All Forum Posts by: Ami Sapir

Frank,

I looked into it and i'm not sure the whole process is worth losing the equity we have in the house. I know that this will sound insane but i feel like paying off these credit cards as they are is going to be the "lumps" that we need to go through to get on the right track. 

Corby,

I appreciate your responding.

Is ditching a car lease an option without further damaging my credit? As of right now the only issue with my credit is maxing out the limits, I have never missed a payment or defaulted.

Jieh,

Thanks for your response.

I wish I could downsize the house but that is the one red line that my wife will not cross. She understands the logic but will not budge and I know better than messing with my Colombian wife when she draws a line. We have agreed that once the leases on our cars are up in about 18 months we will go with a reliable used car. I'm going to check out the blog you suggested, i figure money not spent is as good as money earned.

Matt,

Thanks for responding.

Regarding the balance transfers I'm not sure that i want to try to qualify for more credit at this point. Part of it is the fact that i don't want to end up digging a deeper hole. I have started to sign up for meetups and REIAs and hope to get myself "out there" in a couple of weeks and really begin my education.

My name is Ami and I have made a pretty  big mess of things. Here are some details of my life:

- Sales Manager of a sales team in the IT universe earning about $85k/yr

- Wife has an office job paying her $60k/yr

- We owe $304k on a SFH worth $350k in Forest Park IL

- We lease two cars for $682/month

- We have $43,000 in high interest consumer credit card debt

- Our monthly expenses total about $6500/month all in not including debt repayment

Up until my eyes being opened I thought they we were living the American Dream and had a bright future ahead of us. Then I actually started to look at our future. Once I really looked I realized that we were fooling ourselves and headed for ruin or becoming a burden to our children one day, we decided to completely change our ways.

We have recently gotten a hold on our spending and have started very aggressively paying down our credit card debt (using the avalanche technique) and putting all available funds and any bonuses I make into becoming debt free or the consumer debt. We estimate that it will take us 24-30 months.

We will then take 12 months to build up our initial $25k that Scott Trench suggests in Set For Life (an amazing read)

Once we have the $25k ramp up money we intend on starting to build positive cash flow through BRRRRing and actively looking for cash flowing small multifamily homes.

The eventual goal (as is for everyone here) is to achieve Financial Freedom within 10-15 years.

We intend on spending the next two years during our debt repayment period educating ourselves on every aspect of this amazing world that you are all in. Our goals are to learn from and meet:

- People that have succeeded in REI

- Realtor to work with

- Contractors to work with

- Real Estate Investors

- Real Estate professionals (Lawyer, Accountant, Title etc.)

In the mean time we are learning to analyze deals so once we are free of our debt we can hit the ground running.

ALL THAT BEING SAID I MIGHT BE (AND PROBABLY AM) COMPLETELY WRONG AND OUR PLAN MIGHT BE CRAP. 

I love learning from the people who have come before me and I know in my heart that many different roads can lead to Financial Freedom. What I am hoping for is for different opinions and perspectives on our path, this community amazes me and I feel lucky to have found it.

Thank you all for reading this horribly long post

@Lumi Ispas, thank you for the welcome. I have begun looking in Forest Park and other nearby neighborhoods. Any pointers that you may have will be greatly appreciated. In return I want to be of benefit to you (no strings attached) so please let me know what i can do.

thank you all for the kind words

Bryce,

I'm new here as well and it looks like our interests are similar.  Here's to our future success.

Ami

Kapil,

I am also new here, welcome and hopefully we can both find success.

Ami