need some advice?

[mgs2010]

I agree I do need to increase my income. Luckily, I work for a large communications company where overtime is offered constantly. We also get large yearly bonuses, last year I received a little over 5k in bonus...so this year I will definitely be putting that towards debt. As far as 401k is concerned thats one thing I refuse to take out of my budget. my employer matches my contributions dollar-for-dollar for the first 6% of my pay that I contribute. I have it set at 6% and its not going anywhere. I'm 22 and have over 9k saved for retirement. I think thats a pretty good start. I'm not sure that getting a second job would really be possible because my work schedule is crazy, but overtime is definitely an option and I have been working OT lately. I think I will start going in on my days off and working like 6 hours of OT....I can get through this. I just need to stay focused.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible for you to get rid of the car payments?

[mgs2010]

No, I wish. I opened up a checking account at a different bank than my everyday checking and set my payroll direct deposit to put half of the car payment every check (i get paid every 2 weeks) and the car payment is auto-deducted. So, in a sense I really don't even notice that money because I never see it.

[Anonymous]

Well...besides extra hours at work, I would try selling stuff on Ebay. One man's trash is another man's treasure

[Anonymous]

The method I used to eek out every little bit was to figure out the earliest I could make each monthly payment based upon the due dates and when my paychecks were scheduled.  I then used my banks Bill Payer system (called by many names by many banks) and set it to make the scheduled payments on those early dates.  There were two benefits to that method; I was never late again and I took advantage of the fact that most (if not all) credit card companies use the average daily balance method to calculate the monthly interest.  The earlier in the billing cycle that you make the payment the sooner you stop paying interest on that amount.  I then started using that money and whatever else I had managed to save up each month and made an additional payment on the card with the highest rate.  It makes no sense to make an extra payment on a card with 3.9% when you have one at 25%.

[Anonymous]

Please don't close any of your credit card accounts!!! This will hurt your utitlization percentage even more and could trigger further rate increases or credit line decreases.  If you don't want to use them, cut them up or put them somewhere you can't easily get to them.  You might need to occasionally use one for a small purchase to keep it active. 

I repeat - don't close accounts!  This will hurt your score.

[scotbe]

Is there any chance of transferring balances from high-interest cards to lower ones? Banks sometimes offer very good rates for balance transfers, although you have to factor in the balance transfer fee to see if it's really a good deal or not. This was easier to do a few years ago when I used this method to bring a mountain of debt under control; sometimes in those "good old days" there was no balance transfer fee at all. It's been a long haul, but I'm now within less than a year of paying off my last CC balance.

[hyprble]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Well...besides extra hours at work, I would try selling stuff on Ebay. One man's trash is another man's treasure

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I've started selling items to pay off debt, and I find eb*y to be the worst in terms of fees they collect.  There are other alternative sites that are popping up.  I don't think I'm allowed to list them, but I'm sure you can find them with some internet searching.  You won't get the same kind of traffic you'd get with an eb*y listing, but the items you sell can be found through google shopping  I've only had to pay $5 for some final fees that I otherwise would've owed the other site $15!

Best of luck paying down your debts - it sounds like you're already on the right track!