Young and dumb

saraheba -

Welcome!

Can you give us a little more insight into what type of debt you're dealing with - credit card, medical, payday loans, etc.? That will help us offer you some advice based on your situation.

Also, since you have registered with the site, a debt counselor will be contacting you by phone for a free consultation. It's a good idea to have your current credit reports available and any other bills that might not be on the credit report, along with a note of how much you and your husband bring in every year in income. This will give you a running start on your discussion with the debt counselor.

You can obtain your credit reports from all three bureaus - free - once per year at http://www.annualcreditreport.com

Also, check out the benefits of debt consolidation here:

http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/benefits.html

If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know - we're here to help!

I don't have much. We have less than $3000 in cc debt and I will soon start paying on my student loans, and I have no idea what the total is yet on that. We have medical debt, but it's not more than $1000. We have a bad history from slow pays and a repo (which I voluntarily turned in) in 2001. The credit cards are my big issue at the moment. Our tax refund should be enough to cover all of it, and I want to improve what shows on my credit report once they're paid off. We also have secured debt that is around 100k, but we're not having any problems paying on it and I plan to accelerate the payments asap as I just graduated college and got a huge pay raise.

Welcome to the Fourms :D Since you are going to pay off cc and medical bills, that will make a big difference on your credit. When you stop the late pay,slow pay, etc. it helps. It will, however take time to repair your credit, but paid in full looks better than late,etc. Just make sure,like SueBee said to keep an eye on your credit reports. And also have your creditors report paid in full, hopefully with this in writing to you. Good Luck.Keep us posted..Karen

Hey! Don't let the collection agencies dominate you. They are all bark and no bite. Make sure your basic needs are met first, then focus on the debts you have that accumulate interest such as student loans and credit cards, pay off the collection accounts as you can, and worry about the medical bills last.

Thanks y'all! I did pull my CR and my score is barely over 400. However, the 3 cc's are all that's late and I have no "bad" debt according to the report. I do also have a couple of small medical bills showing on the collections part. I have plenty of good reports that I would think would somewhat balance out the negative, but apparently not.

Sara - work on paying off the debts with the smallest amounts first - that will be easier. If you have a medical bill that just shows a balance of $50, pay that off and work on the next, and the next, etc. But, as mentioned above, keep your basic needs met first. If you have a week where all you have to spare is $25, then put that $25 towards the next bill in line, even if it doesn't pay it off. You'll be making progress, at least.

Keep us posted!

Quote:

Hi Sarah,

Welcome to the forums! Since you have registered, a debt counselor will contact you soon to discuss your financial situation. It sounds like you have a plan of action but discussing your other options might help you as well. You have come to the right place.

Medical bills do not hurt your credit as much as credit cards do and the worst on there would be the repo. It doesn't matter if you turned it in or not, a repo is a repo.

The way to help balance out the repo is to find out what you owe on it. Call the dealership and ask how much it was sold for, you will be responsible for the difference.

Example: Purchase price 20,000. Payments Made 5,000. Repo at 15,000 and then resold for 12,000. You are responsible for the 3,000 dollar difference.

Credit Cards, your first charge off can hurt your credit score up to 150 points. After that it still hurts but not nearly as much.

Medical, these hurt your credit the least out of anything. I can only guess the reason being is that companies would rather you go to the hospital instead of dying at home because you couldn't afford it.

With such a low score already I would reccomend setteling your accounts out. Then with what money you do save from that, if any go take out a secured loan with your bank to begin rebuilding your score.

Thank you all!