Posted on 06/27/2014 10:12:31 PM PDT by rjbemsha
Two weeks before Christmas of 2004, Kandy Hildebrandt opened a letter addressed to her husband Russ, at his request. The letter revealed that her husband had a personal loan of $17,500. They sat down to talk about it: Russ also had 11 credit cards totaling $89,000 in debt. “He handled the personal finances,” she says. “I knew we had several credit cards, but I was unaware of the extent of our debt.”
The finance charges on the credit cards alone were $1,593 a month – double their $750 monthly rent in New Richmond, Wis. The Hildebrandts knew they needed to change their lives. But unlike many people in their situation, they actually did.
Kandy, 48, and Russ, 52, celebrated five years being debt-free this week. They made their first payment on their debt management plan in March 2005 and their last payment on June 24, 2009. “After paying everything off with interest, we paid over $125,000,” she says.
(Excerpt) Read more at sg.finance.yahoo.com ...
Faith saw them through. Kandy: "We are Christians ... Even though we were strapped financially, we never quit giving at our local church."
.
Hildebrandt: We had dinner out.
MarketWatch: Where did you go?
Hildebrandt: It’s not too extravagant, but it’s what we like: Pizza Ranch.
This tells me it is a true story. People often think "once I get out of debt, I'll splurge and take a vacation" or some such thing. No, not if you actually do it. I once charged too much on a card due to an emergency, and had to stop and do nothing until it was paid off. By the time it was paid off, I valued that zero balance more than any other reward I could have given myself. the zero balance was the reward. And I have never gotten into trouble again.
Ugh, not another story about Bill & Hillary Clinton!
and they got out of debt without a govt bailout!
I’m sure big businesses, Obama and the GOP will be knocking at their door for advice...
Good story bump
Live on 1 salary if you can. Save the 2nd one.
Example: $20,000 take home pay for the 2nd salary x 5 years = $100,000 savings. Invest in stocks while doing this. In 10 years $200,000. Most people spend all they can. When I got a new job several years ago I got a $11,000 pay raise from the last one. I thought I was going to be rich. Yep I kept spending that extra money.
I did manage to save some and currently invest in stock which has helped a great deal.
they only did 1/2 of a hillary speech?
With many credit cards charging 18 percent interest or more there is a huge reward in achieving a zero balance.
If anyone doubts me all they have to do is read that line on their credit card statement that tells how long it will take you to pay off your balance if you make only the minimum payment each month. Then a simple calculation will tell you how much that credit card balance is costing you.
Isn't that a odd way to phrase it? The lady left the workforce as it is commonly understood, period.
1. They got in serious financial trouble so they decided to have another baby. (??)
2. How did he run up $89k on credit cards? What did he buy with it? If he can’t answer that, he’ll probably go right back to it.
You would have to be a very superficial person to value the contribution of a person, especially a mother, only by the financial compensation that accrues to it.
God bless this couple. They must have loved one another and their children very much. They were foolish to accrue all that debt, they were wise and prudent to crawl out.
I had a similar situation. I made (and make) more than enough to live on, but I left our finances up to may wife because she was a bookkeeper before we were married. After ten years our finances were so screwed up, and we had so much debt, that I had to take over. It only took a few months to get to the point were we could we pay our bills and live reasonably, and after about four years, we were actually “flush” enough to add an attached garage and buy new cars. We would never have done that if I had left my wife in charge of our finances.
This was a very inspiring story.
Read what I wrote again. I didn’t say that what a woman does at home is not important, I just pointed out that it was oddly worded since “workforce” is commonly understood to be the “outside” employment for which one is compensated. Perhaps you don’t grasp that piece of semantics.
And I don’t kindly to your insult, either.
I said "sweetheart, I agree but don't you think you're a little old to take on a second job?"
I’m with you. Why posters here have to trash and diminish this couple’s achievement is beyond me.
How did they incur that much debt? One charge at a time. I’m not being flippant. She answers the question in the article. Like so many families, they lived beyond their means and covered daily life with plastic. They had a skewed view of what necessities are. It’s amazing what happens when we experience a real paradigm shift in our thinking. The interviewer mentions “reasonable” temptations. She responds “Needs and wants are very subjective”. A lot of power in that simple response.
As someone who has gone through something similar, I can guarantee they will never go back into debt. We had a small business go belly up, owed the KGB..er..IRS, and state taxes. Had a couple of car loans, medical, etc. No credit cards, thank goodness. That totaled north of 100K. We had one income of less than 50K. We paid it off in about 4 years (thanks Dave!) and will NEVER go back. Our income more than doubled as we worked through the debt. I truly believe that God sees someone being good stewards and provides more resources to manage.
LOL!
I apologize, sincerely and without reservation. I did not mean to imply that you were the kind of person who did not value the contributions or those whose labor is outside the “workforce”.
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