Author Topic: On the cusp of a new life with fiance -- wedding, debt, career and moving abroad  (Read 1579 times)

mollycg

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 2
  • Age: 31
  • Location: Seattle, WA, USA
    • Personal Website
Hello MMM forum! Been a blog reader for a while but have never posted in the forum yet. I'm somewhat of a finance geek but currently studying economics on a larger scale in my spare time. I'm 25, engaged (wedding is 11/1/2019), in a blossoming career post-college and of course as an American in 5 figure student debt despite going to college for "free." My lifelong dream has been to move abroad -- I majored in international studies, lived in Spain for a semester, I speak Spanish, some Japanese and German, I do international marketing and business development... you see where this is going.

My (small but growing) company has opened a regional office in Hamburg, Germany and while my bosses are supportive of my voiced desire to work at that office, there are a lot of other things going on taking their attention so it may not be for another year or so. (I don't really understand why, but I'm also pretty new to the full-time workforce. I don't want to accidentally irritate them. I love my job and I see a raise in the near future.) I think we could live much more frugally outside of Hamburg with me taking a train to work than here in rush-hour-infested, limited public transport range Seattle.

My fiance is nearly finished with his commission in the Navy -- he is a US Naval Academy grad in aerospace engineering. While he literally got paid to go to college, he has some significant credit card debt and a student loan debt he somehow took out despite the first part of this sentence. The answer may be that he is a "car guy" and bought a Jeep Wrangler around that time. Today he has since sold it and owns a 1976 Jeep J10 pickup, which is really cool except... wait for it... it doesn't run. He sometimes gets it to run but then it breaks down again. I literally paid for a shop to fix it for his Christmas present last year and it broke AGAIN.

He's trying to sell it (pending it running) and the truck he then bought to haul parts/tow the first one (an old Dodge pickup) but he hasn't been successful for many months. Before raising pitchforks at my lovely husband to be, please note that he's had a recent diagnosis of Bipolar II and as a depression survivor/in remission I heavily empathize. It destroys one's motivation for stuff like personal finance/household activities/anything, really. He is in treatment, but it is a process. I wish I could sell the cars for him but I know nothing about cars.

OK, so another thing on my agenda is to move closer to where I work. We live close to the naval station where he works since I didn't have a job when we first got here. We live in the Seattle area, and I work closer to the city. I want to move, but my goal was to be able to take public transportation to my job, but any way I see it it's at least a 1.5 hour multiple bus ride to get to my office, plus the stop is at the bottom of a really big hill on which my office campus is located. So I may have to continue using our (used, 2008) Prius unless I can somehow bike there, which would still need us to be much closer than we are. (My commute is 30 minutes if I'm LUCKY.)

My questions, after this novel:

1. How badly do we need to sell these trucks prior to moving? (Is taking a hit on sale price worth it?)
2. Should we move (in Seattle)? Should it be ASAP? (We currently pay $2000/month on rent which disgusts me. Lease ends this July.)
3. Should we just save the money from selling the cars, not move, and try to move to Germany faster instead? (I can try and work with my bosses on this one.) If we move in Seattle, we're stuck in a year lease most likely which puts off the move to Europe but gives us more time to save for it.

Disclaimers:
1. I'm working with fiance and paying off credit card debts ASAP. I already knocked out 1/3 cards. (I manage all finances so it's with our income money combined.)
2. Student loans are next, of course. Both are very low interest as they're both through the government.
3. Our goal is truly financial independence. I think it would be very beneficial for future husband's health/well-being and he is supportive, yet cautious about the various bumps we currently face. That being said, he's also a procrastinator.

Syonyk

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4610
    • Syonyk's Project Blog
Those trucks aren't worth much at all, especially in "not-running" or "barely-running" condition.  Don't expect much out of them, especially in the Seattle metro area.  If they're low rust, you can probably get more by listing them on eBay and selling them to someone in a more rural area who's willing to pay for shipping.

If you think $2k/mo is bad rent, you haven't looked in Seattle proper.  You'd probably be 50-100% higher for something comparable in the Seattle Shithole.

How many miles is the commute?  The least-awful way I found to get around there was an electric bike (before I moved away).  Rad Power Bikes makes some really nice ones, they're local, and the prices are very reasonable.

mollycg

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 2
  • Age: 31
  • Location: Seattle, WA, USA
    • Personal Website
Thanks for the eBay idea. I will bring that up to him. I'm definitely not expecting much return on the trucks. The biggest return will be losing the threat of them being a money pit.

Believe it or not, I've found some decently located townhouses around where we want for under 2k. And the e-bike thing is on my radar especially if I can land a rental in the aforementioned area and price range. Unlikely, yes, but so far I've been able to find listings on craigslist, etc.