Desperately need advice - very long read ...
Date: Mon, 06/14/2010 - 22:50
Hello everyone,
This is going to be a very long sob story. We're just one step away from bankruptcy and have massive debts (in our opinion) on three of our credit cards. Two of the cards have been personally negotiated by us but we're still not going to be able to cut it. My wife doesn't want to declare bankruptcy under any circumstances and I know that if something doesn't happen pretty soon we'll more than likely be living on the streets by the 1st of September, no kidding! Geeez, how does that work ... life is grand and you're living in a gated community with a wonderful home and a pool ... then 6 years later, through no fault of your own such as bad spending practices, you're on the verge of homelessness with close to 50K in credit card debts ???
I want to stress that ... no fault of our own! My wife and I are very very astute shoppers, often buying what we need used, and almost always trying to find the best deal by using comparison shopping. Both of our vehicles are over 10 years old and we haven't bought anything nice, new and expensive (over 100.00 USD) in the past few years. Both of us are college educated and both of us feel that our government, in particular the Bush administration, has done everything in their power to allow for us to be "screwed over" in the past 6 years.
My work came to an end when I had major back surgery back in 2003. Since my wife had a pretty decent job back then we actually planned my back surgery with a year or so of unemployment in mind for me, due to the recovery. Hah, well guess what? Within 2 months of my back surgery my wife got walking papers from HP, a company that she'd worked for faithfully for 23 or 24 years. Is that disgusting & shameless or what?
Aside from my back surgery in 2003 we're healthy as can be. We drink rarely, no more than once per week probably less ... we're non-smokers ... and we're not overweight at all. But being in your 40s and early 50s in this country apparently turns you into some kind of undesirable piece of dirt ???? Seems that way when you get one rejection for every 30 to 40 job applications and "no comment" i.e. nothing at all from the remaining companies. Makes it very difficult to believe in this country anymore.
My private pension went right down the drain with all of those pension scandals that went down with companies like Enron, Adelphia, and a bunch of others. So, out of sheer fear what might happen to my wife's pensions and ZERO INCOME FROM ANYWHERE (this is apx. 6 months later) we cashed out her pension in order to be able to survive. We sold our home, paid off the mortgage, bought another much cheaper home in a cheaper area with far lower property tax and no HOA dues ... then invested the remainder in real estate since that's always been a "SURE FIRE THING" during the past 100 years or so (even when times were bad values generally came back up within a couple of years).
Well, here we are about 6 years later ....
Hundreds of applications for my wife, looking for any way at all to make halfway decent income and hundreds of applications later for myself as well. Between the two of us we must've sent out 700+ applications looking for just about anything other than a Mcdonald's job or convenience store clerk. We'd begun selling off the properties in the past 3 years out of desperation, but only made money on two of them due to the real estate slump that actually started around 2 years or so ago. Our most recent property had a loss of about 60% and bought us another 6 months or so to survive on. Due to "dead spells" in between we had no choice but to use our 3 credit cards here and there, of course hoping to pay them off one day with property that we sold. Yeah, right ...
On respectable news channels like CNN and others we saw reports about debt negotiation with "happy faces" proclaiming how "wildly successful" they'd been. Those weren't commercials but rather news segments and news documentaries. What a bunch of BS because when we called our CC companies it became painfully obvious that these people could care less about our plight even though we'd been making our payments faithfully year after year after year. No offer to settle from them, no reduction in interest (the thing that kills you in the long run), and reduced payments of only roughly 30% all told which didn't really help very much.
So now we have about 48K in CC debts between all 3 cards. Our monthly payments are close to 1K and we're going to run out of money altogether within the next 60 days or so.
We really need some good advice. There's another problem though ...
As mentioned earlier, my wife does not under any circumstances want to file for bankruptcy. We're renting a home right now, very cheap because I fixed some things on it, but still costing around 900.00 monthly with all included utilities. Well, as coincidence would have it, I'll be inheriting about 75K in about 60 days from relatives that I have in Germany. My wife recently found a job that pays enough to cover cost of living expenses (car lot call center) and I want to purchase a small home in cash with the inheritance so that we can get out from under the rental bill every month. Yeah, we have a teenage Son too and want to provide him with a more stable family environment. Getting rid of that rental bill would go a long way to make life more pleasant for all of us.
So, my question is this ...
What's going to happen to us and/or what should we do if I purchase that small home 60 days or so from now, which is right about the same time that we'll have enough money monthly just to survive on? Unless I finally find a half way decent job we won't have enough money to make the CC payments that we're making right now. What can we do to come to terms with the CC companies without jeopardizing the purchase of that little home? Our credit is already pretty low so a mortgage is out. Have to buy the home with the cash ... can't afford to lose that later on. What to do, what to do, what to do ????
HELP
This is going to be a very long sob story. We're just one step away from bankruptcy and have massive debts (in our opinion) on three of our credit cards. Two of the cards have been personally negotiated by us but we're still not going to be able to cut it. My wife doesn't want to declare bankruptcy under any circumstances and I know that if something doesn't happen pretty soon we'll more than likely be living on the streets by the 1st of September, no kidding! Geeez, how does that work ... life is grand and you're living in a gated community with a wonderful home and a pool ... then 6 years later, through no fault of your own such as bad spending practices, you're on the verge of homelessness with close to 50K in credit card debts ???
