My wife and I are expecting twins in November and currently we are having trouble keeping our credit cards and other debts current, even though they are current now. I did an application with a Credit Counseling Service and to make a long story short they felt that they could not help us because we are in more debt than income, which I kind of understand but all our accounts are current (not over 30 days past due) Their suggestion was trying to contact the credit card companies directly and asking about their in house hardship programs. I contacted all of them and their responses were either we don't have that type of program or "unfortunately you don't qualify for any of our programs at this time". Iâ??m guess that means because I already paying "on timeâ? they see no need to offer assistance. I'm running out of ideas and bills that I see as more important than credit card bills are begin to become due like property tax, medical bills, etc. The only idea I can think of is stop paying them and wait until they feel I qualify for their programs. Any advice would be helpful.
Do you have any family that could assist? Your credit score will take some major hits if you start going late. Also, I did a credit counseling program a few years ago and that was terrible for my credit because all of my accounts were closed as part of the process, which affects your account ages. Do you own your home? Can you get a HELOC at a better rate to help get you through? What is your standing with the CC companies? If you are a good, long standing customer, you should be able to call them to get a rate decrease. Demand it. What's your credit like? Can you get more? I'm thinking if your current companies won't help out with a rate decrease, maybe you could get some new, high limit cards with low (thinking 0%) introductory rates on balance transfers and transfer your current balances over. Or, maybe if you just threaten to do it, you might get that rate decrease from your current companies. Do whatever you can to not go 30 days late. I had an 18 month old CO and 1 8 month old 30 day late removed from EQ last week. My FICO score went up 83 points the day they hit. So those 30 day lates will kill you if they're recent.
Oh, incidentally, any bill that won't impact your credit should probably be the least important. If the situation is temporary, it might be better to pay that property tax late with the penalty than to take a hit to your credit score. It totally depends on your credit and the penalties, but I hope you get my point. Also, I'll bet the penalties for being late are much more severe with the CC companies than for anyone else you may owe. But, if a 30 day late will drop your score from 509 to 459, well, maybe that doesn't matter too much since you have a long uphill battle to get your score back in decent shape with either score. But if it will drop you from 680 to 630, or 650 to 600, maybe it's better to pay the property tax late, or the medical bills. Incidentally, do you have insurance? How much are we talking in medical bills for the birth? Do you have one of those crappy high deductible consumer plans where the birth itself is not considered preventative?
Thanks for your advice; Iâ??m going to try to answer some of your questions. I didnâ??t think the Credit Counseling was a good idea but I thought I would fill out the application and see what happens. Our credit scores are around 620 when I check about 2 years ago, when we applied for our mortgage. I donâ??t own my home but we are paying on it, itâ??s only been 2 years so I was told by the guy who prepared our loan that it was best to wait after 3 years to try to refinance. I donâ??t know exactly what a HELOC is but Iâ??ll look it up. With the CC companies weâ??re long standing customers, I donâ??t know about good we pay on time and if weâ??re late itâ??s never over 30 days. Weâ??re asked for lower interest rates before and they have denied them. I donâ??t think I can get more credit because most of the cards are maxed out or close to the max. Insurance is pretty good and our portion of the medical bills so far hasnâ??t been outrageous or more than the highest CC minimum payment, but they are still due. I guess my problem is Iâ??m paying for stuff I bought 5 years ago instead of buying stuff I need today and I just trying to find a solution before I have two hungry babies and no money for food etc. Once again thanks for your help.
What you really need to look at is a personal financial plan and analysis. You probably are better off than you think. I will post later some basic steps you need to go through, sorry but I do not have enough time to cover it all right now. But, "bump" this thread to keep it on the current posts..."bump" means just "reply" to your own thread, and type in "bump". This reposts the reply, and keeps it current. I will get back to you...
