Need Urgent Advice

[joeyoey]

So I haven't been here for a while, finally cleaned my credit up.  Got lots of cards, was paying everything on time, even got a new car last year...& then I recently lost my job.  Unfortunately (as in times past), I got a little carried away with the credit cards & now my phone is ringing off the hook.

What is the best way to deal with this?  I barely have enough $ to pay rent, health insurance, utilities & my car payment.  I'm sure I'll get back on my feet in a month or two (or 3?) but in the meantime I can't keep the payments up, especially with them tacking on late fees on top of interest.   

My initital thought is to pick 2-3 cards that aren't too far behind, keep them current (so something will be positive on my credit) and just ignore the rest if they won't work with me.  At some point I guess I can deal with a collection agency but right now it's just unreasonable to even consider paying what they want because I just don't have it.

Does anyone have any advice or ways to handle this?  I want to pay this, I don't want it to go to collections or get charged off, I'm just not sure how much they'll work with you on something like this.

Help?!

[Anonymous]

From my little experience I would suggest to pay atleast the minimums to keep the accounts current if they aren't already charged off. Pull your CR and see the status of the accs. But again I am just a lurker, someone else will probably have more thorough input.

[Anonymous]

You have to fix your budget. Do anything and everything possible to not be late on your minimum payments. Get creative . . cut bills down to absolute minimums. Go without a phone for a while. Get a roommate. Drive Uber. Sell your car if you can't afford the payments and buy something cheaper. Have a yard sale.

Speaking of the car, try giving the lender a call and asking if you can have a one month extension. I was able to do one per year when I had a financed car . . skip that month's payment with no penalty . . they send you an amendment to your loan that you sign and return that changes your payoff date by that month you postponed. (you pay a few more bucks interest on the loan, but whatever.) Could free up a few hundred bucks to help you get caught up on other stuff.

I would also highly consider robbing Peter to pay Paul just for the short term. If you have credit cards you can still pull cash off of, I would use some of that money to keep the minimums up on the other cards.

You can get through this, but it's all going to come back to fixing your budget so you're not so overextended the next time life throws you a curveball. 

Good lucks!

[Anonymous]

Sell your new car. 

It's not worth having "lots" (don't know if this is 3-4 or 10+) of dirty accounts with late payments that will be there for 7 years, possibly longer than you'd even have that car.  The purpose of a car is to get from Point A to Point B.  A $1000 beater car can accomplish that.  I have no idea what your car is worth, but I'd imagine that selling and paying off your loan along with saving that monthly payment (and top notch insurance) would be more than sufficient to keep current on all of your CC bills.

[surferchris]

I agree with the other advice.

If you are in a high-rent city (NY, LA, CH, etc.) see if you can drive Uber and make some money.

If not, then goto Las Vegas (assuming you have no criminal record) and get two jobs in casinos or restaurants.  Then with two jobs you can probably make up the deficit pretty quickly.  If able, drive Uber as well, if not then sell the car.

Good luck and keep your spirits up.

[Anonymous]

I know that it is too late to utilze now. But i strongly suggest to anyone carrying a Balance on a CC, to carry the insurance! So that in the event you lose the ability to pay, they at least pay the minimums for you. Usually up to 6 months. I see so many people asking how to deal with said situation because they got a "little" out of control, and somehow got behind or lost their job etc. IMO it's a small price to pay for that security of protecting your credit future. What takes years to build only takes minutes to tear down.

As for the actual problem, just what everyome else has mentioned. Do what you can to earn the Money in the meantime to keep them at bay until a permenant solution comes along.

[Anonymous]

---

@AnonymousI know that it is too late to utilze now. But i strongly suggest to anyone carrying a Balance on a CC, to carry the insurance! So that in the event you lose the ability to pay, they at least pay the minimums for you. Usually up to 6 months. I see so many people asking how to deal with said situation because they got a "little" out of control, and somehow got behind or lost their job etc. IMO it's a small price to pay for that security of protecting your credit future. What takes years to build only takes minutes to tear down.

---

I've never heard of CC insurance, but it makes sense as you can get insurance for just about anything these days.  When you say it's a small price to pay, can you quantify that?  I'm curious how it all works since it's something I know nothing about.  I would imagine the higher the balance being carried, the higher the cost of insurance.

[Anonymous]

I don't have a dog in this race, since like BBS I don't know much about it.  Here is (a somehhat negative) assessment of CC insurance:

https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-insurance-1267.php

I found it at the top of this google search, where there are other articles, some less critical of the idea:

https://www.google.com/search?q=credit+card+insurance&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1