price tags into what it will actually cost you, by multiplying by 3.70. That $150 favor you do paying car insurance for a friend actually costs you $555. Every month. You are out $750 for your relatives in your home country to receive $200. The $2 cup of coffee costs you $8 (don't forget sales tax!). The $7 lunch costs you $28. Splitting a night out with your friends is costing them $150 each, but you're out $550!

But lucky for you, you've got a place to put money where you don't get back only 1/3.7 of its value -- your debts. They work in reverse. Where lunch will have you paying $28 for a meal worth $7, every extra $10 you throw at your credit card debt puts $37 into future-you's pocket.

Start seeing the things you spend money on with their true, just-for-you price tags, and you'll find saying no to waste and eating pasta at home at lot more compelling.

The best part is that if you do change your thinking like this, D Stanley's estimate that you could be out of $66k debt in under 2 years, and back to living life normally, paying for things at the same price everyone else gets, is 100% possible.