That's a great problem to have. I'd pay the min until you get the money back. The way I understand it is that the scoring will take a hit but bounce back after you pay it down. And your score isn't super important unless you're apping for things.
@barbaralee wrote:My husband's father passed away while we were in Europe. We had to buy whole new tickets home because the airlines that we were taking was completely booked and we could not get a flight until two days later. Obviously, the tickets were expensive, and I put his tickets on his Arrival and my tickets on my Arrival. So I cleaned out our emergency savings and we have just enough to pay for all of his expenses and some of mine. I still would have to carry a balance of apx. $2700. My Arrival has 0% on it until January of 2016. We have never carried a balance the whole time we have been together.
We had travelers insurance which our agent told us that this situation is cut and dry, a straight reimbursement. We will be getting back everything that was in our emergency savings plus an additional 2k (trip interruption is covered for 150%). This process will take about 4-6 weeks to complete, though. I do want to get my husband's card paid off ASAP because now he is at 90% utilization (we were using this card while in Europe, and obviously we were shopping like it was going out of style), but not sure how to approach mine.
I can pay my credit card off, but this would require breaking into a second set of reserve funds that we keep for car repairs, fancy toys, our cat, and misc. Neither of us want to touch these funds because they are earmarked for specific things.
I was playing with the idea of paying the minimum until the insurance comes through. The agent said it shouldn't take anymore than a month and a half, and we have no interest. I ran that by my husband, who is concerned about how paying the minimum would look on me. I was playing with the idea of paying a large chunk. My husband is paid bi-weekly, and the second check he gets in the month is something that is free and clear, that does not need to be put anywhere. Usually we put it to our bills for next month so we are a month ahead and not living paycheck to paycheck.
I am super grateful that we have a savings to offset the majority of the expenses and we elected to get the insurance, but it has been a stressful time for us, and this debt hanging over our head makes me feel out of control with the finances.
I'm very sorry for your loss.
I guess I'm always expecting the proverbial other shoe to drop ... I tend to pay as much as I can whenever I have it. My fear is that some other emergency will present itself down the road and derail me even further. So, I would pay as much as I can but certainly more than the minimum regardless of the temporary impact on score.
@longtimelurker wrote:
@b_diddy wrote:
I'm very sorry for your loss.
I guess I'm always expecting the proverbial other shoe to drop ... I tend to pay as much as I can whenever I have it. My fear is that some other emergency will present itself down the road and derail me even further. So, I would pay as much as I can but certainly more than the minimum regardless of the temporary impact on score.
Well, that sort of works both ways. If another shoe dropped, you might want to have your second tier emergency savings in tact, in case you had to pay cash for something for example.
I'm with the others, that unless you have some score-sensitive event coming up, pay just a little more than the minimum. That's only for one cycle hopefully, and if then it looks like the insurance payment will be delayed (because they want 96 notarized copies of the boarding passes involved) you can reevaluate then. But if things go as they should, you will get the payment, pay off the entire bill, and you've done the minimal disruption to your saving plan.
Ugh, it had not even occured to me another emergency coming up, but that is always a possibility. All the more reason to leave the money in our Reserve account alone. Also, neither of us are applying for credit anytime soon, so I guess it wouldn't matter if our scores take a hit. It is just so hard to get into that mentality when I feel like I have worked hard to build and maintain a good credit profile.
This is the first time I have had to do anything like this, and you are correct, the insurance is requiring all the boarding passes, receipts, our credit card statements from the first purchase of the trip to the most recent with the last minute flights, death certificate, and even receipts of any incidentals that we purchased while on the emergency flight home. Fortunately, I have all those things except one boarding pass is missing, and the death certificate. The agent does not seem overly concerned about the missing board pass. I have no idea how long it takes to get a death certificate for the state of Michigan, but I was told it is relatively quick.
As a side note, I hope everyone takes caution in regards to their health. My father in law's death was unexpected, and sadly, very preventable. My father in law had an aversion to doctors, and had been sick for quite some time. He lied to my sister in law and said he went to the doctor and the doc said it was the flu. He finally became so ill my brother in law forced him to the emergency room. Turns out it was Stage IV bladder cancer that spread into his kidneys. He dieapplying fd within 2 days of being admitted to the hospital.
Air France was on strike, and had deviated their passengers going to Atlanta, Ga. to Delta Airlines. We were standing in line for a boarding pass with at least 50 angry people in front of us when my husband received the call that his father had passed. We're slowly getting back into our norm, but I can't help but keep thinking it could have all been prevented had he just gone to the doctor. 