Ok so it's time to ask for help...I need help.

[palavra]

Try credit counseling! We worked with a very reliable one here and it was the best thing we could have done. They call the credit cards and work out a deal with them, they lower payments, intrest and stop late payment charges and over the limit charges. We were able to pay off $8000 in debt in just 3 years and we were better off financially, we actually had money leftover after paying the bills.

This! We will have paid off almost $10,000 dollars in about 3 years time. We have only 4 months to go! We have not fallen back into the credit trap. other than one card for emergencies, we don't have credit cards now. We have learned to save for what we need/want.

 

[ctinct]

...and the last card (Capital One) they of course did NOTHING. And to be honest...the gal who I spoke with told me "until you prove you aren't able to make payments there isn't anything we can do to help". I thanked her and knew it wasn't her choice to not be able to offer me anything. She said "you''ll be surprised at how fast the calls will come to offer assistance once you've missed a payment".

Unfortunately, I think the above is more true now than in the past. Credit card companies have fewer ways to make money now, so if you have a high interest rate and are paying on time, you are a cash cow to them. Sadly, if you can find no other way, you may have to be late before they will work with you.

If you do decide the only way is a debt management plan, be very careful in your choice of companies. Your credit will take a hit, but make sure you go with a true non-profit company. I think around here the CCC is affiliated with The United Way, which to me is a pretty good sign that they are legit. Be very careful about going with any of the place you see advertised on tv. Good luck.

 

[mousefanmichelle]

Sorry I haven't been able to post but I am only online at work bad I know!
Anyway this is the deal -
I can't transfer balances cuz they 4 cards are maxed out. So thats a no go.
I can't imagine that if I choose not to pay and save the money up (debt settlement) that would be any better than my proposed plan - sounds bad both ways.
I can't get another job - I already work fulltime and my job is 1 hour away from my house so my days are already 10.5 hours long. I also have kids at home after school cuz my dh works afternoons. So no go there either.
I am limited.
We have no trips planned anytime soon and the ones in my ticker were gifts from my dad so I didn't pay for them (thank you dad!).

I guess what I am going to try first is to call the cards and see what they can do for me. If that doesn't work - we will try credit counseling - I think.

Thanks everyone for your advice and reassurance - I sure do appreciate it!

Michelle

 

[bsusanmb]

I was in your same situation. I finally decided to contact Consumer Credit Counseling, now known as Apprisen. They are located at Apprisen.com
They are one of the very first and oldest CCC services, non profit in the country. I called them, and arranged everything over the phone. They made payment arrangements with all of my creditors, lowered the interest rate, and made the debt manageable, and I will save thousands of dollars in interest. The debt will be paid in 2 years, rather than 15 years. My payments were cut in half, and I could sleep at night, and everything is paid, I don't have to worry about it.
Whatever you decide to do, best wishes. Debt/cc's are just awful.

DO NOT USE ANY OF THE OFFERS YOU SEE ON TV OR IN THE MAIL...if they are going to charge you up front, don't do it. Because of my income, I pay $25 a month, but the whole thing is based on your ability to pay. My debt was higher also.

 

[gatormom2tots]

I was in your same situation. I finally decided to contact Consumer Credit Counseling, now known as Apprisen. They are located at Apprisen.com
They are one of the very first and oldest CCC services, non profit in the country. I called them, and arranged everything over the phone. They made payment arrangements with all of my creditors, lowered the interest rate, and made the debt manageable, and I will save thousands of dollars in interest. The debt will be paid in 2 years, rather than 15 years. My payments were cut in half, and I could sleep at night, and everything is paid, I don't have to worry about it.
Whatever you decide to do, best wishes. Debt/cc's are just awful.

DO NOT USE ANY OF THE OFFERS YOU SEE ON TV OR IN THE MAIL...if they are going to charge you up front, don't do it. Because of my income, I pay $25 a month, but the whole thing is based on your ability to pay. My debt was higher also.

Ditto this. Had about $15,000 debt after college due to medical expenses and irresponsible spending. Went through Consumer Credit Couseling Services...paid I think $25 maintenance a month but they took care of everything- many interest rates dropped or eliminated, no phone calls, made one monthly payment and they dispersed it to all creditors.

That was 10 years ago, been paid off for about 5 years. Credit did take a ding but it is higher now than it ever has been- completing the program speaks volumes to your creditors.

Just make sure you do a nonprofit one- not one of these you get in the mail or hear on the radio- they are out for a profit.

 

[crisi]

You are going to need to probably both increase your income and cut your expenses. If you can't get a second job, how about offering some Saturday sitting or errand running (something you can do with your kids). Have a big garage sale or eBay (or whatever) your old stuff.

