$123,000 in CC debt.... our story

Just typing that subject line made my heart palpitate! Our story begins 17 years ago when my husband and I got together.

Although hubby had a secure job (but only made $25,000/yr), I didn't. I also had bad credit which had resulted from a divorce. We began living on credit cards and using them at Christmas (I had a 10-yr-old son). Used them for a modest wedding, another Christmas, etc... always justifying it with "oh, we'll pay them off one day."

But one day never came. I did, however, manage to restore my credit along the way because we were never late. Hubby's job eventually reached a comfortable $60k/yr. We went on to have two more children, no insurance for the second one....more debt.

We bought a house, did really well making extra payments on the mortgage (realized later that that was stupid, we should have been making extra pymts on the cc's instead). Eventually refinanced not once, but twice to pay credit cards off, only to use them over and over again and bring them right back up. I know. We were stupid.

Last year, hubby's "secure job" was lost due to a sale of the company. He now makes less than half of what he was making there.

Still not learning our lesson, we got into gambling, you know, a "quick fix".....lost a lot....used credit cards to get money we lost to cover bills, over and over again. The next thing you know we have $123,000 in credit card debt! (palpitations again)

I'm happy to say that we will never step foot in a c*a*s*i*n*o again. We picked up one of those brochures the last time we went and after reading it, finally admitted to ourselves that we had a problem. We know that those places have to be completely off limits to those of us that cannot gamble responsibly. Period.

Thinking that bankruptcy was now our only option, I began researching online and found this site. Thank God! We have decided to try the "debt settlement" route instead. We still have no late payments on our credit cards, but I understand they must be in serious default before any negotiations will even be considered, so we have officially stopped paying them as of this week. There are 11 creditors in all.

In the mean time, we will be able to stash $2,500/month we were paying on them in order to have some money to settle - and in addition, May 1st will be the last payment of $319/mo hubby makes for child support so that will go into the stash also (it's not going to be nearly enough for some of the larger ones, I know, but I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there).

Our only assets are a 97 minivan (paid for), an 04 Grand Prix (last pymt Aug 09)...and our house (owe $122,000, equity is about $45,000).

Any advice is appreciated. I know it's going to be a long, hard road and I'm scared to death, but confident (thanks to this forum).

I'll keep everyone posted about our progress.