Dollar$ and $en$e: We are drowning in debt

We are drowning in debt.

And it's so depressing.

We tried to cut back and live on cash, we don't go out all that often, cancelled any and all plans for travelling unnecessarily...and guess what...?!

Stuff still ends up on VISA, and the debt is going no where!

It's so depressing, to sit down and review the past few months and realize that despite your best intentions-what you are doing just isn't working anymore.

We're starting to look at anything else we can cut back (and trust me-there isn't much), we are looking at cashing in the few savings (RRSP's) we do have to pay off the debt (and trust me-there isn't much, especially after those fees)...oh yes, and I am dragging out my wedding dress and letting that go to the highest bidder.

Yet, it hardly feels like it's going to do anything-why?!

We are just under a whopping 60K in consumer debt and it has been growing-not shrinking. Which is frustrating because we don't have a lavish lifestyle by any means. That number by the way, doesn't include our 88K mortgage. Now that is the scariest thing of all...we owe 68% of our mortgage amount---on CONSUMER DEBT! YUCK.

We could have 1+ 2/3 of our home with the debt we have incurred.

Those of you who don't have debt-bravo.
Those of you acquiring-STOP NOW before you get where we are.

I sat at the kitchen table and bawled my eyes out after looking at the numbers-in red. Being almost 7 months pregnant doesn't help, because while the obvious thing would be to go and make more money, we are talking about putting my 15 month old in daycare and my working for...maybe 2 months?!

My reality...after losing the RRSP's, the wedding dress, the few 'frills' we have less, I am now looking at losing time with my children well before my year of (unpaid) maternity.

If I could have done it all over again, I would have-in a heart beat. Don't make the same mistake and leave it until you hit rock bottom-because rock bottom, it hurts.

Dollar$ & $en$e-Credit Cards

What's in your wallet?

Seriously?

Take a look. How many cards do you have in there?

Okay, so we have one. After a lot of hard work we have it down to $0, which is great because the interest is ridiculous-19.99%.

Which got me thinking about why we have this type of card to begin with, with the interest being so high...

Ah yes, rewards. Specifically travel rewards.

Okay, so there are some people out there that are great at using rewards. They live places where they can shop and use their cards and points to their full advantage. They also know how to 'work the system'.

We are not those people. At all.

Part of it just being lazy (I'm totally fine with admitting that) but a huge part is the fact that we really don't shop much if we can help it, and our town only has one grocery store (not a lot of options here).

So we have this card. We are paying $110+ annual fees for keeping this card, with the purpose of using it for travel rewards...only...we have NEVER, EVER, used it for travel since we've had it.

Actually we have never cashed in on any points. Despite years of using it, we only have about $300.00 towards travel.

Yeah, we bought into the hype of "Oh, the places you'll go".

Sound familiar?

If you, like us, are carrying a credit card with high interest + an annual fee and aren't using the point system-stop.

Why are you paying MORE money to have 'special' credit that you are also going to pay interest on when you aren't even using the points to make it worth it?

Don't allow yourself to fall into the 'points trap'. Take a look at the fine print, find out what your points are costing you. Find out what you have to spend to make it worth it. If the numbers don't add up-you know what to do.


I plan on making a call first thing Tuesday morning (being that Monday is a holiday) to get us into a no or low annual fee with low interest...after I use up the few points we have managed to rack up of course.

Update: Made an apointment for May 31st with Scotia-will let you know how it went.
Update: Just got back from our apointment. Cashed in our points for 2X $100 Gas gift cards and then switched to a No-fee Moneyback Card. This was a great choice for us...the interest is 3% less than our rewards card, no annual fee, and cash back on a certain % of our purchases annually. Thanks Scotia!