Sorry about the delay in responding, but I have been busy lately. First, congratulations and welcome to parenthood! It's amazing how a child changes everything! I suspect you're feeling that right now, but everything will work out, though it may not be easy. So, first things first: You need to get the full picture of your financial situation, and then make plans based upon that. Very simply, you have spent more over the last several years than you had income, and now that situation must be reversed. Continue making minimum CC payments during these first steps; and minimum on other payments. Then,take your credit cards and put them in large containers of water, and put them in the freezer! Put in discipline steps to stop you from using them! Now, start with getting a total of your debt, create an excel spreadsheet or go to www. about.com/debt , and/or www.bankrate.com where there are numerous sample forms. You want to capture all your debts for: 1) Total owed 2) Monthly payment (min), and due dates 3) interest rate 4) Utilization rate (i.e.% of credit used divided by available credit(limit). Next your want to capture all your expenses: again there are budget worksheets on the above sites: List out "monthly" payments, i.e mortgage, auto loan, utilities, and so on. Capture EVERYTHING! You may want to carry a notepad with you, but you and your wife should document every penny you spend. Yes, CC charges are spending, so capture those. I use my own excel spreadsheet, that has columns for everyday of the month, and rows for all conceivable expenses. I put in a section just for credit card transactions. This way I can track both daily and by expense type. You also want to put in columns for interest and fees on debt! Do not overlook these "hidden expenses"!! IT IS HIGHLY IMPORTANT TO TRACK ALL SPENDING! Your next step is to document your income (from all sources) as well. Now you need to create a budget. Compare your income totals, and cash flow for a month at a time, with your first draft of your expenses and spending. Make your best guesses at "budgeted amounts" for variable items. A budget is a never ending "work in progress", so don't get to hung up on it if you find your self not hitting the goals at first. Your goal is to reduce spending below your income, this is going to be the hardest part. You will have to change "values", self-image, and most difficult of all...habits. But, now you have a great motivator, children! Look for ways to reduce all of your expenses, I recommend visiting www. frugal.com, and doing a search for "frugal living". You will be amazed at what you learn and how much you change! Develop a mindset that you have worked hard for this money, and it is going to take hard work to get it out of your hands! The key here is changing spending habits, I know this will be hard because you have to change mindsets. I know the thought of the cost of children is scary, but there are ways to do it,and well. For example, explore "used". Yes there are tremendous needs for expensive things for newborns, but they use, and outgrow, them fast. Look for and "explore" places like Goodwill Industries, Salvation Army stores, 2nd hand childrens stores, garage and yard sales. You will be amazed at what you find. Educate yourself by reviewing prices at the top retailers first. Know what you are looking for, and these "used" shopping trips become like treasure hunts. And I know the difficulty of thinking "I don't want to put second hand stuff on my child"...but explore, many times there is brand new merchandise in these places, or nearly new. And believe me, no one will know the difference anyway! Pour over all your expenses and look for ways to decrease them, this means cutting cable packages, using grocery coupons, cutting out the "daily coffees and dining out. Once you track where your money is going, you'll shock yourself when you look at the totals! Once you have the "number" for what is left over from income less expenses, you need to plug that number into a debt repayment plan. There are two schools of thought to debt paydown: 1) Pay off the debts with the highest interest rate first (this reduces the total $ paid, i.e. most economical), or 2) Pay off the lowest balance first (this is the most "psychological boosting") I find this works best for the long run with most people. The basic plan is, make minimum payments on the other debts and pay the most you can on the current "priority debt". Once that debt is paid, then take that money, and add it to the minimum payment of the next priority debt, and so on. It is best to put this plan on paper, so as to help you mentally. It is psychologically helpful to know you are "on track", and see progress. You also at this point want to communicate with all your CC accounts, explian the situation, tell them of your numbers, and ASK for an interest rate reduction or postponement. You never know unitil you try! Also explore any way possible to create extra income, there is always a way! Also consider selling a lot of the "stuff" you are "still paying for"! E-Bay estimates that the average household has $3,000 worth of stuff they do not use that they could sell. I'm sure $3,000 would be very helpful right now! Have a yard/garage sale, etc. you might be amazed at how much you make! Now, in the other larger picture, make sure you pull ALL of yours, and your wife's credit reports. If you haven't already, you can pull your free reports from www.annualreport.com. Review them and get a handle on your credit status. If you can afford it, purchase your FICO credit scores for all of