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COMMENTS | 4 comments so far

1. 1

   Hi Jean,

   Our family is like many others who have gotten in over our heads and looking for a way to dig out. We do not want to file bankruptcy or short sale our property, nor do we want to stop paying any of our debts. But right now we are living month to month and supporting huge interest payments that we can’t get out from under.

   I have contacted several credit counseling agencies, but they said that our monthly payments and interest rates are already low and they couldn’t lower it anymore. They said they are set up to help people who have stopped paying their mortgage or credit cards — or who are willing to stop paying — and we don’t want to do either.

   Our interest rates are fair to low on all our debt, we just have more than we can support to get out from under. Right now we are just living month to month.

   We would like to refinance or get a consolidation loan, but we are underwater on our properties, and have no equity to work with, so the mortgage companies won’t even refinance the debt we have even though we have never been late and both my husband and I have credit ratings in the 780s to 790s.

   Do we have any other options other than bankruptcy or short sale?

   Thanks for any thoughts

   • Posted June 28, 2010 by najet
2. 2

   To najet:
   First: Identify the behavior that put you into debt and stop doing it. Then: Get additional part time jobs and dedicate any income to paying down debt. Cook at home. Find main dish recipes with beans as a base and have a weekly or bi-weekly bean night. Cancel cable tv and rent $1 movies instead. Do you get a big tax refund each year? If so, adjust your withholding and put the additional against debt. Try a zero spending month. Buy nothing except perishable food and gas enough only to travel to work and back. Make it a game to see how little you can spend. Carry only a specific amount of cash and no plastic with you when you go shopping. Even now that we’re “comfortable” we carry very little cash. It’s so easy to break a $20. Once you do, it’s gone in a flash. Find monthly expenses for “wants” that you can eliminate until you get back on your feet: the gym, piano lessons, etc. Good luck and I hope this helps.

   • Posted July 2, 2010 by pinch
3. 3

   Hi Jean,
   In 2006 I went through a divorce and was in financial difficulty. I sought out the help of a debt consolidation company and found myself in collections and my accounts frozen. Some accounts were paid through the debt company in settlements and others were handled by me personally.
   My problem is that I discovered that not all of the cc companies I settled with reported the settlements and after 4 years are trying to collect on the debt again for a different amount. The credit reort shows that they charged off the debts. I had the credit bureau’s investigate and everything came back as verified with a new date of 2010. In addition, the documents sent to the credit bureau’s could not be used.
   I did not get a letter from this cc company when we settled but I do show electronic payment to them in 2006.

   Please help
   I only want to do what is right without hurting my credit any further

   • Posted October 26, 2010 by Roscoe
4. 4

   Last year or so you were coaching on TODAY a woman and her husband on there financial circumstances. Because of child care she could not work outside the home. I think they had school loan debt. You recommended a particular virtual assistant website. I found it and but now I am unable to as i want to recommend it to people. It was not virtual assistant.com that you recently have mentioned. The site recommended both the consumer and those seeking to be an assistant read the other perspective on their site, very interesting. They had a certification program and they only made the intros, after that the transaction would be between consumer and assistant who was a sole proprietor.

   • Posted April 7, 2012 by Dené Davis