found out the sex of the baby today!!! also discovered just how bad our finances are...**edit**

so. had to go in to see my doctor today, had an ultrasound on fri, went to use dh's credit card to get gas, declined. thank god i went in to pay first, and thank god for small town business owners who know you. old man ackland filled my car and told me to pay him back later today, dh is in saskatoon so i was planning on getting some cash from him. 

on drive in to stoon i talked to my friend wes's mom who lives in town, she told me she would love to watch ds, and refused what i have been paying $120/wk, and said she would for $50/wk. so  phew that was one less worry. my sister R is staying at moms, and not coming out as previously planned. another less worry. 

but i have been in pain in my lower pelvic area for about a week now, and by the time we reached the city every bump in the road made me want to cry, it hurt so bad. get to the doctors, waddle in and had a chat with my doctor, he told me the ultrasound showed A BOY! ( i KNEW it!) and that my placenta is attached to the frontal wall of my uterus, just above my pelvic boney area, another wards, where it has been hurting. 

so he put me on sick leave, recommended i quit my employment asap, and made me a copy for boss and a copy for EI. huge reliefe, because i am honestly just so worn out it isn't funny.

anyways; went to meet DH at the A&W, ordered some food go to pay with debit "declined" moment of horror. we quickly cancel our order and leave, go back to the hotel where dh is staying while he is taking this week long course for his job. 

neither of us have ANY money until we get paid next friday. both of our accounts are at their line of credit limit, mine is -500 his is -1000. none of the credit cards are any good.

at this point i am stunned, just, stunned. we have never gotten to this point before. ended up having a very difficult discussion with him, made him call credit consolidation, and even brought up bankruptcy.

even though we are facing a small crisis, his response is "well what do you want me to do about it?" my god. i hate that answer. laoth it. it puts the responsability of figuring out a solution completely on me. 

my sister ended up emailing me $100 and i gave dh 50, kept 50 for gas, and headed home.

how am i supposed to be able to take sick leave without feeling like everything will fall apart? seriously worried about our future. dh has to take jan and feb off for schooling, at which time he will ALSO be on EI, which slashes out monthly income even more. 

65% of our income goes straight to paying down debt, about $800/mo goes to CREDIT CARDS. seriously? ugh! and $1500/mo for our cars ( which we need, and we owe more than they would sell for) $750/mo mortgage and insurance.  household bills about $600 mo. never mind gas and groceries. 

i left him in stoon feeling like the world is falling out under my feet in slow motion

then half hour ago he calls and tells me he reckons he can sell off the cattle he has and borrow from his parents or some fuckin thing, to pay off all the credit cards, then just pay his parents monthly. 

ok fine. he doesn't want to consolidate because it will ruin our credit. 

i'm just. i dont even know what to think right now.

**edit**

ok a few things; 1) turns out a few payments came out later than we expected, after we had gone grocery and christmas shopping, which is why his balance was zero. we were broke for about 4 days.

2) dh turned around and took out $ from a school trust fund for him, and payed off the credit cards. thank god we no longer have to worry about those, however he will be putting $ back into the trust fund monthly.

3) my doc put me on sick leave, worry about my placenta tearing away from the uerus or rupturing, i am now on EI, and will be able to start taking classes for my youth care worker cert in Feb. 

4) we won't be doing foster care, lol. that was a hair brained idea. and a not so good one *i can admit when i am wrong*

5) everything is going to be FINE. 

[rowansmum]

Call the card companies and try to get a better interest rate. Why are the payments so high? Dh's cards are 7000 and the min payments are 200. Even on months when we can pay extra on them its no more than 500 without putting us in a situation.
Consolidation is better than a repo or bankruptcy and it is less important now because you already have a mortgage. Do you guys plan your finances? I find money issues go hand in hand with lack of planning/budgeting. Who handles the money?

My dh was in sad shape financially when I took over. I'm the budgeter in our house and it works best for us. He's actually relieved and i'm far less stressed too. Could that be an option?

Quoting D.O.E.:

well, we are in canada, so medical costs, i dont worry about, no matter what happens. so thank god for that. and i breastfeed and if we can get our shit together in the next 4 months we will be ok.

Quoting Due9:

How are you going to afford another child? that must be really difficult

[D.O.E.]

i dont know......he needs to learn to communicate. 

Quoting OrientalLily:

Quoting D.O.E.:

True. So, are you guys making, or breaking?

[D.O.E.]

dh makes more than the min payment to keep the interest down, we have 4 cards, ( 2 of them owe less than $1,000, my cards, his are MUCH higher) so in total, yeah about $800 mo. i dont know how to haggle for lower rates. i certainly hope he can sell those cattle and simply pay them off, but imo, that would almost be too easy. he had a rude awakening last night, one i expected and saw coming, and tried to talk to him about, but he would just be all "well what am i supposed to do about it?" and get all pissy. 

i handle my income, he handles his, which is much higher than mine. i pay for childcare, groceries, my credit cards, as well as the power/energy bills. (or any other bill i need to pay) i have also bought all the xmas presents this year.

we dont have a joint account, he doesnt explain our finances to me, he doesn't communicate for shit. 

