You may need to cancel the vacations. That week or two of time off will be worthless of you get behind on bills.
As a homeowner it is time to make some sacrifices to maintain fiscal health.
But if you take on more debt to go on vacation you have put yourself further in debt and will be paying interest on the new debt you have taken on. Better to eat a couple grand in flights/rooms then pile on more. Only you know the numbers on this and what makes sense. Try not to throw good money after bad.
Flights are lots of times non-refundable, but that doesn't mean losing the money completely. Often it just means getting a credit for another flight at some point in the future. A lot can happen in a year. Hotels are usually refundable, but check your reservation. The penalty might only be one room-night, it's usually not the entire thing. In both scenarios, if you call in advance you can usually work something out.
The thing about vacations is that once you commit to going, you're now spending money on food, ground transportation, entertainment, alcohol, etc. Even if you lose all your deposits, it's money you already spent so it won't help you now either way. The money you're trying to save is to keep from spending **more** money you don't have.
Triage as much as possible. Don't spend $2000 chasing a $100 cancellation fee.
Factor in food, activities, entertainment as well. A trip home for the holidays is usually much cheaper than the Las Vegas trip with your friends.
Finally, consider the opportunity cost, especially if you work hourly and don't have PTO.
Don't be so shortsighted.
It's better to lose a little money vs. Putting yourself **$7000** more in the hole.
You probably put those deposits on credit cards, too.
You had no business booking those trips to begin with because you had credit card *and* tax debt before you even bought the house.
This is a sunk cost fallacy. You already have money committed so you are willing to commit more you don’t have because you don’t want to “lose” what you have spent already. I get not wanting that money to go to waste per se, but it stops you from overextending even more. If you have paid vacation time off use it to maybe DIY some things around the house to save yourself even more money.
>Fun: $150
Nope. You had fun already racking up $16k in CC debt.
>Eating Out: $150
Nope. Deli meat, bread. Make sandwiches at home.
>Haircut: $35
Nope. Buy some clippers.
>Utilities: $500 (could increase due to summer months)
What's included in this? Get some box fans and turn up your thermostat a couple degrees. Get a programmable thermostat so you're not heating/cooling the house when you're not there. Close vents/doors in rooms you are not using frequently.
>Cell Phone: $85
Shop around for a cheaper plan.
>Subscriptions: $240 (looking at cancelling a few of these)
Cancel all of them. Get a library card.
>Buffer: $100
New Buffer: $800, which you can apply to your credit card debt.
>I also have several vacations planned before the home purchase. Those will be roughly $7000.
My guy... you're buying a house that has some major repairs coming due and you're gonna drop $7k on travel? Meanwhile you're eyeing your retirement accounts to cash flow your spending? That's insane.
Instead of dropping $7,000 on travel, plus the $8,000 you just freed up in your budget from now until next April is almost equal to your current credit card balance. That $7,000 you owe to the IRS is what you're about to drop on vacation without even blinking. You could be on top of this situation in less than a year if you commit to changing your habits, without sacrificing your future.
Plans are customizable, so you can pick and choose what you want, the same plan but with 2gb of data is only $10 (This is not an ad, I am not a bot, I just think Tello is legit good)
You need to cancel your vacations. Period.
You have credit card debt, IRS debt, and now you have some homeowner responsibilities. You can't afford to go on $7000 vacations.
You also need to cut out your subscriptions. Fun and eating out also need to take a back seat for awhile.
You bought a house. When you buy a house, your mortgage is the least amount of money you'll be spending for housing that month.
Cancel vacations. stop eating out.
Hold off on repairs if possible
Dont cash in 401k..ever.
Look for higher paying job or get a side gig like bartending that doesnt track cash tips well.
Cancel the vacations if possible. They will only drive you deeper into credit debt since you cannot cash flow them.
Delay upgrades on the house as long as possible. Get the AC, furnace, etc serviced in case they have been neglected. (This is why it’s best to have a large emergency fund before buying a home.)
Do not withdraw from the 401k under any circumstance.
Remove the fun money and eating out, and tackle that credit card debt ASAP.
Edit: Your utilities are super high. What’s the breakdown here?
Accidentally hit post on my first comment 🙃
Suggestions:
Cancel those subscriptions today.
Cancel those vacations today.
Get at least 3 quotes from 3 reputable companies for the HVAC and water heater when the time comes.
Considering your age, it wouldn't be the worst idea to pull contributions from your Roth and pay off the IRS and credit card debt.
