OK, here is is...It's time for me to get real and do something drastic. We are broke, I just went to the grocery store and needed to use my credit card. I have been married 11 years, we have 2 kids. I work part time, my husband works full time. Up until recently we have been able to make ends meet, crawling into deeper debt over the years because of our poor choices.

We hit rock bottom last year (which was a good thing) we almost ended up divorced, went to conseling and worked on our issues. We realized we felt trapped in our current life and decided together we were going to do what it takes to change our lives. We made a big decision to use our credit card to invest in some education together. We paid 16K for some classes in REI and are currently taking them together. We knew we wanted to invest in RE, it's always been our passion, something we always talked about but never had the guts to do. (that's what I mean by hitting rock bottom was good for us, it forced us to get out of our comfort zone).

Recently we bought our 1st investment property with a partner, a REO for 55k. We are working on it now, our budget is 40 K and we hope to sell if for 150K. Once it sells we plan on putting our profit directly onto our credit card to pay for the classes we are taking. We have stopped buying things we can not afford but we ARE living outside our means which is why I needed to use my credit card for groceries today. The cost of living has increased so much we are forced to use our credit card to buy necessities.

My question is, how many of you found yourselves in embarassing situations like this and were able to dig yourselves out? I never pictured our life this way. We have good jobs, we are educated and are very hard working. What should we do to fix the mess we're in? Do we move (I'd hate to move our children from their home), Do I try to get a full time job? (then we'll pay more for daycare and our lives will be very hectic. ) Do we continue "floating" and investing in RE and putting our profits toward debt? Seriously...we know we need to make changes but we don't know where to begin. Obviously we'd like to keep our home. Quite honestly, I'm willing to move buy my husband is not. I am open to your harsh comments. Like I said, we have learned from our mistakes and are desperately trying to fix it.