I’m new here, I’ve been reading MMM for a little while and now I’m at a point where I can’t see which way is up, so I’m asking for advice.
My wife is up for a promotion. She’s been told she has the job, we are waiting for the paperwork to get sorted before she begins. Currently she makes under $20,000 a year as a waitress. This new jobs starts at $42,000.
She is 23 and I am 26.
We are getting $8,800 back from our tax return. (The only time being low income with children has it’s perks)
We pay $766 a month for our car payment and insurance. (HUGE mistake, we just bought the car in October so we still have just under $18,000 on it at about 16% interest. So dumb, dumb, dumb!)
We pay about $400 a month for everything else. We have two roommates. One of which is my ex-husband which is causing the dilemma we are in.
We have about $40,000 in student loans combined.
We have no savings. We have been making some really bad money choices and we are working on fixing that.
Our lease is up in April and we have two options. Option one is to get a bigger house with our two roommates, continue to split the bills and take all the extra money we will have coming in and use it to pay off our car loan within the next year. This is a very attractive option only because our monthly living expenses will be so low thus allowing us to use almost all of her income to pay off debt. This, however, does come with a price and that is living with my ex husband has taken a huge toll on our relationship, as I’m sure anyone with an ex can imagine. He and I don’t really get along well anymore, so there is tension all around. Its not good for anyone, including our kids together.
Option two is for her and I to get our own place. This would leave us about the same amount a month left over that we currently have since our monthly expenses would go up dramatically. We wouldn’t be able to pay down debt as quickly, but we would have our own autonomy as a couple and family unit. Monetarily this option isn’t appealing, but from a quality of life stand point it seems like heaven.
Either way, we will have to get a different place. Our current house isn’t big enough (legally) for the 6 of us to live in. So there will be deposits and what not for that.
I know we are in a weird situation and if it wasn’t my ex-husband we lived with the answer would be obvious. But because it IS my ex-husband it makes it difficult.