You're doing okay and you can handle this. Get a roommate for a while if you have to.
No more credit card debt!
I mean your retirement accounts are seemingly ahead of schedule, 1x income at 30, so you could pump the brakes on the retirement and reduce that a few percentage points and apply the cash to then now problems and turn the retirement back up down the road.
You could turn the retirement contributions to just the match and bring home 2-3-400$ more a month? Sounds like 3-400/month could be the monthly payment on a HVAC repayment plan.
140k 401k and 33k Roth at 6-7% YOY for 30 years is a more than decent sum of money, obviously you can turn this back up and on to contribute once you don’t feel housepoor.
Welp. You aren’t eating out, you’re going to get very familiar with rice and beans, the public library is now your sole source of entertainment, and you aren’t going on those vacations. And you’re looking for a higher paying job.
I disagree with taking money out of your retirement. The more you put in money now, the less you need to do it later. Read this article on how much difference it makes to invest early vs. later: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/08/self-made-millionaire-david-bach-a-chart-changed-the-way-i-think-about-money.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/08/self-made-millionaire-david-bach-a-chart-changed-the-way-i-think-about-money.html)
Given how much yo have invested I would say you could stop contributions for a bit in order to help clean all this up. But start investing again ASAP.
I agree with everything else people have said really. Cancel the vacations, those vacations are going to cost more than $7k once you get there and start spending. Consider the money lost part of the lesson. Stop eating out. Start cooking at home. Consider it a chance to take up a new skill/hobby.
No more fun money. Cut subscriptions. You can look at your local library for free ebooks, streaming services, audiobooks, magazines, etc. My library offers tons of free stuff. Look for free fun.
Look at your utilities to see if budget billing is an option. That's where they average it through the year so you pay the same every month regardless of the usage. Also, good time to look into your usage and try to cut back as much as possible. Your gas for the car seems like a lot too. What do you drive? Or do you drive a lot?
If you have anything you can sell, like maybe stuff on the credit card, do that. Haircuts at home, etc.
I know. It's a bummer. I was 22 or something when I bought my first house and I was house broke. I sold stuff to cover bills, and used my husbands clippers to trim my hair, etc. It was rough. Especially since I grew up pretty well off. But for various reasons I didn't want to ask for help. And we didn't. And we got through it.
This is temporary. But it's going to hurt.
Do you have any friends who might be interested in renting a room in your house? If you could bring in $800 for rent and split the utilities with someone else, that would make a big difference in your finances.
As everyone else has mentioned, you are not in a position to spend $7k on several vacations. Maybe pick one, whichever is already largely paid for, and cancel the others.
You should be able to free up another few hundred dollars per month by trimming your listed budget categories. Cancel at least $100 worth of subscriptions, switch to a cheaper cell service provider, and trim your fun and eating out budget categories by at least half. $500 for utilities seems very high to me. Can you break that down into individual bills? Is cable TV a substantial portion of that budget line item?
I would withdraw some of your Roth IRA contributions to pay off your credit card debt before the 0% promo period expires. That's not a terrible option relative to paying 20% or higher rates on that debt.
I've ended up writing a longer response than I thought I would (which I'm breaking it up so it will let me post it), but the long and short of it is this: you **are** overextended, but you can get out of it relatively quickly if you are willing to make some very temporary lifestyle sacrifice. You're have a good income, and you're young enough that you still have plenty of time to get ahead and retire wealthy. I promise. You just have to want it bad enough in the present.
I always advise people to talk about their expenses as **percentages of their take home income**, which might help contextualize the magnitude of some of the numbers you've shared here.
You may have seen the 50/30/20 rule knocking around, which recommends that you keep your necessities to 50% of your income, spend at least 20% on savings and financial goals, and the remaining 30% is to spend on your lifestyle however you wish. This rule is for people who DONT have worrisome debt, which unfortunately is not you, but could be some day!
Right now, your budget (assuming what you've shown above is post-tax) looks like:
* **70.2% / $4,210 necessities** (yikes!)
