Financial falls and debt management

[CivalV]

Hello! I have officially fell into hard times financially. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and I quit my job to take care of her full-time. My credit score originally went up a total of 100 points in a month. Today my credit score has gone down 60 points because of my remaining balances. I am tempted to take out a loan to pay down credit card balances but I know I probably won’t qualify for any. I feel very stuck and not confident in my situation.

A little more detail in regards to my balances :

I was able to upgrade my lower limit platinum card to a regular Quiksilver card with no annual fee. Hopefully down the road I can hit the love button and get a decent limit increase, to lower my overall utilization.

I have had a Captial One Platinum for six years now with a limit of $2750. I have not had an increase since last October. Today I was able upgrade this card to a QuicksilverOne with the annual fee.

I have made on time payments to all accounts thus far. As time passes I do feel like I am crunching numbers more and more. Nervous breakdown is not the word to describe how I feel about my financial situation.

I just would like some advice financially & a list of things not to do that could potentially bring my score down.

I do have a Self Lender account with a $1400 balance that I pay $150 a month on. This is a CD account and will be paid by June 2019.

My total credit card balance currently stands at $3700. I am sure it’s not too bad, it’s not a big limit but I feel crappy that I let it get to this. I have learned so much using this forum and doing my own research that I will never make the same mistakes again.


Thanks for checking out my post. And I look forward to your input!

[xaximus]

Welcome to the forums!

The first thing I would have recommended was to change to the QS and not the QS1. The QS1 is harder to PC. See if you can call and request it to be moved to a QS and not the QS1. Keep trying if they say no.

Second - See if you can get a job part time (if possible), with the current situation, it may be tough but some income is better then none. There's a lot of part time jobs that can be done (Uber, Lyft, UberEats, Doordash, Amazon CSR @ Home, etc). As far as balances go - just cut out any unnecessary spending (shrink cell plan, remove cable, etc.) and try to divert the funds to your balances. Hit the lowest and work your way up. Keep in mind APRs. Make sure your making minimum payments + few extra $ just to keep up.

Think of it this way - with some extra income and good financial planning - you can pay off that $3700 in 6-12 months easily. You can do it !