Credit card debt

[Chrisada]

I have avoided credit cart debt my whole life until these last few months of fourth year. Now on my two cards, we probably have almost $4,000 on them!! Do we try and aggressively pay them down over the next four years in residency or do we say eff it and worry about it later? BTW I will not be working, but DH will be moonlighting. I'm definitely leaning towards eff it. Please tell me credit card debt is a normal part of all this. Ugh.

[poky]

I'd think it'd depend on the interest rate on the cards. If you can shuffle the balance between 0% cards as you go, then yeah, don't worry about it. If you're paying 20% interest, then definitely aggressively pay it down. Four years is a long time for that amount to balloon out of control.

Sorry to hear that. If I were you, I'd do everything I could to pay them down. Credit cards are evil.

Lacy

[Vanquisher]

Try to pay it down, but don't be surprised if you can't. Even though we were making some money during residency, our debt ballooned out of control. Try to stay out of debt as much as possible and only use credit for emergencies if you can. Do as I say, not as I do.

[Chrisada]

I need to check my rates all though I do know they are relatively low. Nothing like 20%. So we will be getting an $8,000 refund when we buy our house. So we will probably pay down a big chunk of it with that. I wouldn't mind paying all of it off, but we need to be sure to save enough to lease a new car and also have a cushion for emergencies. It' s so funny that most people think DH is about to be making some serious money. HA!

[ladymoreta]

Meh, we try to keep ours paid off, but it comes and goes. I know it's terrible financial advice, but I'd say let it ride until you feel secure again. Even if you don't completely pay it off with your tax rebate, you can reduce it then. I've come to accept that we'll finish this journey with good and bad debt, and we'll focus on paying it off then.

[peggyfromwastate]

It sucks. I know. I use some balance transfer offers. I have a Capital One card that is pretty much my go to balance transfer card and that's it. Sucks.

[rainbabies]

are you sure your dh can moonlight? just curious, bc some states require your own medical license (here, they practice off the institution) and you have to be under 80hrs. i don't know of any ob program that's under hours....well, *off* paper, i don't know of any. just throwing that out there..i hope he can...it will really help!!!

as far as the CC, i've got nothing...we payed mimimums on ours. it sucks.

good luck! i'm excited for you, that you're coming along!!

[moonlight]

Try to pay it down, but don't be surprised if you can't. Even though we were making some money during residency, our debt ballooned out of control. Try to stay out of debt as much as possible and only use credit for emergencies if you can. Do as I say, not as I do.

Same here. Pay as much as you can and try not to use them. I'm not sure about you, but it was the dark cloud over my head for the past 12+ months. Thankfully our first time home buyers credit came in and we were able to pay things off. It feels wonderful to have that monkey off my back!

[rainbabies]

i also wanted to mention, we didn't use our cards, we shredded them...then paid the minimum payment each month.

Pay it down. I say this with complete BTDT experience, and now, almost 5 years out we're FINALLY *almost* done with consumer debt from residency. It makes me sick to think that we're still paying for meals we ate 7 years ago, shoes we bought, Target runs ... Creditors are looking more closely than ever at balances, how close you are to your limit, etc. Pay it off and use the cards as your cushion for emergencies. Some debt will be part of residency, but if you have any way to start residency w/o credit card debt, do it.

[JaneDoe]

Do the best you can to pay it off and to avoid incurring more debt. Paying off debt sucks- even when you have a nice income.

[Chrisada]

are you sure your dh can moonlight? just curious, bc some states require your own medical license (here, they practice off the institution) and you have to be under 80hrs. i don't know of any ob program that's under hours....well, *off* paper, i don't know of any. just throwing that out there..i hope he can...it will really help!!!


good luck! i'm excited for you, that you're coming along!!

Hey Sylvia! DH's program actually expects for them to moonlight. It's almost like part of the program or something. So he'll start doing that in January I think. We don't typically use our cards, but we have been the last month or two to keep as much money in our accounts for our mortgage approval. That coupled with interview expenses just ballooned everything.

[v-girl]

We had to tell the CC company that we would start paying them back this summer. As much as we tried, we just couldn't manage what they wanted per month. I know, terrible, but I can't handle a job and 3 kids with his schedule and most of my income was going to gas, tuition and child care. We've had our house since April '98 though and will have to pay cash for our next car(s). Luckily, other than our mortgage (house was only $83,500), we came out of med school/residency with less than $10K debt.

Hey Sylvia! DH's program actually expects for them to moonlight. It's almost like part of the program or something. So he'll start doing that in January I think. We don't typically use our cards, but we have been the last month or two to keep as much money in our accounts for our mortgage approval. That coupled with interview expenses just ballooned everything.

I was always under the impression that you had to finish your intern year before you could moonlight anywhere?? Perhaps it's something in-house where they can avoid that.