I need to lower my budget from its current 9.8k a month to 7k a month within 60 days.

Income Me (5.6k) (2nd Job $600) Wife (2k), so $8.2k a month this is NET. Let me note my wife is a teacher and she wont be paid for two months during the summer. We have enough saved to cover this negative. So just ignore that but be aware of it.

Keep in mind the debt below is from 3 major things. We remodeled our house when we bought it using credit cards like idiots. I agree it was a bad mistake. I also had one really bad investment which cost me 30k. I also had my business partner leave my business in bad shape and I fixed it all with personal credit which was a HUGE mistake I agree. All Credit cards listed below are being paid right at their minimums.

Any input is welcome I am open to hearing any options. I know below there are many things I can cut but I want see what people think.

1st Mortgage $1,466.00
2nd Mortgage $450.00
Cable/Phone/Internet $175.00 (I require high speed internet for work. Breaks down to 35 internet, 35 phone, 105 cable)
Water $90.00
Power $150.00
Pest Control $45.00 (This expires in 3 months, I wont renew it)
Cell Phones $90.00 (required for work, 2 phones)
1st Car $470.00 (New car upside down 5-6k)
1st Fuel $230.00
2nd Car $460.00 (New lease, 34 months left)
2nd Fuel $180.00
Insurance $150.00
Personal Loan $175.00 (This loan is paid off in 3 payments)
LOC $250.00
Student Loan 1 $100.00
Student Loan 2 $90.00
Student Loan 3 $50.00 (Paid off in 8 payments)
Court $300.00 I had a personal suite against me 3 years ago, 2 years are left on this, cant get out of it.
CC 1 $80.00 (12%)
CC 2 $150.00 (12.9%)
CC 3 $150.00 (12.9%)
CC 4 $0.00
CC 5 $50.00 (14.9%)
CC 6 $0.00
CC 7 $100.00 (0%)
CC 8 $230.00 (10.9%)
CC 9 $230.00 (10.9%)
CC 10 $100.00 (0%)
CC 11 $425.00 (9.9%)
CC 12 $175.00 (8.9%)
CC 13 $400.00 (11.9%)
CC 14 $80.00 (12.9%)
CC 15 $125.00 (14.9%)
CC 16 $50.00 (0%)
CC 17 $150.00 (29.99%, note this has 1k balance left on it. )
CC 18 $100.00 (21.99%, was 0% for 6 months)
CC 19 $105.00 (14.9%)
CC 20 $0.00
Health Insurance $420.00
Storage $71.00 (we plan to get rid of this)
Old CO $107.00 (4 payments left)
Day Care $700.00
Groceries $400.00
Eating Out $200.00
Misc $300.00

Total about $9,859.00

I need to reduce this to about 7k a month.

Do you have your balances on each cc? That could help with a debt snowball plan? How much cash do you have on hand?

Can you get rid of the phone and just use your cellphones? Also, is $105 the rate for basic cable? I have a triple-package like what you're describing and my total for all three is only $99/mo.



That needs to go. Since you're so strapped for cash, save restaurants for special occasions only.

What hkk said.

You are strapped for cash, no eating out. Cut back on cable. No $300 worth of "other" expenses. Get rid of the cells or landline, cut back the cable. Watch power/water consumption.

I have some experience trimming a budget to the bone, but given what you are facing, I don't see a whole heck of a lot else to trim.

Depending on how much ready cash you have you could get rid of the following pretty quickly:
$135 - pest control (3mo @$45 each), pay out contract and be done with it - suggest paying out so that you don't get hit with fees
$525 - personal loan (4mo@$175 each)
$425 - old CO (4mo@$107 each)
$1000 - CC 17 (saves $150/month)
$2085 pay out now, saves you $477 month

Have you checked into putting your student loans into a hardship deferment? That would save you $240/month.

With wife not working through the summer take baby out of daycare and save $1400. Do you have any family that would be willing to babysit? Does your wife's school system offer any kind of childcare option for the teachers?

Still, from the look of your budget, bk 7 or bk 13 may be your best option.

I don't know what your scores are, but have you looked into getting a debt consolidation loan, you may be able to get some of the higher interest rate CC debt onto a lower rater loan.

You said you are upside down in Auto1, what APR and how long is left? I know you are in with navy, you may be able to refi it at a lower rate or longer terms to reduce your monthly payment.

The deferment of the SL's is a great idea. If they are fed loans that shouldn't be an issue at all. I don't know how private lenders are on those sort of things.

