Living on my own started it all...
Date: Thu, 08/03/2006 - 08:36
I am 22 years old and am now in about $20,000 in debt, not including car loan and school loans, this is all credit card debt.
After moving out of my parents house and starting college, the bills were way too much for me to handle. The cost of living was way more than what I was making. The only job that I could find that would work around my school schedule was and still is at Walmart, and they do NOT pay much at all. Certain incidents happened in my life where i had to use my credit card to pay off car maitenance, car inusrance, school books, food, pay off monthly utilities, etc. Before I knew it, all my credit cards were being maxed out, and I was running out of ways to pay for my bills.
With all the stress from all this, I thought that enrolling with American Debt Foundation would help all this go away...but it has not. My credit is so terrible right now because I was told to stop paying my monthly payments, and I have this uneasy feeling that I will never get out of debt, even with this program. I have read in these forums that American Debt Foundation is not that good and that no one should use them...but after being in the program for this long, how do I get out?
I need some help in trying to straighten all this out and get my score back up to where it used to be. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I think that at this point right now, I need some professional help.
Thanks for reading my story.
greenasian Hi, welcome to the forums! Sorry to hear about
greenasian
Hi, welcome to the forums!
Sorry to hear about your situation. Most all of us here, have been in some sort of trouble with money, at one point or anohter. You're not alone.
I'm college-aged, and let me tell you, hearing about a $5,000 credit card from Discover at 18 made me go nuts. It's good to see that you're using it to pay for maintenance, food, and other repairs. But that bill, when it comes, the minimum still needs to be paid. I'm 25 now, and have am extremly close to conquering the debt monster.
So a couple of questions. Are your credit cards still active? How many do you have? Is it possible to move in somewhere cheaper, perhaps sharing an even tighter space?
Currently, this summer, I'm sleeping on the sofa. I only pay $100, and live ON CAMPUS. So it's a great steal for me. Otherwise, I'd be paying about $350 for a room, but that's just for the summer. So if you were to find something cheaper, that could save you some money. I'm assuming parents aren't an option.
As far as your debt management company, call them up and ask them to mail you something about everything they have done so far. If your credit cards are already closed, maybe you coudl do this yourself. Certain debt management companies keep all the funds, until they have the money to pay each off. Usually till the end of the program 3 or 4 years later. If you're paying $25 to each creditor each month on your own, you can knock them out of the picture.
Try not to let stress get to you. Money is money, and we can't take it with us to our grave. Oh, and try to stay away from payday loans. Those are worse than credit cards, because they're usually due in 7-14 days, plus have high fees.
Regards-
Mike
Thanks for some advice. Hopefully if I can get a new job that pa
Thanks for some advice. Hopefully if I can get a new job that pays more than the one I am at now, i might beable to take that first step.
All my accounts are closed that are in the program. I am thinking about getting out of the program and talking to the credit card companies to work it out on my own without the help of American Debt Foundation. I do have additional credit cards that are not in the program. To tell you guys the truth, I have about 6 right now. I know I can pay one off in one month, so really I have 5 that are more than $1,000.
For the payday loan advice, I have never even heard of them, but after reading some of the stories on the forums, I WILL stay away from them :-)
I appreciate Mike's advice in this hard situation. Greenasian, c
I appreciate Mike's advice in this hard situation. Greenasian, can you call your credit companies one by one and arrange lower payments with them? There has to be a sound negotiation in it because these debts accounts were already enrolled with ADF and you haven't received better results yet. The credit companies must distinguish that accepting your proposal will be a better move for them. At the same time, if you make small payments to each of the accounts, they will remain current and hence won't take any serious negative turn. Think about it and if you want to discuss the situation with a counselor, you can expect the call soon as I see you registered in this site.
