Be gentle lol

[whogotit]

Introduction: 
My family and I are currently expats living overseas and recently ran into money difficulties.  We were making headway on the debt, and things have changed rather quickly.

Recently we drained our emergency fund and all sinking funds to cover the living expenses for the last 2 months and to pay rent (11k) and we all had to travel back to the states for an comprehensive autism appointment, it was very short notice and the medical providers required prepayment  beforehand.  We don’t have medical insurance back home in the states. Prior to that it was a very frequent car repairs (from being on the road) and all payments were completed in cash. Our medical insurance here changed requiring us to pay more out of pocket fee—and last week DS1 was hospitalized for 3 days with pneumonia .

Here a lot of things require cash payments, full upfront or big installments. This includes housing (bi-annually), school tuition, visas, etc…  Big Expenses like rent are paid in checks. Bouncing a check here will cost you jail time.  We have never bounced a check.

Admission-   We are currently behind on all of our bills.
Honestly I didn’t know where to start. (Some may say;  just  leave)  That takes money, a job, and my DS#2 loves it here.  But that is the plan when debts have been paid, and we have savings.  As of right now we do not have anyone to help us if we move back home.

Current amount of Debt-
 25k in credit card debt (both here and the states)
Student loans-110k (both together)
70k VA debt (currently fighting this with lawyer)
10k of previous medical debt from the states
5K total of other stupid tax stuff
Current Budget –
For this next year we want to pay about 15k total for housing here. That is the most realistic that’s about $1250 per month for here. We also pay $670 for the place in the states

Expenses   Amount   Comment Charity    20    Emergency Fund  BS 1    200    6 month Emergency Fund (sf)    50    Just in case anything happens and we need to go back to the states to live urgently Housing Savings    1250    Electrical  sf   75    Gas             sf   40    Water        sf    75    Phone/Moblie    200   All 3 people Internet   110   no choice lowest package Cable    0   We don’t have it Groceries   500    Resturants/ Fast Food    30   we are on the road a lot Clothing    10    Cleaning and Laundry    5   on special items Kids Transportation    550    DW   110    DH   540     Car License, Car Insurance, Taxes, fees, fines  (sf)   200    Car Replacement  sf    50    Car Maintance sf   50    Medication sf   20    Dentist  sf    25    Eye Doctor sf   5    Doctors sf   50    Life Insurance    160    Renters  (sf) states   20    Tuition DS 1    1800   no free school here for expats ( will turn into a sf for sons college ) Tuition DS 2    1800   no free school here for  expats College Fund (sf)    1166   This will go away after son's first semester in college Karate  DS#1   25    All monthly Debt Payments in states   500    Co op house in states    670    Credit Cards    900    Health Insurance in states for DS#2 for college    150    Childcare/Baby Sitter    0   Oldest Son Toiletries    10    Cosmetrics/ Hair Care    60   haircuts and wife Pet Supplies (turtle)    2    Hoildays and Gifts (sf)    10    Books and Supplies    30   to include wifes teaching supplies Language Tutor    190   we don’t speak the native lanuage its for both of our boys Pocket Money    0   We don’t ever have any Replacement Household items (sf)    10    School Activities (sf)    20    Vacation (sf)    0   We don’t deserve Moving Expenses (sf)    140   will be downsizing in July Rental Car    381   wife refuses to get a car note Kids Allowance    20   DS#1 gets money when he helps his mother with her clients