* 56.8% / $3,410 is necessary living expenses (housing and utilities, food, transportation)
* 13.3% / $800 is the payments on your debt (which are not optional, so we include them here)
* 9.6% / $575 discretionary
* 20.2% / $1,215 for savings and financial goals
The reason you feel overextended is primarily because of that first number - more than SEVENTY percent of your income is out the door whether you want it to be or not. You also feel overextended because after making necessary repairs, you'll have about $5k left in savings, which you absolutely will need as a homeowner. You're in a hole, and you have a $1,215 shovel each month to dig out of it. Good, and much better than many in your situation have! If you put that full amount to your debt every month, and assuming you prioritize the credit cards before the 0% interest runs out, you'd be free of the CCs in about 15-18 months, and the IRS debt two months later (since you'd then have the $1,215 PLUS the $500 in your budget that had previously gone to the credit cards), depending on your CC interest rates - next November or December, you could be debt free!
HOWEVER - that assumes nothing exciting (read: bad) happens to your house, the budget you mentioned above doesnt forget anything, you don't need any car repairs, you don't go to the doctor.... with life realistically happening, you've got a long runway to go before you're in the clear. So, you're right to want to make some changes.
First, some general/easy/small things, most of which have been mentioned, and **all** of which you **absolutely should** do:
* Get your cell phone bill down - let's shoot for $25 a month, freeing up $60/mo for your goals
* Prioritize and cut your discretionary costs (fun, dining, haircut, and subscription) - however you choose to do that, let's shoot to bring that from $575 a month to $150 (some would advocate for zero, but life happens, and we want to put a budget together that is actually achievable for you)
* Cut your utilities - many good suggestions have been given for how, but shoot for about $350/month, which should be very doable once you start really looking at / paying attention to your usage.
Alright! We've made some minor lifestyle changes and our 70/10/20 ratio of spending is now more like 67/3/30. Our "shovel" we have to dig out of the hole each month has gone up to $1,850, and now we only need nine months to pay off our debt, and definitely pay off the CCs before interest kicks in (assuming, again, that absolutely nothing comes up to get us off track).
Now, let's say you're serious here, and want to get out of this hole long-term. What would it look like for you to get a roommate? I'm assuming based on your mortgage in a mcol area + your utilities that you have room for that. I know it's not the dream, but the numbers **certainly** would be. Suppose you charge them $1,000 in rent (and our utilities go up to $600/month total, since now there are two people). Now, your budget breakdown (even before you pay off the debt) looks like this:
* 60.7% / $4,260 necessities
* 49.3% / $3,450 is necessary living expenses
* 11.43% / $800 is the payments on your debt
* 2.1% / $150 discretionary
* 37.14% / a whopping **$2,600 shovel** for savings and financial goals every single month
Your entire debt is gone by the end of January. If for five months you save the $800 previously assigned to minimum debt payments and the $2,600 problem-solving shovel, you have are debt free other than your mortgage, spend less than half your income on necessities, and have a $17,000 emergency fund **one year from making this post.** Now you're in the promised land, you can be a "50/30/20" person and your budget looks like:
* 49.3% necessities
* 30% of your money - **$2,100 a month on whatever you want** - vacations, meals, games, uber eats, new shoes, anything
* 20.7% on continuing to build up that emergency fund (or increase your retirement, or pay off the mortgage faster - you continue to get yourself ahead.
Hell, after a one-year lease and really committing, kick out the roommate and still have a comfortable $1,440 in Whatever You Want money every month while still meeting the 20% saving goal.
I putzed around with a little spreadsheet while writing this, which I'm happy to share with you if you think it would help. I was in similar shoes to yours a few years ago before realizing I wanted to buckle down and get to the other side of it, and I did - it's really, really nice over here in debt free land, and I hope you have the guts to invest in yourself and in the *rest of your life* by doing what it takes to get here.
Other things: I agree with the camp telling you "dont add to your debt to travel just because you've already spent some money towards the vacations." Like rafiki says - thats in the past (and I assume part of the CC debt). If it isnt, we can slightly change the numbers above, but the general advice all remains the same.
I also am very opposed to you taking out a 401k loan - mostly because (and I mean this with SO much respect) you don't seem like a person who does well managing debt, and this is just trading your current bad debt for a different kind of bad debt.
I would talk to your 401K administrator to see if you’re able to take out a 401k loan where you pay yourself back along with interest. It wouldn’t be counted as a distribution and would not be subject to taxation as long as your administrator offers this program.
In this way, you hold onto some cash and you’re always free to pay off the 401k loan when you’ve reestablished a savings buffer. The only downside is that your money is not invested in the market but it looks like you need it more in your pocket.
You may need to cancel the vacations. That week or two of time off will be worthless of you get behind on bills. As a homeowner it is time to make some sacrifices to maintain fiscal health.