I don't know where you live, but ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX are all free via antenna. Ditch the $100 cable bill.

I know you are planning a refi on the house, is there a reason you can't do that NOW rather than in 4 months?

Few things

I have 9k cash on hand. I will get a little extra this and next month. (Aprox 1800 + 1500), I will add this to the reserve fund.



1st Auto is 6.9% through NFCU
2nd Auto is 1.9% lease

I traded our existing autos in to lower our payments from $1300 a month to the current $940 a month. Also with the new cars our auto insurance went from 200 a month to 150. Having one car is not an option since I drive 70 mile a day in the opposite direction of my wife.



I am going to try and do either a refi or refi with cash out as soon as I can. I have 3 collections on my report which are old and unpaid and I am trying to get them off. I had one pop up on me the other day which I KNOW is not mine so I am confident I can get it removed but how long that takes is unknown. The letters have already went out.



I thought about doing a personal loan but my payments will stay the same so no real point.



We will not be using daycare for the 2 months during the summer she is not working so that will help but I need the budget to be 7k including that. They dont offer anything for teachers in our area.



The 2 cell phones are mine and my wifes.


BK7 isnt an option with our income. BK13 will protect us from creditors but it wont lower our payments.

Other

To get the stupid digital phone our cable company requires we have the digital pack or whatever which is a min of 69.99 a month. I am looking at voip . com which offers something for 16.99 a month if you pay in advance.

I am going to look into deffering those student loan payments.

9K cash reserves are great. That sounds like what you will need to cover your necessities, food, shelter, power.

Can you take some of that and payoff your lower balance items, so that you can get rid of those pmts?

Have you tried upping your deductibles on your auto insurance? That should lower your monthly premiums. What about health insurance? Who carries that? You or DW? Can either of you get health insurance through work? I would think the teacher's union has a pretty decent plan.

Downgrade your cell plan to bare minimum. Most companies will allow for a rate plan change within contract.

Why do you need digital phone if you both have cell phones? You should be able to cut your house phone as well as cable.

Can you take some of your reserve and payoff the old collections and hit your bank up for a refi?

For the future, do you have family in the area that could help with childcare?

I have the same service going with my cable/internet/phone...but believe me you dont have to do a dayum thing you dont want to!

When I called to downgrade my service to cut back my expenses, they hard-balled me on keeping the package blah blah blah, I said NO DICE! then all of a sudden the CSR was able to reduce the individual cost of each piece of the service saving me a little over the exact amount I would for ridding myself on the portions I didnt need which is the relief I was looking for!

Its worth a shot to not be led by these folks, they DO NOT know your crisis so stick to your guns if you are not ready to break out the gameboards & books to replace TV as entertainment.

In the very least, basic cable, keeping house phone OR the cell phones (revisit reducing plans also) would be beneficial to you--not both.

are you getting any 0% BT offers in the mail?

you have $9k in the bank? I would snowball some of those debts FAST, starting with the personal loan to free up that $175 to pay off other things.


defer your loans if possible. when you wife gets out of the school for the summer, try NOT to use the car (market 1x a week, etc). Might make her a little stir crazy, but you have to save on fuel.

have you considered how much you'd save if you got down to one car and maybe had your wife stay home for a year?

I'd have to see your math to agree with that statement.

Won't the $700 daycare bill go away for DW won't be teaching for those 2 months?
$265 for a communications bill is nuts, get this cut back to under $100 total.
$90 seems steep for water.
$420 is high for health insurance, is a "gold plated" package or just expensive as heck health care for the self employed/small business employee?

Even with an awesome income (good job !!) you're still running in the red. Lifestyle cuts needed if you are to "get out of the hole".

My utilization is hurting bad right now. Wife is at 90% and I am at 75% and I have some dings on my report still so no real 0% offers which are greater then 1-2k.

The 9k in the bank is there to cover the negative I know we will have during the summer. I do Agree with paying the small things off though and planned to do so.

I work pretty far away and my wife needs access to a car during the day. So one car isnt much of an option, I looked pretty deep into that before trading the old car in. Plus doing this would eat at least 5k in reserve to save 470 a month. Her not working saves us 700 for daycare, 150 in fuel but we lose her health insurance so add in 175 a month for health insurance so we actually lose about 1300 a month. Even if we got rid of the 2nd car we still lose 830 a month without her working.

<<we lose her health insurance so add in 175 a month for health insurance >>

So your wife carries health insurance? Why are you accounting an extra $420 in your budget for health insurance?