What my wife is doing about the Debt- working a full time job (teaching) and has 3 clients for tutoring. She is allowed to do this without permission from her employer, she not on the same type visa as myself
What I am doing about the Debt- First, let me say I am prohibited from getting a part time job unless it is under the table. I thought about bouncing at a club but wife is against that….( says it’s not a place a married man should be)  She prefers I help with the housework and things that she can’t do in the house.  Now to what I can do?   I am thinking about a size hustle, flipping items as I tried it before and it would only take (about $300 cost) and made back about 2k from it. The problem however, is getting stuff in a steady supply because the demand is there (this is being worked on as I type).  I also, drive my wife to one of her clients that it’s an 1hour away twice a week.
What DS#1 is doing: He was helping my wife with one of her clients (Which we cancelled last week).  He helps tremendously by watching and playing with his brother and picking him up and dropping him off from school.
What DS#1 is doing: He was helping my wife with one of her clients (Which we cancelled last week).  He helps tremendously by watching and playing with his brother and picking him up and dropping him off from school.
Upcoming Events-
DS#1’s College Tuition (July)
DS#2 Autism Appointments (July)
Downsizing to a smaller place, less expensive place (we want to cut this bill in half (it was about 22k per year)
(Reconnecting of utilities after move)
1st check for rent (It has to be a least 6 months)
Continued medical therapy appointments for DS#2
Special circumstances:
When DS #1 goes to college wife will have to find a new job, which finishes early so that she can pick up or drop off DS1 or not work or stay at home. We looked at potential online teaching jobs for  students. I want to move to a different work site (which is about 20 minutes away) it should have been up and running, but huge construction delays(actually this was the main reason I moved to this area was to already be situated and it has better schools)
Negative Effects:
Money fights, and just plain fights because the wife does not feel that I am doing enough to help the situation, and moving slow. Wife has serious frequent migraines (which came before all this)
 She feels guilty when the kids have something at school and she cannot attend because she is working, (either myself or my oldest attends)
We are out of the house over 13 hours a day
Questions-
The client that she dropped last week were rude, she did not go this week and they are calling her to apologize and go back. I told her not to go back. However, she is considering it? She very focused on paying down the debt and getting money for our oldest son to go college.  The time, energy, aggravation, and money is not worth it in my opinion. Three times the amount of hours is spent on them than what was originally agreed to and they don’t want to pay for the extra hours. Do you think it would be wise to go back. She thinks setting better ground rules would better the situation.


Does anyone see in anywhere in the budget that can we can be changed as we are rebuilding everything. ( We sit here with empty envelopes)
Any other suggestions?

[former player]

I don't see what your income is, which makes it difficult to understand the full picture.  I also don't get why you are living where you are, if you can't make money at it, you can't work, your wife is ill from the stress, the tuition costs for your kids are enormous and you are still paying for a house back in the US you are not living in.

Does your monthly income exceed your monthly expenses, and if so, by how much? You seem to have an immediate cash flow problem, but also an excessive spending problem.  For instance, I don't understand why the whole family had to go to the US for the medical appointment.  Firstly, there was probably somewhere in the English speaking world you could get a cheaper assessment than out of pocket in the States, and secondly it should have been just you plus youngest child going, with your wife staying to work.

I'm not clear on what the total of your transportation expenses is, but I've totalled up $1251 a month on kid transportation, car licence, car replacement, car maintenance and rental car.  Wow.

Expenses
Expenses   Amount   Comment
Charity    20   Cut this out.  Put it back in the budget when you are out of debt.
Emergency Fund  BS 1    200   Use this to pay your bills with.  If you have a future emergency, put it on the credit cards - you don't have the cash flow to keep cash doing nothing
6 month Emergency Fund (sf)    50    Just in case anything happens and we need to go back to the states to live urgently Unless this is a matter of personal safety and you wouldn't be able to use credit cards to get back to the US, use this to pay debt too
Housing Savings    1250   
Electrical  sf   75   
Gas             sf   40   
Water        sf    75   
Phone/Moblie    200   All 3 people What can you do now to make this cheaper?  Stop using data?
Internet   110   no choice lowest package
Cable    0   We don’t have it
Groceries   500   I don't know what this is like for where you are, but you need to be eating like the locals, cooking from scratch and cutting out/down expensive ingredients like meat
Resturants/ Fast Food    30   we are on the road a lot It's now your job to put together cheap and healthy food for the family to eat on the go
Clothing    10   
Cleaning and Laundry    5   on special items Stop wearing the special items
Kids Transportation    550
DW   110   what is this?
DH   540   what is this?
 Car License, Car Insurance, Taxes, fees, fines  (sf)   200   
Car Replacement  sf    50   
Car Maintance sf   50   
Medication sf   20   
Dentist  sf    25   
Eye Doctor sf   5   
Doctors sf   50   
Life Insurance    160   That seems high.
Renters  (sf) states   20   
Tuition DS 1    1800   no free school here for expats ( will turn into a sf for sons college )
Tuition DS 2    1800   no free school here for  expats
College Fund (sf)    1166   This will go away after son's first semester in college
Karate  DS#1   25   
All monthly Debt Payments in states   500   
Co op house in states    670   You are apparently paying $670 plus $20 every month for a house in the US which you are neither occupying nor renting out?  That is stupid.  Can you sell it?