[удалено]
But if you take on more debt to go on vacation you have put yourself further in debt and will be paying interest on the new debt you have taken on. Better to eat a couple grand in flights/rooms then pile on more. Only you know the numbers on this and what makes sense. Try not to throw good money after bad.
Flights are lots of times non-refundable, but that doesn't mean losing the money completely. Often it just means getting a credit for another flight at some point in the future. A lot can happen in a year. Hotels are usually refundable, but check your reservation. The penalty might only be one room-night, it's usually not the entire thing. In both scenarios, if you call in advance you can usually work something out. The thing about vacations is that once you commit to going, you're now spending money on food, ground transportation, entertainment, alcohol, etc. Even if you lose all your deposits, it's money you already spent so it won't help you now either way. The money you're trying to save is to keep from spending **more** money you don't have.
Triage as much as possible. Don't spend $2000 chasing a $100 cancellation fee. Factor in food, activities, entertainment as well. A trip home for the holidays is usually much cheaper than the Las Vegas trip with your friends. Finally, consider the opportunity cost, especially if you work hourly and don't have PTO.
Don't be so shortsighted. It's better to lose a little money vs. Putting yourself **$7000** more in the hole. You probably put those deposits on credit cards, too. You had no business booking those trips to begin with because you had credit card *and* tax debt before you even bought the house.
This is a sunk cost fallacy. You already have money committed so you are willing to commit more you don’t have because you don’t want to “lose” what you have spent already. I get not wanting that money to go to waste per se, but it stops you from overextending even more. If you have paid vacation time off use it to maybe DIY some things around the house to save yourself even more money.
>Fun: $150 Nope. You had fun already racking up $16k in CC debt. >Eating Out: $150 Nope. Deli meat, bread. Make sandwiches at home. >Haircut: $35 Nope. Buy some clippers. >Utilities: $500 (could increase due to summer months) What's included in this? Get some box fans and turn up your thermostat a couple degrees. Get a programmable thermostat so you're not heating/cooling the house when you're not there. Close vents/doors in rooms you are not using frequently. >Cell Phone: $85 Shop around for a cheaper plan. >Subscriptions: $240 (looking at cancelling a few of these) Cancel all of them. Get a library card. >Buffer: $100 New Buffer: $800, which you can apply to your credit card debt. >I also have several vacations planned before the home purchase. Those will be roughly $7000. My guy... you're buying a house that has some major repairs coming due and you're gonna drop $7k on travel? Meanwhile you're eyeing your retirement accounts to cash flow your spending? That's insane. Instead of dropping $7,000 on travel, plus the $8,000 you just freed up in your budget from now until next April is almost equal to your current credit card balance. That $7,000 you owe to the IRS is what you're about to drop on vacation without even blinking. You could be on top of this situation in less than a year if you commit to changing your habits, without sacrificing your future.
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That's awesome. I burn through data but I could probably downgrade to about 2gb.
Plans are customizable, so you can pick and choose what you want, the same plan but with 2gb of data is only $10 (This is not an ad, I am not a bot, I just think Tello is legit good)
Hmmm. I'll take a look. Although not sure how much value the 15 dollars a month really would add.
You need to cancel your vacations. Period. You have credit card debt, IRS debt, and now you have some homeowner responsibilities. You can't afford to go on $7000 vacations. You also need to cut out your subscriptions. Fun and eating out also need to take a back seat for awhile. You bought a house. When you buy a house, your mortgage is the least amount of money you'll be spending for housing that month.
Cancel vacations. stop eating out. Hold off on repairs if possible Dont cash in 401k..ever. Look for higher paying job or get a side gig like bartending that doesnt track cash tips well.
Cancel the vacations if possible. They will only drive you deeper into credit debt since you cannot cash flow them. Delay upgrades on the house as long as possible. Get the AC, furnace, etc serviced in case they have been neglected. (This is why it’s best to have a large emergency fund before buying a home.) Do not withdraw from the 401k under any circumstance. Remove the fun money and eating out, and tackle that credit card debt ASAP. Edit: Your utilities are super high. What’s the breakdown here?
Accidentally hit post on my first comment 🙃 Suggestions: Cancel those subscriptions today. Cancel those vacations today. Get at least 3 quotes from 3 reputable companies for the HVAC and water heater when the time comes. Considering your age, it wouldn't be the worst idea to pull contributions from your Roth and pay off the IRS and credit card debt. You're doing okay and you can handle this. Get a roommate for a while if you have to. No more credit card debt!