A personal loan for 50k which is the max I could find. NFCU qualified me for 12.9%, 60 months when I asked them about it. The payment would be $1135.10 a month on that loan. Doing simple math, most cards require a 2% payment per month so 50k = 1k a month payment. So my payments actually go up doing the personal loan.

easily you can cut out $500 with the misc and eating out. BUCKLE DOWN.

you said above if your wife wasn't working, you'd have to pay $175/mo in insurance., but here it is $450......????? so insurance would be cheaper if your wife didn't work?

Your minimum payments on CC (from 1st post) total $2700, will all the CC fit into the 50k loan? (it sounds as if they won't...) What are your balances?

ETA: I noticed your $1,000 CC 17 has a minimum of $150... so your 2% "simple math" is bunk.

Klesko I am vibing that you are an intelligent fellow, but in general your math is reading as wack-a-doo!

I want to assist, but the figures are moving targets response to response.

Sorry that number is wrong. I copied it from the wrong section of my budget. Its supposed to be $275 a month, if we add my wife if she werre to stop working then add 175 to that so 450 a month without her working.

Total CC debt is APROX 120k, I will update the list above.

Sorry there are 2 of the smaller ccs I am paying more then the min on to try and get them paid off. For example CC 17 is a dell account in which 1k is owed and I am paying 150 a month to get it paid off because of the interest rate.

I guess I cant exit the first post so here is the CC list with amount owed

CC 1 $80.00 (12%) 3400
CC 2 $150.00 (12.9%) 9800
CC 3 $150.00 (12.9%) 14900
CC 4 $0.00
CC 5 $50.00 (14.9%) 3750
CC 6 $0.00
CC 7 $100.00 (0%) 2300
CC 8 $230.00 (10.9%) 11900
CC 9 $230.00 (10.9%) 11900
CC 10 $100.00 (0%) 2700
CC 11 $425.00 (9.9%) 22400
CC 12 $175.00 (8.9%) 9700
CC 13 $400.00 (11.9%) 16000
CC 14 $80.00 (12.9%) 1900
CC 15 $125.00 (14.9%) 4900
CC 16 $50.00 (0%) 1500
CC 17 $150.00 (29.99%, note this has 1k balance left on it. ) 1000
CC 18 $100.00 (21.99%, was 0% for 6 months) 4600
CC 19 $105.00 (14.9%) 4100
CC 20 $0.00

I'd recommend first getting your spending down to the 8.2k figure (then worry about getting it down to 7k in the future), since this is where your income is after the summer (and you've got the shortfall covered with savings). First things first.
So roughly 1700 comes from:

100 from your cable/phone/internet (and maybe a bit from changing your cell plans)
45 pest control --gone after 3 more months
50 car insurance --raise deductibles, shop other companies for better rates
175 personal loan --gone after 3 more payments
70 storage
150 cc17 --either will be paid off within a year or needs to be paid off sooner if you have enough savings left for emergencies
500 eating out/groceries/misc

So the above is about 1100.
Ok, just saw the 175 from the health insurance.
That makes almost 1300 above.

I think something more needs to be done about the cars/gas. Rid of the lease and get a cheaper car for you?
Could anything creative be done about at least part of the daycare? (like having a friend watch your child half time in exchange for watching their child half time when it'd work for you/your wife -eg. evenings/weekends)
Could you save 50/month from you utilities by being super-efficient with usage?

Would you qualify for an auto re-fi with Penfed? Their rate is currently 4.5%.ETA: actually it's currently 4.25%

Looking ahead: you are spending over 1200/month in interest charges on these credit cards. This is an area to tackle with a lot of planning (and I don't like the passive b/k idea from your other thread). BK13? Hardship plans with the credit card companies (them knowing it's that or bk)?

can you wife get a summer job? something in the evenings so you can avoid daycare? target? costco?

I am a little lost as well. Is this right. Your net monthly income is going to be $7000 mo. while DW is off work for two months. Your bills will be $9800 mo. minus $700 due to no child care expense. You will have more than 10k in savings. That should get you through the two months easily. Did I get it wrong? Are you just trying to survive while she's out?

The cars are new, like 2 months old so cant really do much with them. I traded in both of our expensive cars 2 months ago, our payments went from 1300 to 940 and insurance went from 200 to 150. About 45 days ago ago I took a 30k investment loss and 25k more from my partner leaving the business so while I thought we were ok with just lowering the car payments I didnt know.

