Hello! I am 27 years old and have come to the realization that I am in HUGE financial trouble! I am writing you for advise, as I no long even know where to begin!
I have always worked really hard to pay my bills on time and never miss payments. I was very diligent in keeping my credit score great! I was very successful until last year when I lost my job in July. I was unable to find work for several months and fell behind on all of my bills. I have about 10,000 in credit card debt that I now am year behind on. I have one credit card that I have arrangements to pay $200 a month for the next 2 years to get it paid off. I also just paid off one card that had a small balance. And have taken a settlement on another (Im not sure if taking settlements is a good idea?) card that I am in the process of paying off. I also have school loans that total payments per month equal $200per month as well.
So that is a snap shot of my credit card situation. My second, and probably even bigger, problem is my car. I leased it with the intentions of getting a loan from my credit union after getting larger rebates for leasing it. When it came time to get the loan the credit union would no longer extend me credit and I became stuck in the lease. I have made my $500 per month payments for the past 3 years. The lease will be up in Sept. of 2010. I do alot of traveling so the miles will be way over the terms of the lease and each mile is charged at .14 cents per mile. I am currently 8,000 miles and have more then a year of driving to do before the lease is up. The other option is to buy the car in Sept. with a balloon payment of 7,200 dollars.
I am currently take home about $610 per week. I also baby-sit on the weekends but this is not guaranteed so I never know how much extra I might make (this could be $50-$100 on weekends that I work).
I don't know how to begin to solve all of these problems at once. The only option that I can come up with is that I will need to find another job to try to make more money in order to make payments to my credit cards and save money to pay for the car next Sept. As for my credit card situation, what would you suggest? I have been offered settlements by a few of them. I really would like to restore my credit as soon as possible and am unclear on the best repayment option to do this.
Thank you for taking the time to read my letter! Any advise that you could give me would be greatly appreciated!