Another idea is asking family for help. Years ago a friend got his inherientece early from Grandma - saw nothing when she died two years later, but he needed the $5k now. If Dad can afford to gift Disney, he might be willing to gift you some room on your bills. Sometimes people are, sometimes they aren't - it can depend on if the "trip gifts" were more about him (enjoying a trip with his family) than about you.

You also HAVE to cut expenses. Even if the bills disappeared tomorrow, unless something was strange in your past (living off credit between jobs, extraordinary medical bills), you've been living beyond your means. In order to get even, you need to not only cut enough to live within your means, you have to live well beneath your means for a while (that's why additional income helps).

Budgeting is like a diet. To loose twenty pounds you have to sacrafice well beyond what you'd need to do just to keep from gaining it in the first place.

Credit counseling can be helpful, but you are still going to need to make the changes yourself.

Best wishes......

 

[2BEKs]

I second (or third or fourth) the recommendation to work with the CCC (now Asperian). I too used them with FANTASTIC results.

They were a great company - never degrading or demoralizing - just very helpful and showed me the "end of the tunnel" as they say.

I think that working with them is the most honest way to repay your debts AND to not do massive to your credit score.


I also recommend that as you are working with the credit counseling group to ALSO become a student of Dave Ramsey. Once everything is paid off - you never want to go there again....

Good luck!

 

[mrspopeye]

We recently discovered Dave Ramsey's books and website. He has some very helpful suggestions. Maybe you can borrow his books from the library? You can download his worksheets from the internet for free. We've been on a tight budget for 2 months now and it has helped us see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. He has a lot of suggestions that might help you.

Amanda

I second this. Dave Ramsey rocks. He permanently changed our life. We are going to Disney this fall paid for and in cash, and I have absolutely no credit card debt for the first time in my life. We paid off everything but one student loan and one mortgage in 3-4 years and I give him all the credit, all while my husband had a 30K a year paycut. It was very uncomfortable and very miserable, but very much worth the pain. I made this mess by making bad decisions just like you did and with the right tools you can turn it around too. He advises NOT to use consumer credit programs. He will teach you everything you need to know. Consider taking his 13 wk course or seeing him live (we did both). You will be shocked at how much cash you have when you don't give it away in payments. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!!!

I would strongly suggest reading his books, watching him on Fox Business network, listening to his live radio show- you can get stream it for free on your computer.

Good luck!!!

 

[brymolmom]

You are going to need to probably both increase your income and cut your expenses. If you can't get a second job, how about offering some Saturday sitting or errand running (something you can do with your kids). Have a big garage sale or eBay (or whatever) your old stuff.

Another idea is asking family for help. Years ago a friend got his inherientece early from Grandma - saw nothing when she died two years later, but he needed the $5k now. If Dad can afford to gift Disney, he might be willing to gift you some room on your bills. Sometimes people are, sometimes they aren't - it can depend on if the "trip gifts" were more about him (enjoying a trip with his family) than about you.

You also HAVE to cut expenses. Even if the bills disappeared tomorrow, unless something was strange in your past (living off credit between jobs, extraordinary medical bills), you've been living beyond your means. In order to get even, you need to not only cut enough to live within your means, you have to live well beneath your means for a while (that's why additional income helps).

Budgeting is like a diet. To loose twenty pounds you have to sacrafice well beyond what you'd need to do just to keep from gaining it in the first place.

Credit counseling can be helpful, but you are still going to need to make the changes yourself.

Best wishes......

Going to disagree with the asking family part. If it was a medical need or similar, sure - but just bad decision making and asking for a bail-out, well that puts the family member in a VERY awkward situation. I applaud OP for wanting to find a way out of this on her own. And honestly that's where it should be. Even the giving inheritance early is a huge pain - the giver then needs to redo a will (or else the one getting the money early could contest it at the time of death - so needs to be legally removed from the will) - which in turn costs him/her additional fees...just all-around not a good or nice idea. And if you find one nice enough to do it - oftentimes it does hurt relationships down the road if they think you should be paying back differently and spending differently until they are paid back.

 

[mousefanmichelle]

Has anyone heard of Greenpath? They are recommended by our Credit Union. I think I just may skip trying to lower the rates and go straight for the credit counseling.

I have investigated the DR method, in fact I downloaded some of his spread sheets and I worked with them over the weekend - the cold hard fact is that our spending is over what we make - our cc payments are insane (think 25% of our take home) and the amount of fuel we go through a week and we have decently fuel eff. cars (since we both work 1 hour away from home 166 miles a day between my and dh) and the cost of groceries and utlities... honestly we aren't living high on the hog so to speak. It's just way too much going out. I don't have anything to snowball with. My dh helps out his parents before he goes to work and a local farmer (who paid us in beef - as in a whole cow in my freezer). So there isn't much time for him to get another job either...