I can maybe do something with the day care when my wife goes back to work I will start looking into that.

We talked about this and she might do it but at most it would bring in 500 a month for two months. But the better option is for me to do some more hours since I will make alot more then her doing so.

My income will be right about 8.2k when my wife is working, it will be 6.2k during the summer, but I am being a realist knowing that there needs to be buffer room. The 7k is the target number to give that buffer room.

I am not worried about the next two months, I have savings to take care of that but I will eat through at least 6k of savings during the summer for the negative per month. But once August rolls around we will still be close to -1k in income with less savings backing us up.

If you work on the cuts that everyone has suggested you shouldn't be in the negative when fall rolls around.

Especially if you can take care of those little stragglers out there. Pest control, the Dell bill, the personal loan, shop for cheaper insurance (do it now before your credit is completely shot), cut out the eating out, excess spending, etc...it will be tight for sure but definitely doable...you just really have to cut your non-essential expenses.

If DW can get a part time job through the summer at least that will be $1000 you could put aside in a rainy day fund. Better than nothing. It could also pay off the $1000 cc you have, freeing up $175/month.

I'm struggling with this math, it's wack-a-doo as OHO said.

When you wife is not working during this summer, yes you lose $2000 (for next year does she have a 12 month option? around here that is your ONLY option), but you gain $700 for the daycare, and some in the gas category back... plus whatever she is spending to work (dry cleaning, buying lunches, supplies here and there).

let's say you're actual loss is $1200 per month for June - August.

You have $9k in savings.

That will leave you with approx $5400 in savings when school starts.



what am I missing?




you also said you have the option of working more hours. Is that paid OT? rather than her getting a summer job? How soon can you start that?

Drop the cable. Once you get used to over the air tv, you won't miss not having 500 channels and nothing on. BTDT - no cable for over 20 yrs while the kids were young. They are better for it. Now i pay $60/mo for DTV and all i watch is the local news - which i could get over the air. We only have it for MLB.

Get naked DSL if its offered and use the cells for your home phone. Forget VOIP. If you need a biz number, get an 800# ringing to the phone (i pay $5 for 3 800#, and 6 cents a min for incoming calls). Or get ringcentral for business - $100/yr.

what kind of a school plan is she on? While most schools allow teachers to choose a 9 month or 12 month payment plan, I've never heard of any that only offer insurance during the school yr.

Exactly!

I had friends who when they were young teachers, worked in the local mall every summer, since they needed the income. Was weird for them to sometimes have to wait on a student, but, so what?

Are you ex military? Can you get a 100% VA through NFCU?

You're paying CC rates on your mortgage notes. Or are your current house notes Interest Only?

Why can't you get DTV over he air? Have you tried an outdoor antenna? Log onto www.antennaweb.org to see which one you need.

How much room do you have left on your three 0% cards? how much of your balances from those insanely HIGH interest rate cards can you transfer to lower interest cards? That'll save *some* money per month.

Also, regarding insurance, can you temporarily shift your insurance to a high-deductible policy?

Klesko,
I suggest renting, in addition to the afore mentioned suggestions.
That should save you, depending on where you live, $ 1000 per month? And there are no "surprise" costs.

If you cut your budget further down, if your wife gets a summer job (even with the baby) and if you get an old car for your wife instead of car #1 (in order to save on car payments and insurance), there is just enough to keep up with the minimum payments of the CCs. ... And you are looking at years in order to pay such a huge amount of debt off. ... Bills increase. ... The baby will get more expensive as it gets older. ... How long will you be able to put that much extra work time in? ... You are so strapped, there is no room in case an emergency happens...

I have read that your wife does not like renting. But it would give you some air to breathe.
Good luck!

For things you "need" for work, do you get reimbursed monthly for those expenses? that reimbursement would offset the cost, however its a case of actually putting the money where it needs to go . If work will provide you with a phone, get a single plan for your wife with the same provider, you'll still get 'in network' privileges and unlimited nights and weekends for 25-50% off what you currently pay.

I would defer the first two SLs and use the money from those payments to pay off one of the couple of 'small' things you have listed, including the SL that's almost paid off.

As others have mentioned - consider looking at selling, you don't have to 'move out' to sell your house, though you do need to be ready to move if it does sell. This would also give you the opportunity to look for a rental house or nice apartment closer to where one of you works, which would eliminate at least one fuel payment.

If you pay for insurance out of pocket, I would seriously look into seeing if you can enroll in an employer sponsored plan - this is the time of year open enrollments occur.

