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Pokoloco

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Posts posted by Pokoloco

  1. 3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

    I’m skipping a good deal of posts, but upon reflection I’d think that you need to solve your immediate and acute problem first. And if borrowing against your home equity does that, it should be looked at. Then things get stabilized and you can look at how to work on that additional debt secured by your home. 
     

    stop the bleeding, then worry about the healing. 

    Great advice from everyone. I appreciate all our your input.  This is how we're leaning right now.

    • Like 1
  2. 1 hour ago, luke duke said:


    Your wife needs to earn more money. She’s supposed to be your partner. Unless she has tattoos on her face, she should be able to find an office job that pays $30-50K/yr.

    No, she's still hot.. too hot to be dealing with this nonsense. She needs to find someone who can take care of her while she's still got it. 😆

  3. 3 hours ago, orange dream said:

     

    Is the son, spawn of both you and your wife, or just you and an ex?

    We've been married 33 years, he's ours. He is a perfect mix of her brother and my dad. It's crazy. We think kids come out as blank slates we can make into what we want. They have dna programmed and sometimes it's tough to overcome that.

    • Hook 'Em 2
    • Like 1
  4. 18 hours ago, Muny_Tex said:

    First off, you seem like a good person and I'm sorry for everything that happened.

    There is some useful directional advice above, but I think you may be missing an element of number-crunching before determining your final COAs.

    Now that things are back to "normal" (based on the at short-term closure of your son's situations), what is your actual current monthly cash-flow surplus after accounting for all overhead bills, gas/insurance, food, discretionary purchases, and of course, existing debt service costs

    You mentioned familiarity with Dave Ramsey, which would indicate you're pretty well-versed in the mechanics of actual/no-shit/budgeting and hopefully keep pretty close track of inflows/outflows on a monthly basis.  If not, the FIRST THING I would do is start fresh on February 1 and track, log, audit every single penny that you and your wife spend (no matter how small) and organize those expenses into spreadsheet format in relation to your take-home-pay (based on current taxes + 401k contributions).  Assuming you both have pretty steady income, you can then amortize (based on February's results) exactly how much "progress" is feasibly possible on an annual basis based on status quo expenditures.

    Based on your apparent frugality, there may not be much low-hanging fruit for cutting back spending, but if you're already running something like a $3K surplus per month then it's really not that much of a crisis and you can confidently roll into restructuring/reservicing based on variety of calculations cost/benefit comparisons.

    Conversely, if you're only able to "save" like a grand per month (or less) then I think you need to take a more holistic look at your financial situation (and yes, housing situation) if your wife is truly incapable/unwilling to contribute additional income.  I don't know how old your other kids are, but I kind of struggle with your wife's expectation of having a fully paid-off "family size" house if the long-term use case is only for her to live there on her own-ish once you are dead.  But we can drill down on that further once we obtain some more data regarding your go-forward cash flow situation.

    If you are truly cash-deficient, then I would also consider/explore some strategic defaults on several of those credit cards (depending on how the balances are spread out currently) before knocking out huge balances with a 401k loan.  I'm not an expert in this area, but I would presume you could do a 2-3 month default and then negotiate a chargeoff payment (or way lower interest rate?) to clear the balance and move-on.  This will obviously impact your short-term credit rating, but may be well worth the cumulative benefit especially if you don't foresee a need for new financing any time soon (note: obviously you would do this after your HELOC/REFI or whatever is decided for/against). 

    Nuclear option would also be to roll the dice on a balls-deep, across the board default, and then just change your cell phone numbers and let the chips fall where they may with the collections + civil judgments.  While I consider this to be a generally unethical action, but a case could be made that it's not as scummy since you used the money for terrible legal nightmare (as opposed to opulent bullshit), but that's between you and God.  Also fair to mention that nobody forced these card companies to issue unsecured debt in the first place, and perhaps our whole country would be in way better shape with respect to inflation + financial well-being if they did not extend such enormous credit lines at usurious rates that don't really lead anywhere else than moral hazard in most cases.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    We're running at a $1300/month deficit right now after everything.  Our monthly CC payments have ballooned to $2916.50/mo, mortgage is $1521.86/mo.

    We have 3 kids,  22 year old is the youngest and in school.

     

  5. 51 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    I understand this opinion and it's my first inclination in having a family member in prison but I've come to learn that prisons give very little to prisoners. You get soap, clothes and a toothbrush. You want toothpaste or deodorant you have to buy it at the commissary. At least in Texas.

    He had to buy a pillow and bowls, plates, etc.  Also, they hit you for 10% when you add anything to his account. Crazy.

    22 minutes ago, thunderlounge said:

    So add more debt, on top of the 90k?

     

    week wife GIF

    Same debt, just restructured.

  6. 38 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    Not that you're asking but I had a nephew who would constantly hit up my mom (his grandma) for commissary money. I forced my mom to put him on a monthly allowance that was sent via jpay the same day each month. I didn't want my mom getting random calls for money. 

    Sorry that you and your wife are going through this.

    This is his first time in real prison, not sure what to expect.  We have 2 other kids, both solid citizens, never gave us trouble. He was our oldest and we missed the signs of mental illness all along. We would always say, ah, normal teenager- he'll out grow it etc..   oof.

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  7. 48 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

    Thanks for the info; sorry to hear about your son’s issues. 
     