Ugh......

In 18 years of marriage this has been the toughest year - and it's been our own doing. That's the worst part. We did it to ourselves. Time to take back our money and re-learn the right way to do it I guess.

Thanks everyone!

 

[crisi]

Going to disagree with the asking family part. If it was a medical need or similar, sure - but just bad decision making and asking for a bail-out, well that puts the family member in a VERY awkward situation. I applaud OP for wanting to find a way out of this on her own. And honestly that's where it should be. Even the giving inheritance early is a huge pain - the giver then needs to redo a will (or else the one getting the money early could contest it at the time of death - so needs to be legally removed from the will) - which in turn costs him/her additional fees...just all-around not a good or nice idea. And if you find one nice enough to do it - oftentimes it does hurt relationships down the road if they think you should be paying back differently and spending differently until they are paid back.

Depending on family dynamics - its worth asking. We bailed out my brother in law due to bad decision making - in part because he was taking steps to change that. And we helped my sister out. Does it put the family member in an awkward situation? - sure. But who do you think makes up the interest you don't pay when you work through a credit counseling service? - other consumers through higher interest rates, more fees and higher retail charges that get passed down to us in higher prices....so she either is asking her family, or she is sticking it to us. Someone other than her is going to pay for her bad decisions. The question is, who and to what extent.

 

[bsusanmb]

Has anyone heard of Greenpath? They are recommended by our Credit Union. I think I just may skip trying to lower the rates and go straight for the credit counseling.

I have investigated the DR method, in fact I downloaded some of his spread sheets and I worked with them over the weekend - the cold hard fact is that our spending is over what we make - our cc payments are insane (think 25% of our take home) and the amount of fuel we go through a week and we have decently fuel eff. cars (since we both work 1 hour away from home 166 miles a day between my and dh) and the cost of groceries and utlities... honestly we aren't living high on the hog so to speak. It's just way too much going out. I don't have anything to snowball with. My dh helps out his parents before he goes to work and a local farmer (who paid us in beef - as in a whole cow in my freezer). So there isn't much time for him to get another job either...

Ugh......

In 18 years of marriage this has been the toughest year - and it's been our own doing. That's the worst part. We did it to ourselves. Time to take back our money and re-learn the right way to do it I guess.

Thanks everyone!

I know how you feel. I prayed and prayed for years for help with my spending and somehow, I was just too prideful to admit to myself that I had to STOP the cc's. It took me years, but finally after making minimum payments on all these cc's and not seeing any end to the mess, I swallowed my pride and went to consumer credit counseling. The lady there was so very nice, and I included every debt I had over $100...all of the medical stuff etc. I feel very honest, paying off all of MY debt, and paying a fair interest rate 5 to 9% rather than 25 to 35%. If you were to go to one of those for profit places, they demand you put money in a savings account, stop paying your cc's and when you get enough money into the account, they take a huge amount to pay them, and then begin to negotiate your debt. Your debt is then "charged off", so you have to pay income tax on the write off. It also lowers your credit score for years. I kept one cc with a low credit line...you have to have one for emergencies or travel etc. I make sure that I pay it off at the end of each month and don't charge anything that I don't need. It is such a good feeling to stop the phone calls, and to see the debts being paid to a zero balance...take care and let us know how you make out.
Blessings.

 

[howlongtildisney]

I highly recommend speaking with a credit counselor. HOWEVER, make sure that you go through a reliable non-profit. One good measure is that you should not be charged just to speak with someone. They can do anything from working out a new monthly budget for you to working with the credit card companies to consolidate and settle debt. My husband works for a nation-wide counseling service: http://credability.org/en/homepage.aspx.

Good luck!

 

[mousefanmichelle]

I called and set up an appointment for next week at Greenpath (they are nonprofit).

I just want to get the ball rolling and I want out from under this bus! I think that once I have some peace with this then maybe I can have peace from other things in my life. After all there is a reason we spend money we don't have right?! At least for me there is.

One really horrible aspect of all of this is that my dh doesn't do the finances in our house, I do, and he has an idea of where we stand financially - he just doesn't know 100%. I feel so bad about that.. but part of it is he hasn't taken an active role in it even though he complains about it - my dh isn't a take the bull by the horns kinda guy and if he doesn't push, I don't budge. Awful. Makes me sad for all of this mess. I sure hope that once we meet next week he and I can begin to make the changes to share the burden becuase right now it's all on me and I can't share it because then I have admitted defeat. I know that's crazy but it is what it is. I have failed myself and I have failed my dh and my family by letting this debt take us over.