Credit Cards    900   
Health Insurance in states for DS#2 for college    150   
Childcare/Baby Sitter    0   Oldest Son
Toiletries    10   
Cosmetrics/ Hair Care    60   haircuts and wife Learn to cut your own from youtube
Pet Supplies (turtle)    2   
Hoildays and Gifts (sf)    10   
Books and Supplies    30   to include wifes teaching supplies
Language Tutor    190   we don’t speak the native lanuage its for both of our boys If your long term aim is to go back to the States you can cut this out.  If not, the boys can learn from local immersion
Pocket Money    0   We don’t ever have any
Replacement Household items (sf)    10   
School Activities (sf)    20   
Vacation (sf)    0   We don’t deserve
Moving Expenses (sf)    140   will be downsizing in July
Rental Car    381   wife refuses to get a car note
Kids Allowance    20   DS#1 gets money when he helps his mother with her clients

Why will your wife have to give up her job when DS1 goes to college?  If her job is what's keeping you afloat, you need to find some other solution to DS's college transport needs.  Why can't you do it?  Why can't DS1 stay at college later in the day?  Why can't DS1 go to another college?  In another country, even?

Sorry if this is an incoherent reply: I've found your situation a struggle to work through.    Your expenses seem stratospherically high: you are spending $40k a year on your kids' education, $15k a year on transport costs (plus whatever those plane tickets cost) and $30k a year on housing costs (rent plus US house costs).  That's $85k a year on just three budget lines.  A single teacher's salary, even at expat rates, isn't going to cut it at those levels of spending.

The difficult clients: tell them no can do unless they pay full whack plus aggravation money for what they are getting.

[marty998]

I will leave alone what former player as commented on but I too found this difficult to understand.

Where exactly in the world are you? And why does rent have to be paid 6 months in advance?

Do you need $110 internet a month when you have internet on your phones?

I assume you are on some form of spousal visa precluding you from working and your wife has the working visa. Can you negotiate schooling for your kids to be included in your wife's salary package?

Throwing it out there as an "out of the box" option - would it be cheaper for you and the kids to remain at home in the US while your wife works overseas until her job finishes there? At least that way you will also be able to earn an income...

[zinethstache]

nestled in the details "I want to work at a different work site...." Implies he has a job, but not the ability to also do a side hustle, likely a visa restriction.

We do need income details to better understand what is going on.

I am so sorry that all this is happening to you, sometimes life deals out lots of lemons!

The best thing is to remain calm and don't rush anything, each action has a reaction and all that. Hopefully you can pick through all the parts and get going toward a resolution to the situation.

[AMandM]

I'm sorry, this must be overwhelming.  Everything is harder in a foreign country where you are not used to the customs, there is a language barrier, policies and procedures are different, etc.

Kudos to your son for pitching in!

A couple of ideas, please ignore if they don't work in your situation:
Could your kids attend local schools?  When we lived in Germany our kids did that.  They learned German fast! And it was free. This could be a good plan especially if you plan to return to the US relatively soon.

Alternatively, could you homeschool your kids? It would mean decreasing your or your wife's income, but it would save the school fees. (Even if homeschooling is illegal for the locals, it may be legal for expats who are only temporary residents.)

Can you rent out (sublet) your house in the US to generate a bit of income? Depending on the area you might be able to turn a profit, or at least you can reduce your net expenses.

Can you earn money online? If your clients aren't in the same country as you, this seems to fall outside your visa restrictions.  Perhaps you have a skill that can be delivered online, such as skype tutoring.  Or perhaps you can set up jobs that you do at home and deliver online: writing, editing, translation, accounting, programming.

Do you work for a local company or for an international one?  If the latter, could you transfer to a different, cheaper location or perhaps back to the US?

Have you considered moving back to the US as soon as you find a job there?  It's not clear to me whether you are actually losing money right now (in the sense of total expenses being greater than total income). If so, and if you can get a US job that pays more than your life would cost in the US, then the sooner you move the better.

And a more general thought:
Expat life can be very hard on a marriage.  *Everything* is more stressful, and when you and your wife turn to each other for comfort and support, you both find... a stressed-out spouse needing comfort and support!  But expat life can also build exceptional closeness, if you can approach the difficulties as a challenge that you are meeting together. It's really important not to blame each other, but to look for solutions together.  If your wife feels you aren't contributing enough financially, try not to get defensive but instead to come up with ideas together of how to make progress on the situation.

Good luck!

[AMandM]

Another thought:  For the credit cards and other bills based in the US, talk to a credit counseling agency. They may be able to help you negotiate different payment terms to address the cash flow problem. https://www.nfcc.org/

Do you have family or good friends where you are?  Maybe a group of you could set up a sort of joint sinking fund, for each family to tap into when their rent is due (as long as you don't all have to pay in the same month).

