I've been in our company stock purchase plan for about 4 years now. I have just increased my stock purchase amount again, to 7%. I've been thinking of ways to decrease my debt and get my bills paid off, but with as many credit cards as we have with balances, it's tough to put a dent in them. When we visit my wife's family, the $1,000+ in plane tickets has to go on credit. When we board the dogs for that 2 weeks, again, I don't have the cash to pay for that so it has to go on credit, too. It's a vicious cycle that started before my wife and I got married then perpetuated once we bought a house and had no furniture, no TV, remodeled the kitchen, etc.

SO...I was lamenting to a buddy of mine I work with and he suggested I sell my stock. I was hesitant at first becuase that's for my retirement. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I can't guarantee what my company's stock value will be in 20 or 30 years. But I know what I paid now and what I can get for it. So I sold 200 shares of it and have a little over $17K sitting in my account that I'll be able to withdraw in a couple of days. I'm going to pay off our car (that'll free up $500 a month) and remodel our bathroom with the money (it's been a concrete floor and walls down to the studs for a couple of years now becuase we didn't have the cash to pay for it to get done). I paid off 2 other credit cards in the last couple of months and am going to start putting $750 a month onto a card and get it paid off (since I have some cash freed up now). Only 4 more cards to go. I told my wife I was going to put all our cards in a pile and burn them. It's tough to manage the bills sometimes when 2 people have different spending habits.

1. Set aside $1000 for a baby emergency fund. It's not for leather couches, it's for unforeseable events that happen in life.
2. Rank order your debts from smallest to largest by total payoff amount. Start at the top of the list, and pay off as many of them as you can get through with the remaining $16,000.
3. Each time a debt is removed from the list, take the payment associated with that debt plus any other money you can scrape together monthly and attack the next debt on the list. When that one is paid off, take it's payment and any other money you can scrape together and attack the next one. Right on down the line. Get mad. Get in attack mode. This debt is keeping you from having a bathroom in your house. Get mad about that.
4. Get on the same page with your wife money-wise. Sit down at the top of the month with the TV off and decide where the money is going to go. All of it. Start with food, shelter (rent/mortgage), clothing (the stuff you're wearing is fine for a while), transportation (car payment, gas, insurance, maintenance), and utilities (water, power, gas). Now that you're going to eat, have a warm place to sleep, and a way to get to work, you take the rest of the money and decide how it's going to be spent. You make it behave. You come to an agreement with your wife on how the money will be spent and by so doing, you've agreed on your hopes, dreams and fears as a couple. You write that down on a piece of paper. Then you agree that it's an important trust issue between you and that neither of you will spend any money that's not on the paper. The paper is The Boss. You'll stink at it for a couple of months, because you've been living essentially without controls your whole life. That makes you a Normal American. Work through the errors together. Decide together what changes to make to the plan, but you CANNOT spend more than you make. Ever again. And if that means you can't board the dogs and fly off to Wherever Land, well, you don't go.

You did the right thing cashing out stock to get out of debt. You wouldn't borrow a bunch of money on credit cards in order to buy stock. That's the decision you were, in effect, making without consciously making that decision. Now it's a matter of changing your financial lifes forever. Money can either be one of the best areas of communication in a marriage, or one of the worst.

I think you made a good choice. Get out from under paying ANY interest that you can, even if you have to do by selling your stock. In conjunction with getting out from under paying Interest......do what you can to change your spending habits. Once you get your card paid off.....don't put anything on them that you can't pay off the next month. Your credit rating will go up and you'll avoid paying interest or getting yourself in a situation where you have to sell something else to get out from under it.

Just my $.02.

I think you are doing the right thing.

--Sk

Get mad. Get in attack mode. This debt is keeping you from having a bathroom in your house. Get mad about that.

Dorkfish..... In all seriousness, I found your post to be very informative, and I gave you your second green block for that.

However, I couldn't help but laugh out loud at work when I read that shit above. :lol

"you don't have a bathroom in your house. Get mad."

I think you're making a wise decision. Just make sure that $17000 you're talking about is after tax. You don't want to forget about Uncle Sam's share even if you don't want to pay.

unless they with-held what you will owe in cap gains (assuming the value went up since you bought it) make sure you figure out what it is going to cost you in taxes at the end of the year and keep that handy. otherwise you will find out what the irs is like as a creditor!

unless they with-held what you will owe in cap gains (assuming the value went up since you bought it) make sure you figure out what it is going to cost you in taxes at the end of the year and keep that handy. otherwise you will find out what the irs is like as a creditor!

I made a 63% return on my investment for what I paid for the stock v. what I sold it for (employee stock purchase discount is a great thing!) This is only the 2nd month that we've been without the car payment but I haven't been able to put any extra money against the credit cards. We've been buying some stuff that we were putting off becuase we didn't want to charge it. But the cool thing is, now instead of charging the stuff we need, we're paying cash. So the "vicious cycle" has already been broken. I also transferred 2 of the 4 credit cards ($8,600) onto a 0% credit card with no annual fee. That alone will save me at least $900 in the next year in interest. I just got another 0% for one year offer in the mail last night and am going to check it out and see if I can transfer the remaining 2 card balances onto it (that'll be around $11,000 and save me over $1,000 in interest in the next year). Then when I send my payments in, I'm actually paying balance only...not balance and monthly interest. I already called and cancelled one of the 2 cards I transferred the balance off of and we're not using cards for anything. I can't wait until we get that stuff paid off! :punk

I made a 63% return on my investment for what I paid for the stock v. what I sold it for (employee stock purchase discount is a great thing!) This is only the 2nd month that we've been without the car payment but I haven't been able to put any extra money against the credit cards. We've been buying some stuff that we were putting off becuase we didn't want to charge it. But the cool thing is, now instead of charging the stuff we need, we're paying cash. So the "vicious cycle" has already been broken. I also transferred 2 of the 4 credit cards ($8,600) onto a 0% credit card with no annual fee. That alone will save me at least $900 in the next year in interest. I just got another 0% for one year offer in the mail last night and am going to check it out and see if I can transfer the remaining 2 card balances onto it (that'll be around $11,000 and save me over $1,000 in interest in the next year). Then when I send my payments in, I'm actually paying balance only...not balance and monthly interest. I already called and cancelled one of the 2 cards I transferred the balance off of and we're not using cards for anything. I can't wait until we get that stuff paid off! :punk

Congratulations just make sure that you can get the cards paid off before the 0% expires because the back interest is a bitch...also, try and put some money away into cash because you are living fat right now but unless you have some savings long term it is easy to end up back where you started...not trying to preach I have just seen it happen! Keep up the good work!:cheers :cheers