Quoting rowansmum:

Call the card companies and try to get a better interest rate. Why are the payments so high? Dh's cards are 7000 and the min payments are 200. Even on months when we can pay extra on them its no more than 500 without putting us in a situation.
Consolidation is better than a repo or bankruptcy and it is less important now because you already have a mortgage. Do you guys plan your finances? I find money issues go hand in hand with lack of planning/budgeting. Who handles the money?

My dh was in sad shape financially when I took over. I'm the budgeter in our house and it works best for us. He's actually relieved and i'm far less stressed too. Could that be an option?

Quoting D.O.E.:

well, we are in canada, so medical costs, i dont worry about, no matter what happens. so thank god for that. and i breastfeed and if we can get our shit together in the next 4 months we will be ok.

Quoting Due9:

How are you going to afford another child? that must be really difficult

[D.O.E.]

actually, i have been wanting to foster since i was a foster kid myself. but we needed a house with enough bedrooms, which we now have. and of course the financial aspect will factor into our decision. we couldn't afford 2 extra kids otherwise. 

as a foster mom i will be able to dedicate myself to the kids, as well as to online studies, so that in a few years time, i can get a job that pays over $20/hr, i will be taking crisis councelling as well as my youth care worker  certification. 

and i dont want to take out another student loan either, so it does help to be paid to foster kids, i can then turn around and pay for my classes individually. 

also, it will be great to tae the classes offered by social services to foster parents, it will help both me and dh. 

there are a lot of benefits to being a foster parent, not just financial. 

Quoting ff-princess:

sounds like it was a perfect time to buy a home, eh?  and your altruistic motivation for taking in foster children is awesome. oh, wait, it's only financially beneficial.

[MrS.GiFFord]

I like the way you write. ;) I am sorry things are shitty right now...I hope they start looking up soon!

[D.O.E.]

aww thanks mrs. G :) it's gonna be rough, but those are the best lessons learned, the hard ones. everything will be fine. if not, thank god i have a mommy :) lol

Quoting MrS.GiFFord:

I like the way you write. ;) I am sorry things are shitty right now...I hope they start looking up soon!

[rowansmum]

By paying a lot but not paying off the whole balance you're not saving yourself anything.  An effective strategy is to pay only the min on (say if you had 2 cards hypothetically) the card with the lowest interest rate and put all the extra towards paying the other off as fast as possible.  Now Dave Ramsey says to pay the min on the biggest one and pay off the smaller ones first.  I tend to agree but it works out in our house that the higest interest card is also the one with the lowest balance.

As far as haggling for a better rate, often you don't need to haggle.  Just say that you want to see if you're eligible because XYZ company has offered say 10%.  

Men do get touchy when money is discussed especially when they're having trouble.  I worked for a few months asking dh to hand over the reigns.  What worked for me was that I drew up a budget for the month and showed how all the bills were paid and we had a small amount of savings at the end where he was just flying by the seat of his pants.  I asked if he'd let me do the budget for 2 months and if it wasn't going the way it should then I'd hand the finances back to him.  Its been a year now and he said the other day if anything ever happened he would have no idea how to deal with the budget lol.  

Go to financial peace university (website) and sign up for the free trial.  You get access to a lot of very helpful tools and resources (my favorites are the lectures).  As soon as you start budgeting you will see the light at the end of the tunnel I promise.  Even if you only start budgeting your stuff.  Once he sees how well you're doing he will be more receptive to listening as long as you don't speak to him like he is a child or harp and preach. 

My thoughts on selling the cattle are that it will not fix the problem.  Its a bandaid on a broken arm.  Know what I mean?  Unorganized finances are a real problem and credit just allows impulse spending which adds up to a ridiculous amount.  I had to go bankrupt several years ago because of the credit and impulse stuff.  I didn't want to think about money and since I was making a certain amount I figured it was enough and I could do what I wanted.  Not so much and I'm seeing that situation in your post :(  

Quoting D.O.E.:

dh makes more than the min payment to keep the interest down, we have 4 cards, ( 2 of them owe less than $1,000, my cards, his are MUCH higher) so in total, yeah about $800 mo. i dont know how to haggle for lower rates. i certainly hope he can sell those cattle and simply pay them off, but imo, that would almost be too easy. he had a rude awakening last night, one i expected and saw coming, and tried to talk to him about, but he would just be all "well what am i supposed to do about it?" and get all pissy. 

i handle my income, he handles his, which is much higher than mine. i pay for childcare, groceries, my credit cards, as well as the power/energy bills. (or any other bill i need to pay) i have also bought all the xmas presents this year.

we dont have a joint account, he doesnt explain our finances to me, he doesn't communicate for shit. 

Quoting rowansmum:

Call the card companies and try to get a better interest rate. Why are the payments so high? Dh's cards are 7000 and the min payments are 200. Even on months when we can pay extra on them its no more than 500 without putting us in a situation.
Consolidation is better than a repo or bankruptcy and it is less important now because you already have a mortgage. Do you guys plan your finances? I find money issues go hand in hand with lack of planning/budgeting. Who handles the money?

