I lost my job, and so did my dad. Now I have a load of debt I can barely afford. What should I do? *besides keep looking for ANY job*. Nothing is late, but the minimum payments don't cut it anymore. Should I try CCCS? Keep trying to stay afloat? Any ideas is helpful. This is what my debt is: $411.08 a month on 2002 Toyota (81 payments left) $128 a month car insurance $65 a month personal loan (22 months left) $50.33 a month personal loan (40 months left) $17.23 a month personal loan (41 months left) $66.15 a month personal loan (46 months left) $110 a month personal loan (24 months left) Credit cards MBNA $1100 MBNA $1380 Citi $1800 Bank1 $1400 CCB $1100 CapOne $1500 Chevron $100 Citgo $140 Target $405 I am trying to consolidate my student loans too, don't have that info on me.
I would call on my student loans and ask for a temporary deferment . In my experience they have been more then willing to work with me on this. scott
How about unemployment? Will you be getting that? And, on the car, will they maybe let you make one payment with interest only?
author, You've already gotten and I'm no doubt sure you will receive more good advice on the handling of your obligations, so I'm not going to go there. My firm contention is that all of the other problems go away if you get the employment situation handled right away. Fortunately, with the advent of the internet, that's not as hard as it used to be, imo. About a year and a half ago, i was asked by my brother's then-girlfriend to give her some advice on hunting for a job via the internet, because I had done so already once successfully. I wrote a letter that I'll paste here: Hi XXXXX! XXXX asked me to drop a line and walk you through a few internet job hunting tricks I've picked up. So... here goes: For starters, go to http://www.jobs.com . There you can download a program you'll see on their homepage called Resumail. It's a step by step tool for building a resume. I'm attaching one version of my resume that I created in Resumail so you can get a feel for how you can use it to lay out a resume. I think it looks way better than if I would have done it on my own from scratch. You can also look at some job listings at jobs.com, but it's not really that great a site. Once you've built up your resume and are satisfied with how it looks, you'll run into a problem with Resumail. It only saves files in its own proprietary format, which only works at jobs.com. The way around that is found in the File menu. Use the Export command to save it in MS Word format, and drop it in the Briefcase or wherever you want to save it. Now you can access the resume from Word, Windows WordPad, etc. and do any final touch ups. Next, you'll need a good cover letter. The best example I've seen is at http://www.jobbs.com (note; two b's in jobbs). You can use that as a starting point and modify it to your own taste. Once you look at it, you'll see where my cover letter came from. Of course, I've added to it over time... Once you start looking at online ads, look for the key buzzwords that show up over and over in the ads. Alter your cover letter and your resume over time to include those key words in them. This is important. The way a lot of headhunters and HR people sort resumes is by keyword searches of the hundreds of resumes they receive. Without the right keywords in the text of your cover letter and resume, your resume will never even be printed out and looked at by a real person. There's a bunch of online employment sites. There's only a few that are worth spending much time at. Far and away the best is http://www.monster.com, followed by http://www.hotjobs.com, http://headhunter.net and Yahoo Careers. Another one that's harder to use is http://www.jobfactory.com. Some others you might have better luck with than I did with are http://www.nationjob.com, http://www.careerspecialties.com, http://www.careershop.com, http://www.joboptions.com,http://www.dice.com, and http://www.zoomjobs.com. Try different combinations of keywords and locations for different results. Try running some searches without any geographic constraints, even if you don't want to move because many online ads looking for someone in your state get filed instead in the home state of the company. Lastly, send out lots of resumes. You're not done until you have sent out at least forty resumes. (***NOTE: I would make this 100 resumes today-in fact I did send over a hundred out when I was unceremoniously dumped in January 2002- Tom). You may well get a job on the first throw, but unless you have really scoured the available job market and sent a resume to every likely target, you won't know if you settled for too little. For a while there I was averaging three to four a day. It only takes one. Attach the cover letter and resume as a Word Document unless otherwise specified. Customize the header for your cover letter on each one, and modify the cover letter and resume as needed to closely match the job description. Tell them what they want to hear. After a while, you'll get a feel for what gets a response and what doesn't. Good Luck! Tom " Note: Because it's a year and a half old (a lifetime in internet years), some of the links may be incorrect. But the methodology works. I've used it myself. Twice. Hope It Helps! Tom
Don't do CCCS. More trouble than their worth. If you haven't already, do a search on them. They actually make your credit worse.
