HELP! I'm sooooo lost!!!

Hi B37. I know what you mean...I too felt completely overwhelmed when I started my process of "what to do" with all of my debt (over $90K). First I tried debt management. It was the least scary, didn't hurt my credit and at the time I thought it was the best fit for me. I did that for over a year, and just could not keep to the original budget plan that the debt management wanted me to stick to. (Gas prices went throught the roof, my son got ill and I had unforseen medical expenses, and other issues...too many to list.) So, I ended up resorting to credit cards again. Soon I had even more debt than when I started with the debt mgmt company. I knew I had to find an alternative.

At first I thought bankruptcy was the only way to go; I figured a chapter 13 would be the answer. But the more I looked into it and researched it, the more I kept seeing info about debt settlement as an alternative to bankruptcy. Someone told me that bankruptcy should be "the last card that you play" and that just stuck with me. As an absolute last resort you can always file bankruptcy.

I am about 6 months into a debt settlement plan. Has it been scary? Yes. American Express sent my account to a collection agency that is also a law firm, and they assured me that I would be sued if I was not able to settle. Luckily I had not yet settled any other accounts, so I had enough money to deal with them at the time. I owe them one more payment and then I am done with them...yahoo! So far everything is working out with the other creditors. Some of them offered really good hardship programs where I only have to pay a fraction of the normal minimum amount due for an entire year, so I jumped on those. Other creditors are now talking settlement. I know this will work out in the end, as long as debt settlement is still an option. That is what is really scaring me these days. The banking industry is so desperate and is changing so fast that I fear settlement may become a thing of the past in the near future. I may sound crazy, but it is something I think about.

In my opinion, if being out of debt means way more to you than taking a hit on your credit score, AND you can SAVE about 50% of your total debt (so in your case that would be about $30K) within 18 months, debt settlement is a great way to go. Above all educate yourself. This is a great site and the more you read the more you will learn. Pull up as many posts that have your creditors names in them and try to get a feel for how they do business in the debt settlement world. I was truly obsessed with finding information on not only debt settlement but also bankruptcy and debt consolidation (another option you might want to look into). No matter what choice you make there will be pros and cons. Remember knowledge is power. You can do this!

I was in a similar situation, met with a bankruptcy attorney who advised me that I should not file due to security clearance for my job. He recommended debt settlement thru freestar financial. I signed up and so far all promises have been kept.
Good luck!

Great advices, it is nice to see such helpful people.
To summarize, I think, the main thing is to fully understand that debt consolidation is just additional commodity you pay for and robustly decide whether you really need it.

You can get help and advice on email deleted..pm
Also I strongly believe you will be able to give help for someone else.[color=Red][/color][color=Red][/color][color=Red][/color]

done.