Knowing where to start
Date: Wed, 08/12/2009 - 22:53
As part of a reduction in force, my husband took an 80% paycut at the beginning of June and lost his job the first week of July. He is trying to get hired with a state government agency and we know that part of the application process is a credit check. We have salvaged our credit so far in hopes that he'll be hired in September. Sadly, he'll be in training for nearly a year and we won't have enough to pay ALL the bills between now and then. Due to our income we are just over the limit for filing ch 7 (the attorney we spoke with a few weeks ago was a JOKE and not helpful in the least).
We've also been having issue with our house appraisal for tax purposes and basically we are being taxed out of our home. We are going to try to sell, but I think we'll end up going to foreclosure since nothing is selling in our area.
We have the opportunity to lease a family members home starting in January/February.
We have 7 accounts totally $50,200. We also have a credit union cc but I understand our 2 car loans are used as collateral so we can't default on it. We figured we'd continue paying on the vehicles and also that cc, it's a relatively low balance in comparison to the others, it also has a decent APR and I am hoping that we can get it paid off and have it available to establish credit again in the future.
Here's my issue.... if we stop paying the bills in Oct, figuring we'll have to move out in January, I'll be able to stash some $$ towards a possible settlement. Is it better to let all 7 accts default? 3 of them are $6,2xx, the other 4 total $44,xxx. Is it better to default on the 4 big ones and continue paying the minimums on 3 and then once we settle with the 4 big ones, pay off the other 3.
My DH thinks that if we let 1 (ie: house/foreclosure) go we should let them all go and get a start fresh. We'll have a BIG hiccup on our credit history, but we'll recover, hopefully, eventually. I'm just concerned about trying to settle at the same 6 month mark with all 7 accts. Based on my rough budget, I should have approx 25% saved by March. If I'm able to stretch a few out to 6 months, I hope to have a total of 35% saved. Based on what I've seen here (we have BOA, Capital one, Discover), 40% is more the range we need to be at and with tax return and yearly bonus that we typically get in the Spring, we might be real close. So I think settlement is a definite possibility.
After reading this site for a few weeks, I feel confident that I can do the settlement on our own, I'm just not sure where to start. Still scared to death of judgments and courts, but I think we might be able to keep it from getting that far with settlements. Thanks for any and all advice. -clueless in TX
We've also been having issue with our house appraisal for tax purposes and basically we are being taxed out of our home. We are going to try to sell, but I think we'll end up going to foreclosure since nothing is selling in our area.
We have the opportunity to lease a family members home starting in January/February.
We have 7 accounts totally $50,200. We also have a credit union cc but I understand our 2 car loans are used as collateral so we can't default on it. We figured we'd continue paying on the vehicles and also that cc, it's a relatively low balance in comparison to the others, it also has a decent APR and I am hoping that we can get it paid off and have it available to establish credit again in the future.
Here's my issue.... if we stop paying the bills in Oct, figuring we'll have to move out in January, I'll be able to stash some $$ towards a possible settlement. Is it better to let all 7 accts default? 3 of them are $6,2xx, the other 4 total $44,xxx. Is it better to default on the 4 big ones and continue paying the minimums on 3 and then once we settle with the 4 big ones, pay off the other 3.
My DH thinks that if we let 1 (ie: house/foreclosure) go we should let them all go and get a start fresh. We'll have a BIG hiccup on our credit history, but we'll recover, hopefully, eventually. I'm just concerned about trying to settle at the same 6 month mark with all 7 accts. Based on my rough budget, I should have approx 25% saved by March. If I'm able to stretch a few out to 6 months, I hope to have a total of 35% saved. Based on what I've seen here (we have BOA, Capital one, Discover), 40% is more the range we need to be at and with tax return and yearly bonus that we typically get in the Spring, we might be real close. So I think settlement is a definite possibility.
After reading this site for a few weeks, I feel confident that I can do the settlement on our own, I'm just not sure where to start. Still scared to death of judgments and courts, but I think we might be able to keep it from getting that far with settlements. Thanks for any and all advice. -clueless in TX
Starting is easy, just stop paying and I would stop paying on al
Starting is easy, just stop paying and I would stop paying on all of them except the credit union. Get ready for the phone calls, turn the volume down and let the answering machine pick it up. Talk to them every 3-4 weeks and tell them your situation and do not send in small payments no matter what they say.
I agree with the Guest. Most of the lenders wouldn't allow a set
I agree with the Guest. Most of the lenders wouldn't allow a settlement negotiation if you stay current on your payments. May be they would need you to miss at least six months payment before you can begin the negotiation process.