these reports, do NOT go for the FREE CREDIT REPORT & SCORE!! offers!! Get the real scores (from www.myfico.com), not the "FAKOS" as we call them. At this point, you may want to explore "home equity loan products", i.e a "loan or a "Line Of Credit", the interest rate is lower than CCs, and auto loans, and usually the interest is tax deductible. With the credit scores you posted (from 2 yrs ago), you will probably have a harder time getting one, but armed with your credit scores, reports and budget data, talk to your bank. You never know until you try..ask their approval criteria, and ask for a review of your situation. Very simply, you want to first find out where you are at financially, and figure out your spending habits. VERY IMPORTANT! INCLUDE YOUR WIFE IN THIS PROCESS! YOU TWO ARE IN THIS TOGETHER, AND MONEY IS ONE OF THE LARGEST "LANDMINES" IN MARRIAGE! Your goal is to reduce spending below income, and then cover the basic living expenses, and pay as much as you can reasonably afford to pay down debt. One last, but critical step! Once you have done the exercises for budgeting and spending, debt repayment calculations, BUDGET SOMETHING FOR SAVINGS! I MEAN SOMETHING! Even if it is $1/week or month, save something! You can work your way out of this, the keys are data, planning and communication. The hardest part will be "changing habits", but think of the newborns. It's amazing, suddenly you do not have to wear the latest status clothing, or hit the best spots in town anymore. As advice, take some time to look at your insurance policies and coverage also. Having children is a major step, and significant "life change". You should be making changes accordingly. Sorry for the length, and even this advice only scratches the surface...Other posters have offered many great tips for saving money and reducing expenses in the past, I hope they will do so again. But search the forum for threads on cutting costs (some are under my replies, so search by bizwiz41) for some great ideas. This is "tough" advice, but it's time to grow up! Don't be afraid to face the issue, dig in, and know you can dig your way out! You can do this! You will learn to sacrifice for your children, and that starts now...you will have to give up sleep working on these things, but that is what it takes! So, any questions, advice needed, or need for just moral support, simply post. We're all here to help, and we have all "been there". Drop your pride and ego, do the work, and do what you have to do. You will have to make hard choices, sacrifice and work hard! But in the end you will be a better person, and proud! I won't say my typical "Good Luck", just "work hard and the luck will come"
You want to be careful about those garage sales and goodwill stores. I used to spend a great deal of time going to garage sales. I've made a lot of money going to garage sales and selling what I bought at them. One time I bought a large building full of very expensive machine tools, hand tools and power tools for a pittance. Many were brand new and had never been out of their boxes. There were over 100 new and complete socket sets, new electric drills and so much more that I couldn't begin to describe it all. I made a killing off of that one. I've also done very well other times but things are much different now. People are much more aware of what things are worth and much of the stuff is now priced at, near or above new price and the quality is not usually all that good. So in order to make good buys at garage sales you have to do a lot of shopping and yo have to know what things are worth. The reason that garage sales are not all that they are cracked up to be is that people who sell at various flea markets get out early and beat the crowds and buy up all the good deals so by the time the average person gets there the good bargains are all gone. Then you have to watch out for the amount of gasoline you use and the time you spend hunting for the few good bargains three are by the time you get there. You also need to balance the amount of time you lose with the family while out garage sale shopping. I used to hit the streets early Thursday morning and do garage sales until about noon then on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays spend from early morning until evening at garage sales. No more. I won't stop at one even if I am going right past it. Not worth the time and trouble because I can go to the store, buy new and get out of the store much faster and can get on with the day's activities whatever they may be. Another thing about garage sales is that you have to know what areas of the city are likely to have what you want. In some areas, especially the richer areas of a city you will sometimes find good bargains on clothes, jewelry, antiques and things like that but very little in the way of tools. Shopping for computers and related equipment is worse than useless because all you will find is junk stuff that can be counted on to be old and out of date. Buy it and you will soon find it in your trash can and the money wasted. It is usually far better to buy quality merchandise at reputable stores even if you have to pay more for it because it will last you a lot longer. You get what you pay for and high quality stuff will do you a much better job. I still spend some time looking through pawn shops for bargains. They are few and far between but you can run into some outstanding bargains in pawn shops from time to time. But again, you have to know what you are looking for and what the stuff is worth or you will get stung badly in pawnshops too.