I want to stress that ... no fault of our own! My wife and I are very very astute shoppers, often buying what we need used, and almost always trying to find the best deal by using comparison shopping. Both of our vehicles are over 10 years old and we haven't bought anything nice, new and expensive (over 100.00 USD) in the past few years. Both of us are college educated and both of us feel that our government, in particular the Bush administration, has done everything in their power to allow for us to be "screwed over" in the past 6 years.
My work came to an end when I had major back surgery back in 2003. Since my wife had a pretty decent job back then we actually planned my back surgery with a year or so of unemployment in mind for me, due to the recovery. Hah, well guess what? Within 2 months of my back surgery my wife got walking papers from HP, a company that she'd worked for faithfully for 23 or 24 years. Is that disgusting & shameless or what?
Aside from my back surgery in 2003 we're healthy as can be. We drink rarely, no more than once per week probably less ... we're non-smokers ... and we're not overweight at all. But being in your 40s and early 50s in this country apparently turns you into some kind of undesirable piece of dirt ???? Seems that way when you get one rejection for every 30 to 40 job applications and "no comment" i.e. nothing at all from the remaining companies. Makes it very difficult to believe in this country anymore.
My private pension went right down the drain with all of those pension scandals that went down with companies like Enron, Adelphia, and a bunch of others. So, out of sheer fear what might happen to my wife's pensions and ZERO INCOME FROM ANYWHERE (this is apx. 6 months later) we cashed out her pension in order to be able to survive. We sold our home, paid off the mortgage, bought another much cheaper home in a cheaper area with far lower property tax and no HOA dues ... then invested the remainder in real estate since that's always been a "SURE FIRE THING" during the past 100 years or so (even when times were bad values generally came back up within a couple of years).
Well, here we are about 6 years later ....
Hundreds of applications for my wife, looking for any way at all to make halfway decent income and hundreds of applications later for myself as well. Between the two of us we must've sent out 700+ applications looking for just about anything other than a Mcdonald's job or convenience store clerk. We'd begun selling off the properties in the past 3 years out of desperation, but only made money on two of them due to the real estate slump that actually started around 2 years or so ago. Our most recent property had a loss of about 60% and bought us another 6 months or so to survive on. Due to "dead spells" in between we had no choice but to use our 3 credit cards here and there, of course hoping to pay them off one day with property that we sold. Yeah, right ...
On respectable news channels like CNN and others we saw reports about debt negotiation with "happy faces" proclaiming how "wildly successful" they'd been. Those weren't commercials but rather news segments and news documentaries. What a bunch of BS because when we called our CC companies it became painfully obvious that these people could care less about our plight even though we'd been making our payments faithfully year after year after year. No offer to settle from them, no reduction in interest (the thing that kills you in the long run), and reduced payments of only roughly 30% all told which didn't really help very much.
So now we have about 48K in CC debts between all 3 cards. Our monthly payments are close to 1K and we're going to run out of money altogether within the next 60 days or so.
We really need some good advice. There's another problem though ...
As mentioned earlier, my wife does not under any circumstances want to file for bankruptcy. We're renting a home right now, very cheap because I fixed some things on it, but still costing around 900.00 monthly with all included utilities. Well, as coincidence would have it, I'll be inheriting about 75K in about 60 days from relatives that I have in Germany. My wife recently found a job that pays enough to cover cost of living expenses (car lot call center) and I want to purchase a small home in cash with the inheritance so that we can get out from under the rental bill every month. Yeah, we have a teenage Son too and want to provide him with a more stable family environment. Getting rid of that rental bill would go a long way to make life more pleasant for all of us.
So, my question is this ...
What's going to happen to us and/or what should we do if I purchase that small home 60 days or so from now, which is right about the same time that we'll have enough money monthly just to survive on? Unless I finally find a half way decent job we won't have enough money to make the CC payments that we're making right now. What can we do to come to terms with the CC companies without jeopardizing the purchase of that little home? Our credit is already pretty low so a mortgage is out. Have to buy the home with the cash ... can't afford to lose that later on. What to do, what to do, what to do ????
HELP
My advice would be to use some of your inheritance (not all) to
My advice would be to use some of your inheritance (not all) to pay down your debt which will improve your credit score. You can also try to negotiate with the credit card companies to reduce the amount of your debt. This will decrease your credit score for a while, but once you've paid off the settlements you can improve it. Settlement will probably take more than 60 days, but you could start on the process once you've moved into your home.
You will be fine. I had $260k in CC and HELOC debt. In the day
You will be fine. I had $260k in CC and HELOC debt. In the days of easy credit, I just paid them off and ran em back up. These days, due to real estate collapes, there is no paying them off. So I settled them and once I settle the HELOC I will be out of debt. I am waiting until this is all done before I buy a house. Just am concerned about a judgment that could be attached to the home. Good Luck.
