Help!!! My credit is a mess!!

[Anonymous]

I am recently separated from my spouse and my credit is a MESS!

To paint a picture... it looks like this:

6 credit cards -- $2390 owed on all

A loan with Cash Call -- $2800 (the worst mistake in my life!!!)

3 other accounts -- $6046 owed on all

In all about $12,000 in debt.

Bankruptcy discharged February 2001. I do have late payments reported.

This does not include the first & second mortgage ( that I am praying will sell very soon) and a car loan. I am desparetly seeking help on consolidating my debt to get it to one payment! I make good money  ($50k/yr). I just need someone to give me a chance and show mercy towards me to get my credit back on track. 

My credit score has suffered (TU- 568, Experian- 517, Equaifax- 575) as of last month, whch I am certain has declined this month.

I am trying very hard to re-establish myself. But on this current path, I forsee another bk filing, wish will be the final blow to my credit. I am a good person, just made some bad decisions.

I could sure use to advice or referral to a company that would give me chance to get back on track!

HELP!!!!

[Anonymous]

ok. my first suggestion is to call each and every creditor and ask about lowering interest rates or making other changes to the terms to get you to the point where you can comfortably make payments on time every month and make your minimum payments stretch a little further. Then you need to start the snowball method of debt reduction. start with the smallest balance and pay it off ASAP while making minimum payments on the rest. Then, take what you used to pay on that smallest bill and add it to the payment of your next smallest bill, and when that's paid off do it again. you can also do this a different way, starting with the highest interest debt first and working your way back. either one is a great strategy, it just depends on what your goals are.

keep reading this forum and asking questions. you will learn so much here, and as you read you will see that there's hope. chin up!

[Anonymous]

also, dispute any errors on your report in order to bump your scores up. if you find that you absolutely MUST get a loan to get out of this debt, then you will need higher scores to make that happen. start now, as it isn't always a quick process.

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much!

Tonight I will work out my plan

Wish me luck

[Anonymous]

i use a spreadsheet and an amortization table to help me figure out what to pay and how much accelerated payments will save me in interest. it's very eye-opening. good luck.

[Anonymous]

is it possible to send me a template of what you used?

[Anonymous]

do you have microsoft excel? if so, click on file, new, and one of the templates should be a loan amortization. it is a protected form, so you will need to unprotect it in order to use it the way i do. it's set up to do a fixed length loan, like for a car (2,3, 25 years, etc) so if you unprotect it you can modify some of the formulas if you need to or just play around with the terms to figure out what you need to do. I can't post a spreadsheet here or I'd send you an example. give it a shot.

[Anonymous]

yes, I do. Thanks, I will try that tonight!

Thanks so much!

Improved credit... here I come! :