Thanks for listening you guys. It helps me since I don't have anyone else who would understand where I am coming from.

Michelle

 

[hffmnheidi]

I am so happy that you are DOING something to turn this around. Being honest with your husband and dealing with all that is sure to come is the best step. Maybe find activities that cost nothing to occupy your time and stop you from spending money-gardening, walking/exercising, reading, ect...

 

[Glenn]

Now that youve looked at the big things look at the little expenses. I know several people that are making progress changing little things. You know when you spend $100 but the $3 items add up. List everything you spend for a wk even if its a $1. Can you change any of these small purchases? Groceries, check sales, coupons, different stores. Can you shop coming home from work to save gas. Veggie gardening can also help. When your on vacation remember to turn off the AC, set hot water to vacation setting. Every little bit will help. Good luck.

 

[Ava]

Now that youve looked at the big things look at the little expenses. I know several people that are making progress changing little things. You know when you spend $100 but the $3 items add up. List everything you spend for a wk even if its a $1. Can you change any of these small purchases? Groceries, check sales, coupons, different stores. Can you shop coming home from work to save gas. Veggie gardening can also help. When your on vacation remember to turn off the AC, set hot water to vacation setting. Every little bit will help. Good luck.

Definitely second this. Write down every penny you spend for 1 month - it will be eye-opening! The small things definitely add up, but these are often unnecessary and fairly easy to do away with, with a little committment. At the end of the month, look at what your money has been spent on & find things you can cut out - the coffee on the way to work each day, the afternoon vending machine snacks, etc. Then the next month, make an effort not to buy those things. At the end of that month, take the money you saved & put it towards your debt. You may find you have an extra $50/month to throw at your debts if you cut out the unnecessary "money suckers" in your budget. Good luck!

 

[RachelsMommie]

OP, I want you to know that it CAN get better. I was in a LOT of credit card debt in 2001 when I got married. In our first year of marriage, we kept racking up more debt. In 2002, I was where you are now...realizing we couldn't continue the way we were living and I discovered Dave Ramsey.

Today, we are debt free except our house and are working to pay it off in 7 more years. Here's what I suggest. Post your monthly bills, your monthly income, and let us help you. We can help you figure out a monthly budget. I did that years ago and was HORRIBLE at budgeting. Today, I can predict every bill down to the electricity bill every month. It just takes practice. But the first budget is the hardest.

So, post your bills, credit card balances and APRs, and your income, and let's see what the people on this board can come up with. It may help.

 

[brewcrew]

I believe in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University or Total Money Makeover. He teaches you how to get back in control of your finances. You can check out his books from the library or he always has them for sale on his website. His big belief is CASH!!! NO MORE CREDIT CARDS!!! I believe his information is more valuable than a credit coubseling service. Also, have you watched the Debt Diet on Oprah? Tomorrow is a repeat of the third show. You can probably log on to oprah.com to see Part 1 and Part 2. Really good information. The main thing is that you have to change your lifestyle. You can do it!!! And, don't take out a loan from your 401K.

 

[mousefanmichelle]

No taking out loans to pay off this debt. I have a lot of credit card debt but it's not from me shopping like a mad woman - some of it has been used to pay the bills because cash was tight. I have looked at the Dave R forms and downloaded them (the budget ones) and I plugged in my numbers and honestly where I am dying is the payments for the CC's ($1035 a month on 4 cards) and groceries!!!! Oh my! I have been clipping coupons for the last month and I have broken out dog food and beauty/laundry supplies so I know how much to spend on those things. The grocery budget is out of control!!!!

I have to say we don't eat out unless it's McDonalds (there are 5 of us so to spend $25 on that is average) or pizza ($5 crappy pizza at Ceasers). We aren't going to Outback for steak or anything. I don't shop for clothes too much and if I do I pay cash but then that makes things tight to pay those darn CC's. There is no wiggle room in our budget at all. Here are some of our bills:
Electric - $82 bucks a month
Garbage - $22 bucks a month
CC's - $1035 a month
Groceries - $range 450 - 700 a month
Dish - $45 a month
Car Ins - $381 a month

UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am shopping around for the car ins. Michigan has one of the highest ins rates because of no fault soooooo AND my employer won't pay my medical bills if I am in an auto accident SO I have to help pay for my health insurance through my employer and pay for a medical rider on my auto policy - how about that for lousey!!!!

If I could snowball this on my own by not buying that coffee (which I don't buy anyway) I would but that is peas and carrots compared to the bigger picture of not having enough money at the end of the month once all the basic necessities and bills are paid for. Please don't suggest we sell our home either since in Michigan no homes are selling except the forclosed ones or the short saled ones. I am not anywhere near "needing" to walk out on my home, sell it or otherwise. That I won't do.