Hi all, I need some guidance on managing my family finances
I’m currently struggling because my monthly expenses are higher than my salary. I have two small kids — one is 3 years old and the other is 3 months old — and my wife is not working, so the entire financial responsibility is on me. My monthly expenses have crossed ₹1.5 lakh while my salary is ₹1.2 lakh.
In the last 7–8 months, I had to take two personal loans of ₹3 lakh each just to repay my credit card bills — so almost every 4 months I end up falling into debt again. I also have ₹80,000 EMI every month, which includes:
₹40,000 EMI for a new house construction in my native, and
Two personal loans of ₹20,000 each, also taken recently to clear credit card dues.
Even now, I still have ₹1.5 lakh outstanding on my credit card, which clearly shows that credit card usage has become the main issue. I’m finding it difficult to stop relying on it because monthly expenses keep exceeding my income.
Can anyone share your experiences or practical tips on how to manage finances in this situation? How to break this repeated credit card debt cycle and manage family expenses better? Any advice would be really helpful.
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Dont have kids!😬 until to capable enough else earn more
Ok Einstein, "dont have kids!!" ? Well, he has kids now so he's asking for help. You don't have a solution and can't help? Then just shut up.
Can't agree more,
why to have kids if you can't give them the life they deserved.
Restructure your loan, would suggest get a OD overdraft and close all your loans and cc. Then you have yo manage your expenses. Cut all unneccesary ones and pay more and more into OD. Else you will land in a debt trap. Its the start so act smartly else things will go worse. I have been into same condition and seen worst of it. So just an advice. Also you may take gold loan if you have any gold, that will help you a lot. Stop using credit cards for now.
Adding to it, if possible move your wife and kids to honetown. Aa that will help your kids also, as to my view dada dadi k sath bache bht kuch acha seekhte hai. And then take a 1rk for yourself for some time. Also look out to increase your salary by switching. Or do something so that you have some side income. I might sound rude sorry for that but its better to take precaution then landing up in chaos.
This is the best advice
This is nothing. You should buy one more land and Start the construction of a Villa. Debts are a cool thing you should go bankrupt in that.
Bro you are in wrong app this is not reddit🤣🤣
Can you tell monthly expenses in detail
40k 30k 10k 3 personal loan total 80k 15k rent 5k maintenance charges total rent 20k and 10k new site bought in native 10k and school fees 5k and some monthly expenses like groceries 5-6k others including un expected 10k Total 1.25l and outstanding cc bil 1.5l rotating every month and intrest 2% 3k extra this emy current situation and also new baby expenditure 10k including similac baby powder and diapers etc
Also, can you please share
For 3 loans, loan amount, interest, pending, tenure
Is there any stock vesting? Bonus?
It would have been better if you could have given the break down of expenses.
However, cut your expenses & pay debts asap.
Living on debt ain't good idea
Upskill & switch meanwhile
Convert credit card outstanding to emi si that you can get some relaxation some time so earn and save some money then slowly repay the credit card
As a banker, I would suggest using your credit card limit to 30% max. Don't ever overdraw on your limit.
Make a item wise list of expenses and then see where u cut it first
Think of what expenses are unnecessary, cut them out.
And switch your job for a better hike
Some short term solutions on the thread look promising. I can help with a long-term solution here. Clearly the problem is with the expenses. What most financial advisors don't understand however is that expenses can be extremely personal. So it's time to have a discussion with yourself, outside of your already busy life, an hour or two of silent reflection, no blaming yourself or your situation, just taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture. The next step is rather painstaking (and might I add, downright boring) - transaction assessment. There are tools and templates freely available that can help you with this (although most apps are trying to assess how deep in debt you are and then sell that data to loansharks to screw you all over again). But with UPI and Card transactions being prevalent, you can get a digital download of all your expenses in a pdf or excel. Now comes the honest conversation bit again. Bucket all your expenses in 3 categories: Necessary (things you and your family NEED to live a healthy and happy life), Discretionary (things you and your family spend on to feel better about yourselves), and Luxury (things you and your family do to show-off to others).
Three very important caveats here:
- We all show off, we all do things just to feel better about ourselves, so don't be shy or guilty in admitting that to yourself
- Depending on your interests, capabilities, upbringing, social, economic, medical situations, what you put in which bucket can change wildly (e.g. both me and my wife like to cook, so even though we both work, we don't have a cook. So while hiring a cook can be a discretionary expense for us, for someone who doesn't cook or doesn't have the bandwidth to do so, it could be necessary etc.)
- Some large expenses like rent, school fees, etc. are a combination of 2 or 3 buckets, be sure to break them down and put respective amounts in each bucket to get an accurate picture (e.g. I pay 45k rent every month, for a 3BHK 1600sqft apartment in a gated society near my work for 2 people. If we had taken a 2BHK farther away in a standalone building it would also work out just fine for us and maybe cost us 25k. I grew up in government quarters so I'm used to a lot of light and wind in the house and having a place close to the office helps a lot. Had I gone for a 2BHK at a higher floor near the office it would probably cost us 40k. We like to have friends, colleagues and family over almost every weekend. A 3BHK in a gated society with ample floor space is useful in this regard, and that costs me my current rent, 45k. Which means my rent, divided into 3 buckets would be 25k necessary, 15k discretionary and 5k luxury.)
Once you have all this in place, time for the step that is most difficult to execute. Cut out the luxury. If that doesn't help with the finances, then you start to cut the discretionary. Obviously, discuss this with your family before reaching any conclusions (what you find luxury your partner may find necessary or vice versa).
All said and done, it's easy to write all this down and much harder to execute in real life. I hope you pull through this and come out stronger on the other side.