Rebuilding--is this going to be possible

[Anonymous]

Hi!

So I have been lurking for two years now on this board. I lost my job in July 2014 at 8 months pregnant. Since then all of our bills fell behind, both my husband and I had our cars repossessed and we lost our home as well. Over the last year things have "slightly" gotten better. My husband found and higher paying job, and while I didn't work (daycare was going to cost us nearly $2k a month, and my husband was only bringing home $2900 at the time), I did try and budget so that we could get past bills caught up. I returned to school for Chemical Engineering in August of last year, so that I could eventually get a better paying job to help support our family. 

With the advice of these boards, we started slowly paying off debts, we didnt have any luck with PFD's but we were able to work out payment plans. We also got secured cards, each of us and added the other as AU's

USAA AMEX and Visa

Wells Fargo

Discover

Credit One

First Premier

Total Visa

Fingerhut FS

The subprime cards we got first because that was all we could qualify for. All of the limits are below $400, its low but its a start. Everything was going well and we were paying off on time each month. We were even able to finally get another vehicle. Fast forward March 2016, my husband loses his job. Between March and May our credit score which we managed to raise from teh 450's due to the previous job loss to the 590's for myself and low 600's for my husband dropped to the 480's over the last few months. Once again all of our stuff has fallen behind. And we feel completely defeated. My husband once again has found another job, and we had to wait 90 days for him to request his retirement money which we can use to pay off our cc debt (which is around $2250). 

The collection accounts on both of our reports total around 25 between the two of us-mostly medical bills for myself, an eviction for $3150.00(its not a judgement however, they just sent the remaining month we had left to a CA), and old CC's my husband had from college. Overall the total debt is $43580. I feel like getting out of debt is completely hopeless for us. I am working this summer, and the money I make will be going towards collection accounts, but honestly I don't know where to begin. Our biggest debts are the two repossessions

American Acceptance-$13K

Nicholas Financial-$5K

Any insight or encouragement would be great. I don't know if I should start the DV and PFD process all over again-or if I should just pay things on the CR. I worry about the dip our scores will take (as if they could go any lower at the point) if I just pay things off without contacting the creditors. There are errors on our CR (from Rooms to GO, we had job loss coverage, and all we had to make was the one month payment-which we did, however they put the total balance on our CR's, and I have been fighting that $4100 for a year now, with no luck). 

Thanks in advance. 

[RonM21]

I'm sorry to hear of the struggles you went through, but It's good to see you are rebounding. The medical collections are interesting because there have been a lot of success stories on getting them deleted. Have you looked at any threads on medical collections being removed?

[Anonymous]

Yes i have, and I actually got $11K in medical collections removed. The issue with the remaining was the hospital was nortorious for not running people's insurance. And I was able to even get a statement from the nurse and doctor who witnessed the insurance rep in the room while I was in labor, and saw her take our info and card. But they never filed it and we weren't notified until the 1 day mark past the one year deadline. So while I did have a significant amount removed there is still another almost $15k because the baby was in the hospital for a week. I don't think those are going to be easy to come off. 

[surferchris]

Good luck on your school.  Improving your education in a marketable field is a great way to ensure future employment (and with a high enough income, you can quickly solve many of your financial challenges).  People in my area are making annual incomes in the $60,000's with just two year degrees in Engineering.

[Anonymous]

I'll say don't worry about credit now. Forget all those bills and collection. Finish school and use debit or a secured credit card to build. Don't use credit one or other credit card that charges a lot for fees. Wait till ur actually financial stable to build credit. 7 years later everything will start falling off and hurt u less credit wise. U can have a 800 credit score but without the income the high credit score still isn't going to help

[surferchris]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I'll say don't worry about credit now. Forget all those bills and collection. Finish school and use debit or a secured credit card to build. Don't use credit one or other credit card that charges a lot for fees. Wait till ur actually financial stable to build credit. 7 years later everything will start falling off and hurt u less credit wise. U can have a 800 credit score but without the income the high credit score still isn't going to help

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Good advice.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi!

So I have been lurking for two years now on this board. I lost my job in July 2014 at 8 months pregnant. Since then all of our bills fell behind, both my husband and I had our cars repossessed and we lost our home as well. Over the last year things have "slightly" gotten better. My husband found and higher paying job, and while I didn't work (daycare was going to cost us nearly $2k a month, and my husband was only bringing home $2900 at the time), I did try and budget so that we could get past bills caught up. I returned to school for Chemical Engineering in August of last year, so that I could eventually get a better paying job to help support our family. 

With the advice of these boards, we started slowly paying off debts, we didnt have any luck with PFD's but we were able to work out payment plans. We also got secured cards, each of us and added the other as AU's

USAA AMEX and Visa

Wells Fargo

Discover

Credit One

First Premier

Total Visa

Fingerhut FS

The subprime cards we got first because that was all we could qualify for. All of the limits are below $400, its low but its a start. Everything was going well and we were paying off on time each month. We were even able to finally get another vehicle. Fast forward March 2016, my husband loses his job. Between March and May our credit score which we managed to raise from teh 450's due to the previous job loss to the 590's for myself and low 600's for my husband dropped to the 480's over the last few months. Once again all of our stuff has fallen behind. And we feel completely defeated. My husband once again has found another job, and we had to wait 90 days for him to request his retirement money which we can use to pay off our cc debt (which is around $2250). 

The collection accounts on both of our reports total around 25 between the two of us-mostly medical bills for myself, an eviction for $3150.00(its not a judgement however, they just sent the remaining month we had left to a CA), and old CC's my husband had from college. Overall the total debt is $43580. I feel like getting out of debt is completely hopeless for us. I am working this summer, and the money I make will be going towards collection accounts, but honestly I don't know where to begin. Our biggest debts are the two repossessions

American Acceptance-$13K

Nicholas Financial-$5K

Any insight or encouragement would be great. I don't know if I should start the DV and PFD process all over again-or if I should just pay things on the CR. I worry about the dip our scores will take (as if they could go any lower at the point) if I just pay things off without contacting the creditors. There are errors on our CR (from Rooms to GO, we had job loss coverage, and all we had to make was the one month payment-which we did, however they put the total balance on our CR's, and I have been fighting that $4100 for a year now, with no luck). 

Thanks in advance. 

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Not sure what to say, other than to Keep your Head UP, and to also invest in your family.