My dh was in sad shape financially when I took over. I'm the budgeter in our house and it works best for us. He's actually relieved and i'm far less stressed too. Could that be an option?

Quoting D.O.E.:

well, we are in canada, so medical costs, i dont worry about, no matter what happens. so thank god for that. and i breastfeed and if we can get our shit together in the next 4 months we will be ok.

Quoting Due9:

How are you going to afford another child? that must be really difficult

[D.O.E.]

yes you have hit a few nails on the head :)

Quoting rowansmum:

By paying a lot but not paying off the whole balance you're not saving yourself anything.  An effective strategy is to pay only the min on (say if you had 2 cards hypothetically) the card with the lowest interest rate and put all the extra towards paying the other off as fast as possible.  Now Dave Ramsey says to pay the min on the biggest one and pay off the smaller ones first.  I tend to agree but it works out in our house that the higest interest card is also the one with the lowest balance.

As far as haggling for a better rate, often you don't need to haggle.  Just say that you want to see if you're eligible because XYZ company has offered say 10%.  

Men do get touchy when money is discussed especially when they're having trouble.  I worked for a few months asking dh to hand over the reigns.  What worked for me was that I drew up a budget for the month and showed how all the bills were paid and we had a small amount of savings at the end where he was just flying by the seat of his pants.  I asked if he'd let me do the budget for 2 months and if it wasn't going the way it should then I'd hand the finances back to him.  Its been a year now and he said the other day if anything ever happened he would have no idea how to deal with the budget lol.  

Go to financial peace university (website) and sign up for the free trial.  You get access to a lot of very helpful tools and resources (my favorites are the lectures).  As soon as you start budgeting you will see the light at the end of the tunnel I promise.  Even if you only start budgeting your stuff.  Once he sees how well you're doing he will be more receptive to listening as long as you don't speak to him like he is a child or harp and preach. 

My thoughts on selling the cattle are that it will not fix the problem.  Its a bandaid on a broken arm.  Know what I mean?  Unorganized finances are a real problem and credit just allows impulse spending which adds up to a ridiculous amount.  I had to go bankrupt several years ago because of the credit and impulse stuff.  I didn't want to think about money and since I was making a certain amount I figured it was enough and I could do what I wanted.  Not so much and I'm seeing that situation in your post :(  

Quoting D.O.E.:

dh makes more than the min payment to keep the interest down, we have 4 cards, ( 2 of them owe less than $1,000, my cards, his are MUCH higher) so in total, yeah about $800 mo. i dont know how to haggle for lower rates. i certainly hope he can sell those cattle and simply pay them off, but imo, that would almost be too easy. he had a rude awakening last night, one i expected and saw coming, and tried to talk to him about, but he would just be all "well what am i supposed to do about it?" and get all pissy. 

i handle my income, he handles his, which is much higher than mine. i pay for childcare, groceries, my credit cards, as well as the power/energy bills. (or any other bill i need to pay) i have also bought all the xmas presents this year.

we dont have a joint account, he doesnt explain our finances to me, he doesn't communicate for shit. 

Quoting rowansmum:

Call the card companies and try to get a better interest rate. Why are the payments so high? Dh's cards are 7000 and the min payments are 200. Even on months when we can pay extra on them its no more than 500 without putting us in a situation.
Consolidation is better than a repo or bankruptcy and it is less important now because you already have a mortgage. Do you guys plan your finances? I find money issues go hand in hand with lack of planning/budgeting. Who handles the money?

My dh was in sad shape financially when I took over. I'm the budgeter in our house and it works best for us. He's actually relieved and i'm far less stressed too. Could that be an option?

Quoting D.O.E.:

well, we are in canada, so medical costs, i dont worry about, no matter what happens. so thank god for that. and i breastfeed and if we can get our shit together in the next 4 months we will be ok.

Quoting Due9:

How are you going to afford another child? that must be really difficult

[HouseMa]

I hope they don't come after you for a slogan for Foster Parenting.

They paid for my house, my bills, my schooling and extra stuff too.

Quoting D.O.E.:

actually, i have been wanting to foster since i was a foster kid myself. but we needed a house with enough bedrooms, which we now have. and of course the financial aspect will factor into our decision. we couldn't afford 2 extra kids otherwise. 

as a foster mom i will be able to dedicate myself to the kids, as well as to online studies, so that in a few years time, i can get a job that pays over $20/hr, i will be taking crisis councelling as well as my youth care worker  certification. 

and i dont want to take out another student loan either, so it does help to be paid to foster kids, i can then turn around and pay for my classes individually. 

also, it will be great to tae the classes offered by social services to foster parents, it will help both me and dh. 

there are a lot of benefits to being a foster parent, not just financial. 

Quoting ff-princess:

sounds like it was a perfect time to buy a home, eh?  and your altruistic motivation for taking in foster children is awesome. oh, wait, it's only financially beneficial.

[silverdawn99]

well dont bash yourself too much

too many people get in big debt because of credit cards

but at least you are owning up to your mistakes. i know alot of people wouldnt