Wanted to add that I can go into a Goodwill, Sal. Army or thrift store every single day and find something to ebay. I never fail to find something in them and I hit them almost daily. I have 5 of them in my town and have yet to not find something to make a few bucks on. For added cash, go to one of these and find useful items ( dont laugh, I buy bread makers at goodwill and sell them on ebay well.), old items, collectible items ( I find older lunchboxes all the time ) or older toys ( always find marbles, plastic army men or atari games - early ones ) Think of what you would buy for your home etc. Try something like this, buy just a couple things and put them on ebay. Local lady sells used baby clothes on ebay she buys at Goodwills and does very well. I wish you well. There is some awesome advise above. If you need help setting up an ebay account, PM me I would be glad to help in any way.
Very good advice! My point re: "Goodwill, yard sales, etc." was solely for saving money, but that is a GREAT idea to make money on it! I wish I had thought of it! Just another good point of how you can make it work!
WOW! Thanks for the advice, I printed it out so I can go through each point. I already have an ebay account but never thought about the Goodwill stores. I think Ill check one out today. .
Congratulations, you are taking a big step in just opeing your mind to possible solutions! Believe me, the more frugal you become, the more you will not understand how you could use to spend! Again, this is really just an overview, but personal financial management is your critical need. Unfortunately, education and training for such an important part of our lives is severely lacking as an educational fundamental. I recommend the following websites to begin your financial education: www.about.com lots of categories, i.e. finance, debt, credit, loans, etc. great sample forms, great links and advice columns. www.bankrate.com again great basic financial advice, good forms available, areas to "ask the experts". Can get a bit "heavy" as they can go into great detail on economic events and market issues. www.money.com website for Money magazine, you have to be a subscriber to get full access and benefit, but good primer information. Also, do not overlook the obvious! Go to your local library and read through all the financial magazines, Money, Kiplingers, Fortune, Smart Money, Consumer Reports, etc. Also take out some books on financial management, there are hundreds of titles out there. While you're there, you might discover some "money saving ideas", most libraries now lend out movies, even latest releases, as well as music CDs and art! I personally felt like a fool when I found this out about my local library! We started taking our kids to the library to encourage reading and learning, and I learned I didn't have to throw away $20 a week on movies (that no one watched half the time!). I stopped buying music CDs and just take them out now! The kids take out stuffed animals and puppets, puzzles, music, etc. This is just one example that saves my family thousands a year! There is a lot to learn and do, but the basics of watching every penny are the most critical. Approach the situation like a business dealing, try not to let emotion and personal feelings sway you. A budget is one of the most powerful financial tools, and should be viewed as a "good thing", not a punishment. In your current state, maintaining your credit report and scores is crucial. Do whatever you can to keep making minimum payments on credit cards, and a suggestion, PAY THE MINIMUM PLUS SOMETHING! EVEN $1. You want to avoid being "detected" as a potential "distress" case under a CC account review. The computer looks for minimum payments, and throws you into a "potential distress category", which may cause the "default interest rate" to kick in. You can probably stretch paying your property taxes, you will incur interest, but usually a municipality will not report to credit reporting agencies until they must file a tax lien. This can take over 12-18 months. You can probably stretch some of the medical bils as well, again they wait quite a while before reporting, and that is after turning over to a collection agency. Planning, discipline and time will turn this situation around completely, just take the first steps, and reward yourselves for successes!
sorry hello friend, sorry but i don't have ideas regarding credit card management so i can't give u any advice for the purpose.....
