New... any advice would be great!

Hi everyone. I am in my mid twenties $45,000-50,000 in debt. I still have 3 more years of school left and am having an impossible time making minimum payments on all of my cards! I am at my wits end. I recently started looking into debt consolidation but am very unsure about it. Was hoping to get some advice from everyone regarding what the best options are for me. I don't want to do bankruptcy, I just need to drastically reduce my monthly payments. I have been told that Take Charge America is a good company. Any advice? Other recommended companies? Should I consolidate or is there something better that I should do? There seem to be a lot of very knowledgeable people of this site and I would love to learn more from them!
Thanks a lot!

Welcome to the site, If you register you can get a free consultation.

Sometimes you can try and do this yourself. Have you tried to contact the companies and tell them your situation? Sometimes the companies can put you on a program of their own. I would try this first and see what happens. But if you do decide to go with a company, please make sure you check them out very well before you sign any papers. You can do this by going to the BBB website and also from your state. You can contact your state for a list of companies that are licensed in your state to do business, then when you pick on then you can call them back and see if they have any complaints filed in your state about them.

Someone else will be along shortly to give you more information.

Thanks for your response I look forward to more information and help

your welcome

Hi there...
I assume that the $45-50k is all credit card debt and not including student loans?

well! in my opinion, when you have so much of debt, then it is best to go in for a consolidation. you have not mentioned the time over which the amount has accumulated. so if there are any late fees etc, consolidation can take care of that and eliminate the late fee charges. i hope this will reduce some of the amount. next, when you finally zero in on an agency do a detailed search on them and you may also ask the other members of this forum about them.

Lil Star:

That's a heap of debt amiga. The first thing I would like to see you do is "Get in touch with the reality of the situation", if you have not already. The only way to do that is go to a good amortization calculator (I imagine you can find one at this site).

This will give you the ability to look at what your debt will truly cost you, given your unique:

a.) debt-load
b.) aggragate intrest rate &
c.) ability to pay

It's important to look at a.), b.) and especiallly c.) very realistically.

1. If you can afford to make progress on your own- you may not need help.

2. If you can afford to payback 100% of your debt at a 9% apr, over the course of 5.5 years, you may want to take a look at a good credit counseling company.

If you cannot afford 1.) or 2.) you may want to seek out a good debt settlement company or BK attorney.

All the luck in the world,

Yes, please list whether these are student loans or cc's or both. There is a difference in what you can do with each of them.

Thanks for all the responses so far. The debt I was referring to is all credit card debt. I want to do a consolidation program but I don't really know how to find a trustworthy one. And I am currently going to school full time so all of my income is due to financial aid. So I am making minimum payments on cards off of financial aid loans And I am drowning!
Will not having a job let me qualify for a consolidation program? I can still make payments with my financial aid but just not as much as I am now.
Also, if I can't consolidate what other options do I have. I heard that you can call credit card companies and they can work something out with you but how does that exactly work? What do I say to them and how does that reflect on my credit report?
Thanks for all the help!

First I would say to take the free consultation, you can click or call them the number is on the right of these boards. They will speak with you and refer you to a company in your area to see if they can help you. Once you go through that you will have a good idea if the payment they come up with is something you can afford. If you can't afford the payment another option is debt settlement, although I don't usually recommend people use a DS company because of all the fee's they charge and because alot of people are able to settle the accounts themselves. But this way of dealing with debt has it's own set of con's - you usually need a lump sum to settle, so you will need to save up the money, you stop making payments to the CC's so these go late, etc and will hurt your credit, there is also the possibility of being sued, but this is possible even using a DS company. I have found CC's won't even consider settling for less if you are current on your CC's. You may be able to call them and see if they can work with you on payment/interest. Some will some won't. But with the amount of debt you owe, and seemingly lack of income this may be an option. You can read my journey so far on my blog, and also in the do it yourself section there is helpful information on debt consolidation, debt settlement etc.