    I’d take the $49k 401k loan and put it directly towards the credit card principal. Then I’d try and roll the remaining $40k credit card debt to a low interest credit card. The interest rate on the 401k loan will be a lot lower than the current CC interest rate. 
     

    If your wife could go from $7k a year to $20-30k a year that would give you more breathing room on paying down the debt. Even if it’s only for 2 years. 

    Thank you, good advice here.

    She hates her job now. No way is she going to get one with a $20-30K responsibility.  I spoiled here for too long. 

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    • Like 1
  8. 13 minutes ago, DalTxHornFan said:

    I had a cousin who went down that path.  His Momma was always glad when he was incarcerated.  She could sleep well at night not worrying about him getting into more trouble!  The family had to cut him loose financially regarding bail or lawyers after a couple of trips to Huntsville.

    He's hitting us up for commissary now. Also phone calls aren't free.  

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    • Like 1
  9. 17 hours ago, Firemans4Horn said:


     

    Man, I don’t want to go full Dave Ramsey but is going on here?

    Make some lifestyle adjustments, reduce your spending, and free up cash flow to pay down credit card debt. Otherwise you’ll be in this situation again in the future. 


    Options in the shorter term: Look for a new credit card that has a limited time low interest period if you roll over your balance

    No Intro Interest Credit Cards

    HELOC and 401(k) loans as discussed above. Stop contributing to your 401k plans (beyond the company match) until the CC is paid off.

    I couldn’t tell from your initial post but based on your wives desire to pay down the house are you guys making extra payments to the house every month? If so, stop that immediately and put that towards credit cards.

    If you drive expensive cars, I’d sell them. Drive a low cost, paid off car. 

    Expensive gifts or vacation on the horizon? Cancelled until the CC is paid off.

     

     

    Been living the Dave Ramsey life.. We both drive old cars 2006 and 2008.

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    • Like 2
  10. We're not making extra payments on the mortgage.  We had a 15 year, my wife has never really worked since we had the kids, she has a part time job now and makes about $7000 a year. After all the potluck lunches and chipping in for gift baskets and other woman bullshit at her job, she brings home a lot less. 

     She wants to make sure she has a house free and clear when I'm dead in the next 20 years.  

    • Hook 'Em 1
  11. 12 hours ago, elfenix said:

    are you in texas? file bankruptcy.  home equity is exempt as is the 401k.  if you can sneak into a 7 instead of getting means tested into a 13 it's almost painless. 

     

    note: this is friendly advice i ain't your lawyer and i ain't seen your actual shit.

    Oklahoma.

  12. 19 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

    So Poko does a drive by and in the meantime, we assume that he can't control a budget, needs a HELOC, is paying off his mortgage quickly, he should declare bankruptcy, and family members aren't paying him back for drug lawyers.  

    Yeah, we kept throwing money at my son from College days to drug lawyers, to DUI lawyers... he's 30 now and will be a guest of the state of Oklahoma for a while.

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  13. Due to family circumstances we got ourselves into about 90K in CC debt.  I have a good job, have 500K in a 401K,  equity in our home at 250K. I've been making payments on everything for a while, with interest rates high, cashflow has become an issue.  My wife is hell bent on getting the house paid off, so she doesn't want me to refi the first. We have 24 months left to get it paid off. 

    Any suggestions?  

  14. On 1/17/2024 at 7:34 AM, Parliament said:

    I like that finale.  We got a 40 minute epilogue.  Season 2 did the same.  

    ETA

    Texans would be appalled by what northerners call "chili."

    The Lyons said a Catholic prayer before dinner.  Dot offering Munch the biscuit was her offering him Communion.

    Keanu Reeves Reaction GIF

  15. On 1/16/2024 at 1:10 PM, C-Man said:

    This is a good take.

    I'd also argue that while Gen X is the smallest of the generations in existence today we've got an inordinate number of the "classic" HS-era, coming-of-age films because the 80's was jam-packed with them. It was movie upon movie upon movie. John Hughes was a big part of that.

    • Fast Times at Ridgemont High
    • Sixteen Candles
    • The Breakfast Club
    • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    • Pretty In Pink
    • Weird Science
    • Less Than Zero
    • Heathers
    • Porky's
    • Better Off Dead
    • Risky Business
    • Can't Buy Me Love
    • Back to the Future (though I guess you could give this one to Boomers)
    • Teen Wolf
    • Private School
    • Valley Girl
    • Some Kind of Wonderful
    • Footloose
    • Summer School
    • Dead Poet's Society
    • Red Dawn
    • The Outsiders (see Back to the Future note)
    • Just One of the Guys
    • Three O'Clock High

    Add Secret Admirer and a young hot Kelly Preston to the list.

  16. 56 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

    I was thinking about how dumb it was of her to leave the gun out, and how it's out of character.

    But is it?  Dot has done dumb shit this whole time.  Refusing to accept help that could EASILY bring Roy down, while constantly lying about what's going on when it's completely obvious that she's trapped in said lie.  She is an absolute badass, but she's also had a dipshit streak running through the character all season.  It's really not that inconsistent with her character to just give them an easy chance to kill her.

    Yeah, she is a badass through fighting for sheer survival, but she was very young when Roy got her and I think she still has some naiveté. Still makes dumb mistakes/decisions.

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