I can tell you that just today I walked into my local Goodwill and found a Cranberry Glass lamp made by Fenton Glass, value is 250.00, I paid 24.99 plus tax and found a box of Limoges china for 9.99 which I know I can get no less then 100.00 for the set. Yesterday I found a couple Lionel Trains from 1960's and old painting, the painting is not much but the frame is totally awesome and in mint condition. Not to brag, just to let you know you can do this, it's acutally easy. Go in and look over every single item in the store, sure there will be junk, but there also may be ahidden treasure in there. If you are in a town where there are not many thrift store hangouts waiting to snatch stuff up when it comes out the door, you can make some notes, go home, research it and go back and hope it is still there. People at GW "usually" not know the items unless they are marked. Allot of women buy up the kids clothes, anything with a tag and one lady locally buys up all the good shoes ( Name brand ) and resells them on ebay. I look at it this way, if I am driving by it anyway, why not stop, might not be nothing there for me, but I do not have many of those days. If you need to make some extra money this is not hard, you only have to invest a small amount and do like I do, if I can make at least 5 to 10 bucks per item after fees and can sell 40-50 of those items a week, thats darn good money. Then toss in the hits I find where I make more like the Fenton lamp above and my average goes way up. PM me if you find anything you think is a goodie and I will see if I can help.
Ahhh Ebay, I bought alot of things there when I was on bedrest while pregnant with my son. I have sold a few things. Not much though. I don't do too much ebay, mainly just because I don't have the time to devote to it. Just be very cautious and do your homework when ebaying. There are alot of scammers out there so know what you are doing. Listing takes alot of work, taking good pics, in depth descriptions, listing fees then watching out for feedback, scammers, disgruntled & hard to please customers. Then there is final value fees for sold items and getting a verified paypal account etc etc. I spend time reading the trust & safety community board on ebay to try to keep up to date esp when I venture to ebay to check prices on something to potentially buy or sell. I have a buying id & a selling id. Prob alot of the Goodwill & Salvation army peeps and even the garage salers know more about Ebay than you would think. It's become a very big thing. The ebay community message boards have alot of information about that. I would encourage anyone thinking about ebaying to do alot of research first. It can be a good thing or a bad thing. If your willing to put alot of effort in it could earn you some bucks, some peeps have done very well with it. Just be careful. Tegleg
Thanks for the ebay advice, I am an active ebayer but I just never thought to go to the GW or SA, I usually sell stuff I found around the house, friends give me to sell, or stuff i buy at outlet stores or clearence sales. I am more interested in ways to get my payments lowered, because I've already researched ways to be more frugal, but I am still open for advice on frugal. Im just trying to reduce my credit card payments which is taking up a huge amount of my budget, which I would need.
How are your EXP scores? Baddies, etc. What is the total amount owed on the CC's? Biz above has some super points about money and if you are bale to sell items on ebay for your and others, that will drop the payments down as far as it coming out of your own budget money. ANy extra money you make on ebay can go towards paying down the CC's. Reason I asked about CC balance, baddies, BK, etc is you need to consolidate to the lowest rate you can find, so I have in mind that you need to find a CC that has a great rate so you can do balance transfers until you are able to make more oney to pay down the debt and reduce your stress and payments. I have a place that will help you do this if you have decent EXP scores, and they have a 6.9% for all balance transfers right now and there is no charge for doing the transfers themselves, which is great. Post what you EXP scores and baddies are and I can tell you if you have a shot or not. They most likely will ask you to close the account they BT.
You will need to negotiate with the CC companies to accomplish this, but you will need all the information about your personal financial situation first. Make sure you do all the "homework" I posted above. Sorry, but there are no shortcuts. It's all about the numbers and planning. The article below is a good primer for the basics of dealing with this situation: http://consumers.creditnet.com/Disc...le-which-credit-cards-should-i-pay-66634.html Communication is key, talk to your creditors and be proactive about working out a solution. You might be suprised at what you can do, especially if you've worked out all your budget numbers and can speak to the situation. Again, figure out where your money is going, and take some very hard looks at your spending. Get the mindset that something has to give in your budget. It's not easy but once done, you probably won't notice the change.
Op Forgot to mention that ebay is having a new fee listing for anything 9.99 and under for Sept. Thought this might help. I have 200+ listings all for 9.99 !! No charge for the listing, one free pic. Ssssshhhhh I am selling DW Boyds Bear Collection............ she won't miss it
