claudefergus
Confused about dryer sheets
Hi everyone.
I went through several brushes with completely losing everything (this involved cashing out previous retirement money for a family medical emergency and narrowly avoiding bankruptcy).
I'm now 34 years old, married, and life is stable again. Both my wife and I freelance, but I am starting over again with debt I am still paying down.
I'm thankful to have learned about FI/RE which has given me some hope that through discipline and commitment there might still be hope for me and my wife.
Here is my current pretty sad picture.
18,500 left in credit card debt. This is our number 1 focus at the moment
My wife's Roth IRA still has $4413.13 holding VTSAX.
My Roth IRA is still empty. I intend to get this in VTSAX after eliminating credit card debt.
Have a $10,000 emergency fund at Ally which will get wiped out to some extent by taxes from my wife's self-employ freelance taxes.
That's pretty much it, sadly.
I'm a little overwhelmed by the wealth of information from all of the various FI/RE resources out there. It's all helpful of course but I'm not sure what the best course of action for me is.
Obviously, I am now in a position where I'm playing catch up to a large degree. I want to learn how to maximize/optimize everything. Checking, how much and what to put in brokerage, how to maximize retirement accounts, etc so that I can make up for lost time.
Checking right now is at Bank of America which I know I should change.
I'll continue to read and learn and participate in the community here. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help a newb who is crawling out from desperation.
EDIT: For clarification, both my wife and I freelance so work/income is inconsistent. I know cutting expenses and save ratio are more important factors but thought I'd include that info.
I went through several brushes with completely losing everything (this involved cashing out previous retirement money for a family medical emergency and narrowly avoiding bankruptcy).
I'm now 34 years old, married, and life is stable again. Both my wife and I freelance, but I am starting over again with debt I am still paying down.
I'm thankful to have learned about FI/RE which has given me some hope that through discipline and commitment there might still be hope for me and my wife.
Here is my current pretty sad picture.
18,500 left in credit card debt. This is our number 1 focus at the moment
My wife's Roth IRA still has $4413.13 holding VTSAX.
My Roth IRA is still empty. I intend to get this in VTSAX after eliminating credit card debt.
Have a $10,000 emergency fund at Ally which will get wiped out to some extent by taxes from my wife's self-employ freelance taxes.
That's pretty much it, sadly.
I'm a little overwhelmed by the wealth of information from all of the various FI/RE resources out there. It's all helpful of course but I'm not sure what the best course of action for me is.
Obviously, I am now in a position where I'm playing catch up to a large degree. I want to learn how to maximize/optimize everything. Checking, how much and what to put in brokerage, how to maximize retirement accounts, etc so that I can make up for lost time.
Checking right now is at Bank of America which I know I should change.
I'll continue to read and learn and participate in the community here. Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help a newb who is crawling out from desperation.
EDIT: For clarification, both my wife and I freelance so work/income is inconsistent. I know cutting expenses and save ratio are more important factors but thought I'd include that info.
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