I am a teacher, and you'd think I'd be able to 'manage a budget', but I can't seem to get my head on straight with all these finances. How do you all do it? Why can't I do simple subtraction? Why can't I get the checkbook right & balanced? You'd think that it would be as simple as cash flow in and cash flow out. Very frustrated!!! I have a question, what is an acceptable fee to pay for the debt settlement per month? I have seen and heard many different amounts and am wondering what's reasonable.

Has anyone in this forum tried to get out of 3 different payday loans at the same time? I am having difficulty balancing them!

Hey all, I have gained a lot of GREAT advice from this site and now I finally feel in control of my financial future and am ready to take on these pirates of the PDL industry myself with all the tools i found on this site. I am however curious if anyone can help me make sure I am doing everything correctly (and hopefully this will help some others in the future too). I currently have out 3 PDLs... 1. nationalpayday.com 3/15/10 (yikes!) Principal $ 300 interest : 25% (illegal in the state of CA, max of 15% of principle amount) total paid: $943.20 2.

got a letter from the GE MONEY BANK regarding my Lowes acct saying that I need to contact Allied Interstate Inc.... they're handling my acct now... need an address to send a settlement offer... Do I send it to Allied Interstate or GE Money Bank??

I have a PDL from Fast Payday Loans and I want to get out. I borrow $500 and pay them $555 every two weeks. Obviously the $110/month is getting annoying but I have tried to just stop or even dwindling down the amount I borrow($500 then $450 then $400 etc.) Is it possible to call them and see if i can do a repayment plan? Do I default on it? Any advice would be helpful!

We have settled one acct with citi and in the process of settling another with them. For the first account, they sent a letter stating after they received the settlement amount it will be reported as "settled in full". For this account the letter says after they receive the settlement amount they will report it as "settled for less than owed". I haven't sealed the deal with this second acct yet. Is the wording the same on these or do I need them to change "settled for less than owed" to something else?

We have settled a couple accounts but I have never dealt with CA's and attorneys so I need need help and advice! We have a FIA acct that got charged off (we just didn't have the funds at the time to settle). FIA let us know that it would go to a CA or an attorney. A week or so later they did tell us it went to a CA. Cambece called this week and said the CA hired them to settle the account. I have done some searching on this site and I am now nervous that I am going to have to deal with them. 2.

I am currently in a debt management program with MMI. We have about 54K in cc debt that we are trying to pay off. I started the program earlier this year and have decent interest rates that MMI negotiated with us for all the cards except Barclays who won't agree to anything. They say what they want, then they decline the offer once they get what they asked for saying it isn't enough. Anyway, I was wondering if it is possible for me to negotiate even better terms like 0% interest on the cards I am trying to payoff if I am already on the debt management plan.

Can anyone tell me how long it typically takes a settlement to be reported on your credit report?

my credit report will reduce if get a debt consolidation ?