I don't know how good this idea is, but do you have any balance transfer offers on any of your open CCs with limits large enough to consolidate 2-3 of your higher interest CCs to at a promo interest rate? This could reduce the number of payments you have to make, the only slightly reduce the amount you are paying out - it will, however reduce the amount accruing.

I mentioned in your other thread, have your wife read the responses to your idea. It may make her rethink the 'not selling' mindset she's in. A lot of things that can "save" you money require more effort on the part of yourself or your wife, it will take some adjustment, and in the short term seem like an inconvenience. But if you stick to it, you'll find that its not as bad as you thought it was.

Good Luck and keep us posted!

check out leasetrader.com. That should help you to get rid of one of the major car payments.

As an FYI - this is a misconception. A fully loaded dishwasher is more "green" than washing dishes by hand. No need to rinse before loading, just scrape off the dishes into the trash.

I do not want my kids or DIL/SIL loading the dishwasher - they have been know to let the hot water run full blast while rinsing. (They also tend to waste water when washing by hand.)

I stand by my opinion here:

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?s...31831&st=60

you're willing to trash your wife's credit
she's unwilling to move

I have yet to hear the OP mention what sacrifices they are willing to make or what radical behavior modifications they'll make.

I give up.... the story is too fluid for my tastes.

I have a few suggestions. Can your wife tutor? I paid my children's tutor $25 an hour. She's a teacher but she does this part-time. Can your wife babysit other children in the evening for other parents? Or the summer? Parent's are desperate for child care You could use that money for your gas, food, and other incidentals while you pay down your debt. Do you have any retirement funds you can borrow to pay down your debt?

Good luck!

Trust me I am taking all the suggestions in and working out the best possible plan.

- ReFi with cash out is a good possibility. This alone would lower my payments by about $1200 a month. This is a better option IMO then just selling the house because the moving cost and such. Selling is still an option but lower on my list.
- I consult, I currently work for two companies. One main and one on the side. The side I am working about 4 hours a week for plus other hours for other things. For example I am billing the secondary company $1800 this week for some work. I am looking to add another 1-2 companies just like this for the extra $600-$700 a month in income. I do have a limit though, only so many hours in the week before I go crazy. This is why I say I would rather me just try and take on additional hours/jobs since I will make a ton more then my wife doing so and she can watch the kid etc while I do so.
- There is a chance I could get about 25k in cash within the next 30-120 days if some deals I am working on happen for some software I created.

But while I am doing these things I am going to be cutting as much as I can. I cut cable and phone last night so all I have is internet now, so 175 went to 45 a month now. We are not eating out any, but with my work I need to eat out for lunch a few times a week to keep social with all the big wigs and thats not an option. So lunch normally cost me about $30 a week and not much I can do about that. I consider it a needed business expenses.

But I am working on some other things, just didnt want people to think I wasnt willing to do what was needed.

cashing out your house to pay off CCs is risky IMO

Revised Budget

Income Me (5.6k) (2nd Job $600) Wife (2k), so $8.2k a month this is NET
During July and August this income drops to $6.2k because my wife is a teacher and she was on the 10 month pay plan.

I am using some of my 9k reserve and paying off some cheaper loans. Doing this will lower my reserve from 9k to about 6.5k. I have to be careful not to go too low because our income drops 2k a month during the 2 months of the summer. Next year my wife is going to do the 12 month pay plan to prevent this drop off during the summer.

In Blue are the things that I lowered, if anything raised then its in red.


