All Forum Posts by: Christopher Hall

@JD Martin

It is a 2015 VW Tiguan 47000 miles. 16000 left on loan.

2017 Dodge Journey 22000 miles, 29000 left on loan.

@Jennifer Thompson

I have met with the financial advisor and she is not fond of real estate. She thinks it is risky in most cases. I don’t think that we are necessarily in trouble. I just don’t feel like we are progressing any more. Also I simply don’t like th debt. She did recommend the snowball method that seems to be the most popular debt pay off method and I can see why. The other limiting factor is that we have two children and child care is not cheap. Nearly 1050 a month. I’m just looking for other opinions on our situation from an outside prospective because the internet isn’t emotionally invested in my finances but can still spark some ideas.

@Kyle J.

We are about a year and a half into both car loans. I think we will sell the cheaper one and get as cheap of a reliable car we can. I agree that we are stuck in the more expensive car. I feel like we are near the point where we decide how our lives are going to be either fix it or we tune into the middle class consumer that always has debt. We are trying to be on the same team but there is always the conflicting opinions on how to do it. I have been looking at part time jobs to do but haven’t fully decided what would be best and be flexible with me being military.

@Thomas S.

I am working on commissioning and that would up my income quite a bit but it is a slow process. She wants to teach and isn’t interested in looking at other careers, we’ve talked about it before. I could always try to rehash that though. I am stuck in my enlistment until July of 2022 so it’s either commission or wait until then. That’s why I’m looking at part time jobs that I could do.

Do you have any other specific ideas as far as getting a job or selling the cheaper car?

@Gregory Hiban

I agree and that’s why we are looking at our situation. Everything built up faster than we realized. I have enough to with stand 4 months of vacancy I am working to get that to 6 months. The property that has 550 cash flow also has about 35-40000 in equity and I have contemplated selling it to clean most of our slate. But don’t like the idea of loosing that property. Do I need to loose the property? Or try refinancing and pulling cash out to clean slate and keep rental but obviously with less cash flow?

the post got to long.

and we would be like the average middle class family. That is not my aspiration. I want to scale with rentals and plan to keep acquiring properties as time goes on. I am contemplating taking the time I was spending on school and getting a part time job to generate some extra income. I am also contemplating selling the smaller payment car and buying a junker. My wife isn’t so fond of either idea. She doesn’t want me to get a second job because of time. My job is steady In The air force 730-430 so I could maintain a set schedule normally for a part time job. She doesn’t want to sell the car because she thinks a junker might end up costing more per month if it breaks down etc.

I don’t like the idea of selling the property we have equity in because it is a perfect rental and it’s located in the growing middle TN area and I think it will continue to climb in value and rent rates.

We have curbed extra spending for the most part that led to the credit cards and personal loan. Also those are from before she worked because she was a full time student. So it was tough sticking to just my income at the time. That has now changed though and we are not creating more debt. Just trying to figure out the smartest way to expedite the process.

I would appreciate honest opinions and options of how to enhance my situation while keeping a family balance because we also have two young children. Let me know if you need more specific information about something.

Like a lot of young people have done my wife and I have managed to place a lot of debt on top of ourselves, some of it good some of it bad. My wife is a teacher making 35000 a year. She is a 10 month employee so her paychecks come to 2800ish a month. I am active duty enlisted Air Force, e4 making 3200ish a month. Both of those are after taxes and include both off us putting about 200 a month into a retirement. I just graduated college and am focused on reducing debt and improving our financial situation.

The good:

We own two houses. One that we rent out and make about 550 a month cash flow past fixed expenses. The second we live in now and are going to move out after we have fulfilled the year va requirement for residency. I expect to make about 350 a month past fixed expenses on this one. We hit the year mark in February so I have already marketed the property and am generating interest to support this assumption. Both homes are on a va loan with interest rates less than 4.2%.

We have 6500 cash saved.

We both have 700 plus credit scores and have no negative history.

The bad:

My wife has 45000 in student loans. We have it set on income driven repayment on the 10 year plan where it is forgiven for public service since she is a teacher. Right now the payments are 0 and they qualify as payments. We are about a year into the 10 year plan.

I have 15000 in student loans from before I joined the military. They are not in repayment yet, I just graduated this month but they will be in a few months. I should be able to do the same 10 year plan. At some point though we will be required to make larger payments once her income is used because they use past taxes and she wasn’t working on those yet.

We have two car loans. One is 16000 and the payment is 307. The interest is 4%. Yes it’s a 6 year loan, yes I know that is to long. The car is probably worth 13-14000.

The other is 30,000, yes we were young and bought a brand new car and fully understand this was a bad decision. It’s payment is 470 yes it’s on 6 years too... and the car is probably only worth 21,000. Yes I know that’s bad.

We have about 6000 in credit card debt.

We have a 10,000 dollar personal loan that’s has a payment of 305 and will be paid off in June of 2020.

We make enough to make all payments and is we just continued as normal everything would pay itself off. I feel bad about

Both of my loans are Through the VA. I intend on using conventional for the next one, from my understanding you can get better interest rates with a conventional loan. In a few years once the first house I bought appreciates a little more I will refinance it ( I am trying to avoid paying PMI) and open up some of my VA eligibility to purchase with out paying PMI again.