Here are the bullet points about my situation: *Home ruined by flood a couple of years ago. My family and I were homeless for four months, living in a hotel. I burned through my renters insurance and savings. I cashed in my retirement account to move us into a rental home. *Wife is disabled and cannot work. I make decent money, but medical bills and prescription drugs eat up about $800 per month. *I filed some late tax forms with the IRS and I am making payments each month to pay off my tax debt. However, I now have tax liens on my credit reports. *My bank changed the payment due dates on my car loan without notifying me, so it appears on my credit report I was habitually late.. I made payments each month with the exception of one. My wife thought I made the payment. I thought she made it. Three days ago, my car was repo-ed. *My credit score is 522, but I'm sure it will take a major hit when the repo shows up. I'm trying to come up with a game plan for "weathering the storm" and staring the process of rebuilding my credit. My question: Where do I start? I have several medical bills that have gone to collection, and I know that hurts my score. It will take about 4 more years to pay off my taxes under the payment plan I'm on, and now I have a repo to deal with. On top of that, I plan to move into a lower-priced rental house in Oct. to reduce my expenses, and I have to get another car (probably at one of those "buy here, pay here" places). I feel like everything is hitting me all at once and I'm just not sure how to get my stuff together. I repaired my credit on my own about 10 years ago, but I have never had tax liens or a repo before. It just seems to be so much all at once, and I don't want to file bankruptcy.
Welcome to Creditnet OkieDokie! Wow- you have been through a lot over the past few years. I'm really sorry to hear about your situation and I do hope that things start looking up for you soon. Try to keep a positive outlook! I guess my first question would be what do you "need" good credit for at this point? If you still make decent money, I think your focus should be on reducing expenses, getting into that cheaper rental, building up an emergency fund, and buying yourself a car in cash. Once you get your financial life a little more straightened out, then you can begin to focus on your credit reports and improving your credit scores again. Luckily, time can always heal a credit report. If you provide a breakdown of your income and current expenses, we'd be happy to take a look and provide any insight we can to help out.
