Ok, so I am VERY new here and am very open to any and all suggestions you all have, as I have learned so much already from your posts.
Our Story
We lived comfortably 2 years ago with DH and myself in successful careers. 2 great kids, a home, only 1 car payment and a few credit card balances, but total under $3500, so things were fine and credit score was in the mid 600's. Father in law went into kidney failure and needed transplant a few months later. Although in-laws had good insurance to cover the transplant the meds needed for anti-rejection are considered "experimental" therefore the ins. will NOT cover the first 3 months. Meds are approx. $3500 - $5000 per month the first 2 months SO you have to prove you have at least $12000 in the bank before you will be added to the transplant list. I know this is a sick system, but I can't fight every single battle in this world alone. We took money from our savings to help reach the goal and my FIL got his transplant less than 1 year later. My in-laws had helped us out financially almost 10 years earlier so we just viewed this as a payback to them, not a loan. Within 6 months, I became extremely ill and the dr. could not figure out what was wrong. I was able to still go to work but the numerous testing needed spanned over 3 months and cost us $3000 out of pocket with co-pays and deductibles before a diagnosis was made. I had a colecystectomy in June of 2007, which solved my issues immediately- HALLELUJAH! Less than 1 week later, DH had a horrible incident with a table saw, almost severing his finger. That thankfully did not keep him out of work but a few days, as he could handle light duty, but the therapy and dr. appt's began to add up again.
During that 18 month span, we incurred much more debt, trying to stay afloat and finally our mortgage became delinquent. I called Countrywide to try and work out a repayment plan, but they were no help at all. We tried refinancing, but our scores were horrid and that would have been at an interest rate that would have made absolutely no sense, as it would not have helped matters at all. We have 6 lates on our mortgage as of 3/08, but it is FINALLY current! We also have multiples lates on our credit cards, most of which as maxed out at this point.
We contacted CCCS and decided after making a few phone calls ourselves that we would be better tackling this on our own. 2 card companies have decreased interest to 11% and set up a repayment plan, we are working on the other 2. I have devised a plan with a bi-weekly spreadsheet to snowball the highest interest first and SHOULD be able to eliminate the total CC debt within 2 years. We can survive (although things are VERY TIGHT) on our current income and pay all of our bills, but I need to work on the late payments and approx. 3 medical collection accounts. We will HAVE to get our scores up because my vehicle will only last about another year before I have to buy a newer one.
HELP!!! Where do I start? Will GW letters explaining the unavoidable medical issues work? I can also send PFD to the medical collections but will have to do that one at a time, as each of those are more than $150 each. We have found US Bank and Countrywide to be the hardest to deal with......is this common? I would THINK that Countrywide would have been more helpful.
Message Edited by firststepofamarathon on
04-13-2008 12:09 PMMessage Edited by firststepofamarathon on
04-13-2008 12:09 PMMessage Edited by firststepofamarathon on
04-13-2008 12:11 PM
