Hi Kristen. Welcome to the forum. We like to let loose with the facepunches in the case study threads and you gotta learn to not take it too personally and roll with the punches.
I happen to be someone who learns better visually, so I threw together some charts from your itemized list of expenses. Here's your spending situation with and without taxes --
Let's focus on the second chart, the one without taxes (since you have no choice about paying that). The reason why folks are harping on your truck and your animals (mostly the horse) is because, at 50% and 18% of your total expenses, respectively, those are BY FAR your top two expenses. If those two areas are truly non-negotiable, then your hands are extremely tied as to where else you can cut.
Your spending actually looks pretty reasonable in all the other categories. Can they be further trimmed/optimized? Maybe. But $100 for health insurance is a steal, your grocery bill isn't looking too bad either (especially if it includes household/personal care products in addition to food), and you might be able to drop your cellphone bill, assuming you're not locked into a contract or legitimately need/use the bells & whistles.
I'm actually a bit worried that everything else aside from the truck and the horse looks too good to be true. Like, do you really spend nothing on entertainment? Restaurants? Clothing? What about property taxes and maintenance/service on the truck? You're in perfect health with no co-pays, co-insurance/deductibles, or medication costs? Do you have $500 of savings per month, and where is it going?
But assuming that your list does cover everything, here's a more detailed chart that itemizes every single category minus income taxes, followed by my comments/thoughts on each --
- Taxes (not shown): you have to pay this unless you can deduct a 401(k) or IRA
- Health/Dental Insurance: you have an incredibly low premium, and you need coverage
- Student Loans: also fairly inelastic unless you qualify for hardship, income-based repayment, loan forgiveness, or refinancing
- Horse/Dog: non-negotiable as per your personal requirements
- Groceries: I can probably cut this in half, but you'd have to work pretty hard at it -- cook everything yourself, shop sales, buy in bulk, go generic brands, give up meat, etc. You're doing pretty good and might be hitting diminishing returns unless you really enjoy nickle and diming your grocery bill like I do.
- Cellphone: you'd have to either change plans or use less of any service that you're being charged for. Can you share a plan with your family by adding an extra line?
- Truck payment: this is high due to the loan balance and exorbitant interest rate (seriously, WTF!). Only solutions are to swap to a cheaper vehicle and/or refinance. You said the former is off the table and you're already working on the latter by repairing your credit, etc.
- Truck insurance: you can shop around for better rates, wait for your history to improve, or increase your deductibles -- but be aware that if you bump up your deductible, you need to have the savings to cover those deductibles as well.
- Gasoline: The only two ways I can think of to cut this down is to either drive less (e.g. ditch the 120 mile daily commute, drop down to 4 days, couch-surf a few nights a week, like others have already suggested; carpooling is another possibility) or switch to a more fuel-efficient vehicle. I'm not convinced that a second car is necessarily the way to go, though. You really don't want to ADD to your auto/transport costs.
I also want to point out that you're sort of 'cheating' the system by not having housing or utility payments. Add those in, and you're barely scraping by. You have to be honest about what you are and aren't paying for. The bottom line is that no matter which way you slice it, you're being utterly eaten alive on the vehicle front, and here's where I get facepunch-y. This is going to sound harsh but I have to be blunt here.
You've done the equivalent of charging $16,000 onto a credit card, because that's how high your interest rate is. Your total transportation costs exceed some mortgages, so unless you're literally living in your truck, that is way too much, especially for your level of income. You cannot afford that truck and you should never have bought it in the first place. If you cannot haul your horse without the truck and you cannot come up with a different arrangement, then you cannot afford to haul your horse at all. You should've bought a used, fuel-efficient commuter, set aside the rodeo until *after* you've repaired your credit, cleared your insurance record, and built up some savings. Only *then* should you even consider the possibility of buying your own truck and pursuing more rodeo.
Furthermore, any new vehicle depreciates like mad in the first few years, and that's without the extremely high mileage that you're piling on, which is why you're underwater and cannot get out. I actually feel physically ill even thinking about it. You're in a tough situation, and all the low-hanging fruit have been presented to you already. I'm sorry for not having too many new ideas, but this forum isn't magic, and it's gonna take concerted effort and a lot of time to get out. What's done is done, though; so long as it's a learning experience, you should move on and just keep digging out. Best of luck to you.