1st Mortgage $1,466.00
2nd Mortgage $450.00
Internet $45.00 (I require high speed internet for work. Cheapest DSL is 24.95 in my area and it sucks.)
Water $70.00
Power $150.00
Pest Control $0.00(I called and got this terminated
Cell Phones $90.00 (required for work, 2 phones)
1st Car $470.00 (New car upside down 5-6k)
1st Fuel $230.00
2nd Car $460.00 (New lease, 34 months left)
2nd Fuel $180.00
Insurance $150.00
Personal Loan $0.00 (Paid this loan off with reserves.)
LOC $250.00
Student Loan 1 $0.00 (Differed for 6 months)
Student Loan 2 $0.00 (Differed for 6 months)
Student Loan 3 $0.00 (Paid off with reserves)
Court $300.00 9600 (I had a personal suite against me 3 years ago, 2 years are left on this, cant get out of it.)
CC 1 $80.00 (12%) 3400
CC 2 $150.00 (12.9%) 9800
CC 3 $150.00 (12.9%) 14900
CC 4 $0.00
CC 5 $50.00 (14.9%) 3750
CC 6 $0.00
CC 7 $100.00 (0%) 2300
CC 8 $230.00 (10.9%) 11900
CC 9 $230.00 (10.9%) 11900
CC 10 $100.00 (0%) 2700
CC 11 $425.00 (9.9%) 22400
CC 12 $175.00 (8.9%) 9700
CC 13 $400.00 (11.9%) 16000
CC 14 $80.00 (12.9%) 1900
CC 15 $125.00 (14.9%) 4900
CC 16 $50.00 (0%) 1500
CC 17 $0.00 (29.99% ) 0
CC 18 $100.00 (21.99%, was 0% for 6 months) 4600
CC 19 $105.00 (14.9%) 4100
CC 20 $0.00
Health Insurance $275.00
Storage $0.00
Old CO $0.00 (Paid off with reserves)
Day Care $700.00 (I am working on other options for this)
Groceries $400.00
Eating Out $150.00 (Lunches which are pretty much required in my business)
Misc $100.00

Old Total $9,859.00
New Total $8,486.00

So with the new budget plan I have eliminated $1,380 a month. Not a bad start but I need some more ideas to get it lower. The house refi would be a huge part of it if it works well. Even if I just do a normal Refi at 6% my house payments drop from a total of 1900 to about 1300 a month saving 600 a month. But that still doesnt get us to where we need to be. We need to be at within 60 days 8k and within 120 days we need to be at 7k a month.

Have you spoken with a broker to get the ball rolling on a refi?

Why are you still including $275/month for health insurance? Doesn't your wife carry it through work?

I had a new collection pop up on my report a few days ago. I know its not mine and I have sent out the DV letters. So as soon as I get that removed I will be working on the ReFi.

The $275 a month is for health insurance for me and our child, wife is covered by her work. It was $450 to add myself and our child to her health insurance so was just cheaper to keep them separate.

Nice start Klesko

WOW- I have been keeping up with this thread. It is tough especially since there are SO MANY credit cards with balances. I would not be able to sleep at night!
Seriously paying off the CC"s would help tremendously and that would be my first thing to tackle.
You've cut your household expenses but that is not the bulk of your outgoing expenses- the CC's are.

Good luck

>>>The $275 a month is for health insurance for me and our child, wife is covered by her work. It was $450 to add myself and our child to her health insurance so was just cheaper to keep them separate. <<<

Ok, gotcha so you have to pay for your insurance outside of work? Do you have an employee sponsored program?

It looks like you cut quite alot from your budget, but are still very short. Even with the daycare expense disappearing over the summer you are still about $800 over your target.

I hate to say it, but one of the cars has got to go. Did you look into www.leasetrader.com? I understand that you have to have two cars, but you simply can't afford the ones you are driving right now.
You said one of the leases was brand new, can you check into doing an early turn in?

If you can't get rid of the car then I would say its time for DW to get a second job. Here are some options she might consider:

A) A part time evening job - retail is great. If she could bring in $500/month that would at least cover her car lease.
Try to find summer full-time work at a daycare center. This would provide cheap to free childcare.
If she worked fulltime she could probably bring home $800-$1000/month. That would help you out tremendously.
C) Check into Sylvan or Huntington learning centers. They are always looking for qualified teachers that can provide tutoring, and they pay pretty well.

You have to have more income, you can't rely on the possibility that you will have extra income, you have to know for sure. If you get the extras you think you are gonna get that's great, put that towards your CC debt.

You have trimmed your budget to the bone, you have to live, you have to eat, you have to have electricity - so what else are you gonna do?

Well I have some bulk cash that could be coming in but I need to get the budget under control before then so we can maintain until that point atleast. But worse case it would be 24-36 months to pay exactly what we are paying now to pay most or all of the cards off.

Another option which I have been getting advice on is to ReFi cash out which would pay off about 50k in credit cards. Some say this is not a good idea though and I should just do a straight ReFi but I am exploring all options.

Refi with cash out (Would lower payments by aprox 1200 a month, but puting 50k more debt on my house making it harder to sell down the road. It is not the house we plan to live in forever.)
Refi alone (Would lower payments by aprox 700 a month)

I have several things which should bring in cash in lump sums over the year. Such as I have a project in a few months which will bring in 4-6k. That cash will go into reserves. However is something bad were to happen before 24 months we would be in big trouble and that is what concerns me the most.