Oh and the thing with bringing mac, not going to happen. I had never looked at the details of party. it starts at 7pm on a MONDAY - we live an hour from there and his bedtime is 8:30 - so no.

That is so not on. You're not going either, are you? I totally wouldn't.

The party here last year was great -- started mid-afternoon, and the big boss left after like an hour and a half or something, so all the rest of us left, too!

don't get me started. we all have to chip in money to buy both bosses these ridiculous gifts that they almost never like and spent way too much money on. a few years ago when i was strapped for cash, i told them that and i proceeded to get a guilt trip about everything the bosses have given me. my eyes were almost rolling out of my head.

Rules of etiquette are that bosses buy gifts for employees, employees should not buy bosses gifts.

Rules of etiquette are that bosses buy gifts for employees, employees should not buy bosses gifts.

Seriously.

OK, just spent some time on the phone this morning with a debt counselor. (It's amazing how long the financial repercussions of a bout of unemployment and then being too stubborn to admit your freelancing thing isn't working out for you can stay with you. Sigh.) Anyway, her recommendation was that the first thing we try is to see if a credit union will give us an installment loan, ideally to cover the entire debt and to be paid off in 5-7 years. She seemed to think there's a good chance we'd be approved, since our income is pretty high and we don't have any other debt, and DH ran some numbers suggesting that payments on a 5-7 year loan would be within our reach and, in fact, considerably less than what we're paying on the cards most months, which would allow us to start building an emergency fund, investing toward AB's education, etc.

Has anyone ever gone this route? Any thoughts--recommendations or warnings? The advisor did say to make sure we checked our credit history before applying so we can correct any errors that might get us in trouble.

We've done that, Susan. The hardest part is remembering NOT to rack up any more debt once you get out from under the multiple credit card payments. We've also borrowed from our 401K to pay down some debt (which is highly NOT recommended by most, if not all, financial advisers).

Credit unions are usually easier to get loans from, rather than banks.

Timelies all!

Not sure if there will be a holiday party where I work. Our group is small, but not very social. There used to be a big party for everyone in the building, but they didn't do that last year...

The hardest part is remembering NOT to rack up any more debt once you get out from under the multiple credit card payments.

This is mostly why Dave Ramsey does not recommend one big loan to "pay off" everything. Instead, he recommends the debt snowball, whereby you list all your debts smallest to largest (regardless of interest rate), make only minimum payments on all debts, and throw any extra money toward the smallest debt. Once that is paid off you take whatever minimum payment you were making on that and add that to the next smallest debt's minimum. And so on.

His argument is that the psychological/motivational effects of paying something, anything, off outweighs any technical benefit you get from mathmatically lower payments. And that helps you build momentum to get out of debt, save, etc.

Bah. My parents' home town is supposed to get 6-10" of snow tomorrow. I'm driving there tonight (before it snows) and coming back on Sunday, when the only thing on the forecast is "ice pellets."

His argument is that the psychological/motivational effects of paying something, anything, off outweighs any technical benefit you get from mathmatically lower payments.

I've heard this argument, but I'm not sure it works for the position we're currently in. To me, it's more motivating to have a loan, and to know that if we keep making our monthly payments it'll be gone on a certain date, and that right now we can start putting money aside to have an emergency fund. It makes all kinds of things I'd like to do, like have another child, buy a house, take my Summer 2015 European Dream Vacation, and not die starving and alone surrounded by cats, seem like actual possibilities, and that I won't spend the rest of my life being punished for the mistakes of the past 5-6 years.

ETA IMHO it's the sheer open-endedness of the credit cards that both gets us into trouble (because there's always room to put one more little thing on them) and makes it seems like it's impossible to ever get free of them.