I wish you the best and look forward to your updates... with every step you take you will be one step closer to freedom... enjoy those steps!!!!

I got one of my free credit reports back, and the other ones I have to wait another year for. Unless I do one in writing because I did get turned down by a car dealership for credit.
So now to look over it and start on square one on paying down my debts.
I wonder if I should start with smallest bills to highest, or highest to smallest.
Or double pay, on smallest and highest until I get to the middle one.
snowball, or avalanche, or hmmm. I could start on paying the ones with the highest interest and go down to the smallest,
I haven't decided yet which way is best for me yet.
I wonder, wonder, wonder

With my debt, I paid off any loan or bill that could right away... so that meant the smaller ones first. I didn't care about interest or anything else.

My thought was if I paid the smaller bills first, it freed up more money to put towards the other bills... and by paying the little ones off first it gave me one less thing to worry about...

that would make a lot of sense, to me that would feel like a reward if I seen one off my list of bills, and wouldn't have to look at it again :)

if any of these are old past due bills that you haven't paid on in a while then you can probably negotiate on the balance with them.

for all your current bills do what messenger said, pay off all the small ones first, the trick is to then take the money that was going to the small ones and now use that on the bigger ones. stay disciplined and never give into the minimums, thats what keeps you stuck in debt.

in the industry its called the credit treadmill! so if right now you are putting out $300 to cover your bills, then don't decrease what you are putting out just because you pay some of the small ones off. the fixed payment is what will greatly speed things up for you.

Before negotiating your past due balances, be sure the check the statute of limitations for your state. After a specified period of time, creditors do not have the legal ability to sue for collections, although you are still ethically obliged to pay the debt. If the statute of limitations has expired, you can't be sued for payment. If you choose to take advantage of the statutes, please be aware that the negative report with remain on your credit report for 7-10 yrs.


For your states statutes:

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/cre... "

good point Scarlett forgot to mention that, as the statutes are different in each state you should research that. But yes it dosen't help that it will still show on your credit, but at least they can't keep coming after you for it legally.