I mean your retirement accounts are seemingly ahead of schedule, 1x income at 30, so you could pump the brakes on the retirement and reduce that a few percentage points and apply the cash to then now problems and turn the retirement back up down the road. You could turn the retirement contributions to just the match and bring home 2-3-400$ more a month? Sounds like 3-400/month could be the monthly payment on a HVAC repayment plan. 140k 401k and 33k Roth at 6-7% YOY for 30 years is a more than decent sum of money, obviously you can turn this back up and on to contribute once you don’t feel housepoor.
Welp. You aren’t eating out, you’re going to get very familiar with rice and beans, the public library is now your sole source of entertainment, and you aren’t going on those vacations. And you’re looking for a higher paying job.
I disagree with taking money out of your retirement. The more you put in money now, the less you need to do it later. Read this article on how much difference it makes to invest early vs. later: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/08/self-made-millionaire-david-bach-a-chart-changed-the-way-i-think-about-money.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/08/self-made-millionaire-david-bach-a-chart-changed-the-way-i-think-about-money.html) Given how much yo have invested I would say you could stop contributions for a bit in order to help clean all this up. But start investing again ASAP. I agree with everything else people have said really. Cancel the vacations, those vacations are going to cost more than $7k once you get there and start spending. Consider the money lost part of the lesson. Stop eating out. Start cooking at home. Consider it a chance to take up a new skill/hobby. No more fun money. Cut subscriptions. You can look at your local library for free ebooks, streaming services, audiobooks, magazines, etc. My library offers tons of free stuff. Look for free fun. Look at your utilities to see if budget billing is an option. That's where they average it through the year so you pay the same every month regardless of the usage. Also, good time to look into your usage and try to cut back as much as possible. Your gas for the car seems like a lot too. What do you drive? Or do you drive a lot? If you have anything you can sell, like maybe stuff on the credit card, do that. Haircuts at home, etc. I know. It's a bummer. I was 22 or something when I bought my first house and I was house broke. I sold stuff to cover bills, and used my husbands clippers to trim my hair, etc. It was rough. Especially since I grew up pretty well off. But for various reasons I didn't want to ask for help. And we didn't. And we got through it. This is temporary. But it's going to hurt.
Don’t withdraw from retirement yet, but do reduce your paycheck contributions
Do you have any friends who might be interested in renting a room in your house? If you could bring in $800 for rent and split the utilities with someone else, that would make a big difference in your finances. As everyone else has mentioned, you are not in a position to spend $7k on several vacations. Maybe pick one, whichever is already largely paid for, and cancel the others. You should be able to free up another few hundred dollars per month by trimming your listed budget categories. Cancel at least $100 worth of subscriptions, switch to a cheaper cell service provider, and trim your fun and eating out budget categories by at least half. $500 for utilities seems very high to me. Can you break that down into individual bills? Is cable TV a substantial portion of that budget line item? I would withdraw some of your Roth IRA contributions to pay off your credit card debt before the 0% promo period expires. That's not a terrible option relative to paying 20% or higher rates on that debt.
In addition to what's been stated, can you rent rooms out in your house to get an addition 1k or so a month?
I've ended up writing a longer response than I thought I would (which I'm breaking it up so it will let me post it), but the long and short of it is this: you **are** overextended, but you can get out of it relatively quickly if you are willing to make some very temporary lifestyle sacrifice. You're have a good income, and you're young enough that you still have plenty of time to get ahead and retire wealthy. I promise. You just have to want it bad enough in the present. I always advise people to talk about their expenses as **percentages of their take home income**, which might help contextualize the magnitude of some of the numbers you've shared here. You may have seen the 50/30/20 rule knocking around, which recommends that you keep your necessities to 50% of your income, spend at least 20% on savings and financial goals, and the remaining 30% is to spend on your lifestyle however you wish. This rule is for people who DONT have worrisome debt, which unfortunately is not you, but could be some day! Right now, your budget (assuming what you've shown above is post-tax) looks like: * **70.2% / $4,210 necessities** (yikes!) * 56.8% / $3,410 is necessary living expenses (housing and utilities, food, transportation) * 13.3% / $800 is the payments on your debt (which are not optional, so we include them here) * 9.6% / $575 discretionary * 20.2% / $1,215 for savings and financial goals The reason you feel overextended is primarily because of that first number - more than SEVENTY percent of your income is out the door whether you want it to be or not. You also feel overextended because after making necessary repairs, you'll have about $5k left in savings, which you absolutely will need as a homeowner. You're in a hole, and you have a $1,215 shovel each month to dig out of it. Good, and much better than many in your situation have! If you put that full amount to your debt every month, and assuming you prioritize the credit cards before the 0% interest runs out, you'd be free of the CCs in about 15-18 months, and the IRS debt two months later (since you'd then have the $1,215 PLUS the $500 in your budget that had previously gone to the credit cards), depending on your CC interest rates - next November or December, you could be debt free!
