Financial Challenges Support Group
This community is for people who are struggling to meet financial obligations of any kind. Financial challenges include everything from the day-to-day challenges of making ends meet to managing credit card debt to bankruptcy. Get support from others who are going through similar obstacles on the road back to financial stability.
I have paid $600 to the attorney and need another $355 to push the button for him to file the bankruptcy....
I talked to my PRG woman of the two from DA and her suggestion is within the BDA guidelines for taking an unsecured loan with rigid payment plan that is strictly adhered to.....so I will write a Promissory Note to my Mom/sister who controls the money and plan is to pay $20 or more per month which equals 17.75 months to pay off this debt....
this will relieve me tremendously of stress not making any kind of headway on paying off this lawyer....
-
-
This is why I don't go to family functions. I felt very unsupported when I lost my husband in 2020. And my grandmother's 9 living children and hosts of grandchildren turned against me when I was managing my grandma's end of life care as her Power of Attorney. I was the administrator of the grandfather and grandmother's estates (an extremely thankless job that took over two years of my life!) When...
This is the second time for bankruptcy... what is going to change this time that it doesn't happen again?
Old Chinese Proverb - "You teach a child to walk, it doesn't mean you buy them shoes for the rest of their lives."
1.. My ex and I went through a credit counseling agency and with their help paid off $25K of credit card debt in 1998
2. Again in 2008, we used my exes settlement of $20K to pay off more credit card debt
3. In 2012, I used $5K given to pay off credit card debt
4. In 2013, I cashed in my $22K pension to pay off credit card debt
5. In 2014, I cashed in my $21K retirement account to pay off credit card debt
6. In 2017, I filed BK and discharged $90K of debt
7. In 2018, I borrowed $6K from my 401K to pay off my credit card debt
Its 2019 and guess what? Yup, another $8K. But my husband and I are getting divorced & I'm going to be a 48 year old single mom of a 4 year old. There is no money. Yes, I could consolidate them but I won't. I am going the Dave Ramsey way. I am making myself suffer with no money. No extras nothing for myself. If I don't feel the pain and just look another quick fix this cycle will never stop.
I lost a house, slept on a floor of a furniture-less apartment for three months, and everyday hoping I wouldn't end up homeless.
In 2010, I was roughly $65,000 in the hole. That debt was -
- $45,000 mortgage
- $9,000 credit cards
- $11,000 medical bills
First thing I did was write a letter to the mortgage company, saying I was walking away from my home. That I was relinquishing ownership without holding any claim to the property and being responsible for any leftover debt after the sale of the home. The home sold for $36,000 - so I owed $9,000 on it. With this one action my debt went from $65,000 to $29,000.
Then the hard part started. My credit was shot so I didn't care about keeping up with all the payments and I also realized that being broke was no way to live, so I started saving money. Yes, I was in debt but I was going to start saving money.
First it was very small amounts, which served two purposes. I rounded up my checks and rounded down my deposits. So if I used my debit card or wrote a check for $10.01, on my ledger I recorded it as $11. If I had a deposit of $100.87, I recorded it as $100. It was a very small way to save but it was a start. AND it helped me stop a nasty habit of bouncing checks.
I started paying my debts off one at a time. Small ones first. Instead of paying ten collectors $10-$15 each, I started paying just one collector $100-$150 a month. The small bills began to disappear and that thrill gave me the courage to pay more on the larger bills AND to start saving more.
It can be done. Debt can be repaid and along the way saving money and realizing that we own money... money doesn't own us.
There is an advert of the TV in England about saving and it is very true. "Payday is Saveday." The best way to save is to make it your first bill every payday. When I was deep in debt, it was pennies in my checking account. When it reached $100 in a little over four months, I started a "real" savings account and every payday made a commitment to save at least 5% of my paycheck.
It took three years of hard work and never giving in to impulses to get out of debt. And it is now closing in on seven years of being debt free.
Good Luck Dylan, I'll be cheering for you!!!