I got married almost 2 years ago. I have some bad lines on my credit but nothing over $200 - $300, and only about 4-5 of these. My wife had 14 credit cards, but had been making all her payments on time. When we married she had a credit score of 690, and mine was 500. Well I went into business for myself and as you can imagine had good months, and many bad months. We began making late payments, and soon not paying at all on several accounts. She had a total of about $13,000 on cards, several of which sent letters saying they were gonna sue us and we naturally freaked out and lived like we were poor the months we had to send off a $700 payment here and a $1000 there. Well MBNA we have made arrangements with to pay $500 a month for the next 10 months - it hurts but we can swing it now - We recently moved and I have a new job and she makes more now. We make about $5000 - $6000 a month combined. I am worried about Citi Bank, and a few others that aren't settled coming along (even though we haven't heard from them in 8-9 months) and filing on us - and we just wont have it. We talked to a BK but they said we made too much to file chapter 13 (is that right?) but we could file chapter 7 (it maybe the other way around) but still have to pay everyone back. I want to pay everyone, and get our credit back to good standing, but I am afraid that contacting the remaining companies will bring them out of hiding and want payment NOW. I don't know what to do and I want to try to buy a house in the near future, and get settled in. We live in an apartment, and have 2 car notes, and can pay our bills just not much more anytime soon though. I have been getting ALOT of CC offers in the mail (and they aren't too bad) so was curious about my credit - well it is now 590, I guess due to the time since most of my screw ups (I was 18 and am now 26) Does anyone know what I should do to get started or if I should leave it alone till I can afford to pay back some of the others, or should I just file bankruptcy? Thanks in advance.
Sounds like you need to make some tough decisions. How bad do you want to own a house? With your income, you can pay those debts off in no time, assuming you're willing to get rid of all the "extras" in life, and instead focus on paying off the debt. Get rid of stuff like cell phone bills, cable bills, dining out, etc, and use the money to put toward the debt. Pay them off as fast as possible, and then begin to save the extra money for a house down payment. I bet you could do all that in 12 months if you tried. It's going to require patience. Unless there's something you haven't mentioned, you are definately not a bankruptcy candidate. You both make too much money, and you don't have enough debt to make it worth your time. It will ruin your credit for years, and you'll have to wait at least 2-3 years to get a decent mortgage after you file. Sit down and make a list of all your debts. Start paying off the ones with the highest interest rates first, and work down from there. As for the old, unpaid ones: There are plenty of messages on this board that deal with how to negotiate old debts. Do a search. You can do it...you just have to want to do it. Cut out all the extra expenses in life until the debt is paid off. Before you know it, you'll have a house of your own.