I just did the paperwork today to consolidate hubbies student loans. Can't ask for a better time. I decided to go through Sallie Mae where mine are and it was an online application...super simple. You've got some great advice here to get started. Might consider having a garage sale on eBay or something if you have extra stuff around the house. My husband works at home now selling on eBay and Amazon!
Stay away from debt counseling places like CCCS!!! They will REALLY make your life even more difficult than you can imagine. Study the CREDITNET site as much as you have time for. You will get an extremely wide range of views from people who have been through difficult financial times.
author_22- You have been a member here for almost a year so I assume you have done alot of reading. Right now you are $52+ in debt not including student loans and car insurance....and the car pmts are killers. Since you just bought the car in April you are already upside down in the car given the depreciation factor in the first year...You mentioned in February that you had received 12K as an inheritance...maybe you could use some of that to pay down some debt. I am assuming you need the car for transportation so I would look to that first....maybe try a refi with more $$s down in order to get those payments down. I'm not exactly sure what the personal loans are...but those would be next....maybe renegotiate them. Your student loans should be deferred as soon as possible. The credit card debt which is $8,925 would be the last thing I would worry about. If doing something with those car pmts is an option I would try and refi as soon as possible before your credit is affected by your loss of income. The other posts are full of good info re:looking for a job. I hope you find one soon. clc
Do not do CCCS. They're bad news. Tons of people on here have complained, and they have a reputation for screwing up your credit as badly as a bankruptcy.
They lowered my payments from over $1500 per month with no end in site to $914.38 for 17 months and then it was over. Every debt was 100% paid. A little over a year later, my credit is nearly perfect (Thanks to CN!). One paid collection left on each of my CR's. Considering I started with ~35 total derogs, not bad. I'm not saying CCCS is definitely what you need to do first. It probably isn't (see my earlier post!). In fact, until you have a steady income again, you have nothing to base a Debt Management Plan on anyway. BTW, the only people who got screwed up by CCCS are the ones who started it and then didn't finish it. While you're in it, yeah, it pretty much puts a hold on your ability to get credit. But then, there comes a point when you shouldn't be adding on any new debt anyway. After six months or so into the Debt Management Plan, if you need to get a new car or whatever, they'll work with you to help you budget it, etc. and then help you secure the financing. I approach those guys with my eyes wide open. I understand that they are in it for themselves and the creditors. I'm not a raving cheerleader. All their silly little classes (which we managed to avoid attending) won't teach you as much as one good BS session at CreditNet. But, they can help you get out of debt much faster than you otherwise might be able to. For a stiff price. It all depends on whether what they've got is worth (to you) what it costs.
I agree with poster. defer your student loans immediately. that is one less thing to worry about. i am assuming you don't have credit insurance that could kick in the min. payments while your out of work. the car payment seems to be the principal thing. although I hope this situation passes for you quickly, it really is disturbing. I am really wanting cc, new car and stuff right now, but am really trying to get my financial life under control, including savings, investments and such. I hope you saved some of that 12k that you can pull to help tide you over.
Are your "personal loans" all with the same lender? If so, perhaps they will agree to consolidate them,and collect intrest only for 3 months or so until you get back to work. You might also contact your auto insurance agent and see if you can reduce your liability coverage & increase your deductibles.Without any assets or financial resources, a high limit on your liability insurance is not neccessary, unless you are required to have it for a leased vehicle.(which yours is not)
I do have credit insurance on almost all the cards, and the $12K we had mentioned is tied up in a CD that I can't get out without penalty until August... Does credit insurance hurt your relationship with the companies? I feel better about the situation already, as I got a job today
Terrific! That takes a lot of the pressure off. Details? Mo' better pay, bennies, etc.? If not, remember what I said above. Phase 1 of your job search isn't over until you've sent out 100 resumes. Seriously.
