Getting Married and Need to Pay off Debt Fast!!!!

[Lil_Me]

Hello,

I went through this forum to help me establish good credit and I did just that. I purchased a home and got multiple credit cards. I made the misstake of purchasing a car for my son and he did not pay like we agreed. I ended up stop paying on all of my credit cards so that I could pay for his car. So that the car will not get repossed, now i have closed credit card accounts and my score is terrible. Since then I have met my future husband and we want to get married but I am afraid to tell him about my debt. So I am trying to hold off in moving in together so that I can clean up my mess before he finds out and think that I am careless with my credit. 

Can I get some advice on how to pay down or clean this credit mess up quickly?

[DaveInAZ]

Well, two things:

1- The only way to pay down debt is to have the money to pay it down.

2- As someone who has been married & divorced twice and happily single for decades since I am not a good sources for marital advice. But in relationships it's always better to be honest and not try to hide anything. It's going to take you awhile to clean this up and you might consider being upfront about it with someone you're considering marrying. And maybe he will help, after all from what you have said it was trying to help your son that got you into trouble, it's not like you were selfish/careless and spent more than you could pay.

All the best to you.

[Lil_Me]

You’re right! It wasn’t like I was being irresponsible, because I was able to keep the cards that meant the most to me and I kept my car, my son’s car and my mortgage.

Thank you for your response.

[DaveInAZ]

What are your credit scores like? If your credit cards have high interest you might try for a personal loan from Lending Tree, Prosper, etc. to pay the CCs off with a lower interest rate, but you'll need scores at least in the mid 600s to qualify for a lower rate personal loan.

[Anonymous]

Many years ago the second Mrs Backwoods got burned just before we got married by her son. She had cosigned because of his age.  She had to make the payments. She took the car away from him.  The deal then became 1) he could walk 2) If he needed a ride it was $5 /per mile in cash payable up front. She was not happy. Her son begged for car back the reply no no  and never. He ended up walking for several months til he could buy a beater on his own. Any time for the next several years when he wanted anything  the reply was recall the car. DW could afford to make the payments and actually liked the car better than hers so she sold hers as it was paid for. She also started   charging him rent for a while equal to the car payment.  When he quit making car payments he was  living rent free at  her house and blowing his whole pay check.   It was a great experience for him.  

[GFer]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Many years ago the second Mrs Backwoods got burned just before we got married by her son. She had cosigned because of his age.  She had to make the payments. She took the car away from him.  The deal then became 1) he could walk 2) If he needed a ride it was $5 /per mile in cash payable up front. She was not happy. Her son begged for car back the reply no no  and never. He ended up walking for several months til he could buy a beater on his own. Any time for the next several years when he wanted anything  the reply was recall the car. DW could afford to make the payments and actually liked the car better than hers so she sold hers as it was paid for. She also started   charging him rent for a while equal to the car payment.  When he quit making car payments he was  living rent free at  her house and blowing his whole pay check.   It was a great experience for him.  

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This is the best story I have read all day!!

[Dalmus]

I second the idea of being up front and honest.  As was said, you did this in order to help your son, and got burned.  Believe me, your future husband will appreciate you telling him what's going on rather than finding out by accident at some point in the future, or even worse, thinking that you're up to no good because you are delaying moving forward in the relationship for some unknown reason.

The other reason your future husband needs to know is that eventually, unless you somehow find money to pay off all those closed accounts with balances, creditors will come looking for their money via lawsuits.  You don't want his first information on this coming from a process server on a Sunday morning!

I don't know the circumstances as to why your son didn't hold up his end of the bargain, but unless it was because of some horrid personal disaster he had no control over, I would expect him to pay off the car, no matter what, even if its a monthly payment less than what it should have been and it takes twice as long to pay off.  You deserve your money back.