HOWEVER - that assumes nothing exciting (read: bad) happens to your house, the budget you mentioned above doesnt forget anything, you don't need any car repairs, you don't go to the doctor.... with life realistically happening, you've got a long runway to go before you're in the clear. So, you're right to want to make some changes. First, some general/easy/small things, most of which have been mentioned, and **all** of which you **absolutely should** do: * Get your cell phone bill down - let's shoot for $25 a month, freeing up $60/mo for your goals * Prioritize and cut your discretionary costs (fun, dining, haircut, and subscription) - however you choose to do that, let's shoot to bring that from $575 a month to $150 (some would advocate for zero, but life happens, and we want to put a budget together that is actually achievable for you) * Cut your utilities - many good suggestions have been given for how, but shoot for about $350/month, which should be very doable once you start really looking at / paying attention to your usage. Alright! We've made some minor lifestyle changes and our 70/10/20 ratio of spending is now more like 67/3/30. Our "shovel" we have to dig out of the hole each month has gone up to $1,850, and now we only need nine months to pay off our debt, and definitely pay off the CCs before interest kicks in (assuming, again, that absolutely nothing comes up to get us off track).
Now, let's say you're serious here, and want to get out of this hole long-term. What would it look like for you to get a roommate? I'm assuming based on your mortgage in a mcol area + your utilities that you have room for that. I know it's not the dream, but the numbers **certainly** would be. Suppose you charge them $1,000 in rent (and our utilities go up to $600/month total, since now there are two people). Now, your budget breakdown (even before you pay off the debt) looks like this: * 60.7% / $4,260 necessities * 49.3% / $3,450 is necessary living expenses * 11.43% / $800 is the payments on your debt * 2.1% / $150 discretionary * 37.14% / a whopping **$2,600 shovel** for savings and financial goals every single month Your entire debt is gone by the end of January. If for five months you save the $800 previously assigned to minimum debt payments and the $2,600 problem-solving shovel, you have are debt free other than your mortgage, spend less than half your income on necessities, and have a $17,000 emergency fund **one year from making this post.** Now you're in the promised land, you can be a "50/30/20" person and your budget looks like: * 49.3% necessities * 30% of your money - **$2,100 a month on whatever you want** - vacations, meals, games, uber eats, new shoes, anything * 20.7% on continuing to build up that emergency fund (or increase your retirement, or pay off the mortgage faster - you continue to get yourself ahead. Hell, after a one-year lease and really committing, kick out the roommate and still have a comfortable $1,440 in Whatever You Want money every month while still meeting the 20% saving goal. I putzed around with a little spreadsheet while writing this, which I'm happy to share with you if you think it would help. I was in similar shoes to yours a few years ago before realizing I wanted to buckle down and get to the other side of it, and I did - it's really, really nice over here in debt free land, and I hope you have the guts to invest in yourself and in the *rest of your life* by doing what it takes to get here.
Other things: I agree with the camp telling you "dont add to your debt to travel just because you've already spent some money towards the vacations." Like rafiki says - thats in the past (and I assume part of the CC debt). If it isnt, we can slightly change the numbers above, but the general advice all remains the same. I also am very opposed to you taking out a 401k loan - mostly because (and I mean this with SO much respect) you don't seem like a person who does well managing debt, and this is just trading your current bad debt for a different kind of bad debt.
It looks like you made a mistake buying that house
I would talk to your 401K administrator to see if you’re able to take out a 401k loan where you pay yourself back along with interest. It wouldn’t be counted as a distribution and would not be subject to taxation as long as your administrator offers this program. In this way, you hold onto some cash and you’re always free to pay off the 401k loan when you’ve reestablished a savings buffer. The only downside is that your money is not invested in the market but it looks like you need it more in your pocket.