[Laura33]

What my wife is doing about the Debt- working a full time job (teaching) and has 3 clients for tutoring. She is allowed to do this without permission from her employer, she not on the same type visa as myself
What I am doing about the Debt- First, let me say I am prohibited from getting a part time job unless it is under the table. I thought about bouncing at a club but wife is against that….( says it’s not a place a married man should be)  She prefers I help with the housework and things that she can’t do in the house. Now to what I can do?   I am thinking about a size hustle, flipping items as I tried it before and it would only take (about $300 cost) and made back about 2k from it. The problem however, is getting stuff in a steady supply because the demand is there (this is being worked on as I type).  I also, drive my wife to one of her clients that it’s an 1hour away twice a week.
What DS#1 is doing: He was helping my wife with one of her clients (Which we cancelled last week).  He helps tremendously by watching and playing with his brother and picking him up and dropping him off from school.
. . . .

The client that she dropped last week were rude, she did not go this week and they are calling her to apologize and go back. I told her not to go back. However, she is considering it? She very focused on paying down the debt and getting money for our oldest son to go college.  The time, energy, aggravation, and money is not worth it in my opinion. Three times the amount of hours is spent on them than what was originally agreed to and they don’t want to pay for the extra hours. Do you think it would be wise to go back. She thinks setting better ground rules would better the situation.

First, I am sorry, this sounds so stressful.

Second:  Listen to your wife.  If I were living in an unfamiliar foreign country, and my DH started talking about taking an under-the-table job, that would make me *ridiculously* nervous -- I would be afraid that we'd lose our visas, or worse, he'd end up in jail.  She has specifically told you what she would like you to do to help:  take care of the housework so that she can use her free time to (legally) bring in extra money.  Listen to her.  It sounds like she is working so hard to make ends meet that she is making herself sick.  Make her life easier by doing whatever you can around the house so she doesn't have to work two jobs *and* take care of all of you.

Third:  You do not have the luxury of saying no to paying clients, even if they are rude.  You don't have any money, to the point that you are worried about how to pay rent in a few more months -- you need all the cash you guys can (legally) make.   And since your wife is the one who can work a second job, that means she needs as many clients as she can get her hands on.  That said, they need to be *paying* clients -- either they pay for the full value of her time, or she has a spot open to find another client who will.  Is there anything you or your sons can do to help her to find additional clients who are closer and nicer? 

Fourth:  Any chance you can get a raise, overtime, etc.?  Or that your employer would be willing to help change your visa status so you could also get a second job?

Finally, second the idea for full info -- I can't make sense of the transportation/rental car expenses, which seem very high, or the situation with maintaining a home in the states when you can't even afford rent where you are.  And with $3600/mo. in school fees alone (not counting transportation, uniforms, books, team fees, etc.), I also agree that maybe homeschooling would be a better option -- but that's hard to say without knowing each of your salaries and the value of the extra work your wife is doing.

[whogotit]

No my boys cannot go to local schools. It’s not allowed.
Our youngest son is the one with autism, after school he cannot be left by himself to enter the house, or even take a bus ride to and from the school.
My wife is on my visa; my employer would not allow me to work anywhere else.
Going back to the states for my wife and kids is an option. However, there is currently no savings. They would have to buy a car, get back and forth from work to school, eat. I do worry about the youngest if our family is separated. We had done this before and he did not do to well.
The law here is that you pay rent either in a full, or every 6 months, you may find someone that will allow you to pay quarterly.
I will see what my job has on changing my benefits. However, they just let go a large number of people from the company.
We did not expect things to be this difficult.
Thank you for the replies and suggestions. Please keep them coming we are having a family meeting tonight. So hopefully we can implement some of these changes rather quickly.
Thanks for all the replies

[AMandM]

The three times we lived as expats, while my husband was on academic research grants, the corporate expats always seemed to live in luxury compared to us.  I had no idea it could be so difficult.

One more idea: When your older son leaves school, could he defer going to college for a year? 

a) This would free up over $3100 a month ($1800 school tuition+ 1166 college + 150 insurance if I'm reading you right) to put towards bills or to create a cushion for your rent and other big periodic expenses.

b) Could your son get a job under the terms of your visa?  Or do online work?

c) If not, could he support the family budget in other ways--growing vegetables, having the time to do grocery shopping and cooking super frugally, pick up his brother from school so your wife can keep working and do more tutoring, doing something to reduce your transportation expenses.

d) Or could he return to the US alone, in a LCOL place, get a job, share a cheap apartment, and save up money for college himself?  Rather out-of-the-box, but worth considering; since your family is in dire straits, maybe you will have to give up on funding your son's college.

Good luck with your meting!  Remember, you and your wife are on the same side. :-)