Jen’s Journey

MAXED OUT - Movie/Documentary

So has anyone seen this? I finally got to watch it yesterday and it is somewhat distrubing. Two young college children killed themselves over credit card debt. And an older lady killed herself as well when she found out her husband was going to pull their credit reports, she didn’t want him to discover her 47K in CC debt. These people saw no way out, and if you watch the show and see the collection agents on the show I’m sure you’ll figure out why, the way these collection agents see this as a “game” and use info so then they have the “power” and calling friends/relatives etc, this is just obscene. I’m sure these 3 people were dealing with some of these types of people and they felt they had no other choice but to commit suicide. Now I’m sure not all agents are like the ones on the show, but just from reading personal experiences on lots of forums from different people a lot of these CA’s are horrible! My mission with this blog, and my journey is more than ever this - THERE IS HOPE, AND THERE IS A WAY OUT OF IT! And here is my threat to the bad collection agents out there, WATCH OUT! BECAUSE WE ARE NOW WATCHING YOU! I will be documenting every law you break and when you do, I will be sueing YOU. And as more and more people become informed and know their rights and what your not allowed to do they will be after you as well. So wise up already! You can still accomplish your job without threats of jail, using fear, embrassement, harrasement and illegal pratices.

And to anyone reading this blog - if you feel there is no way out, you post a comment and I will respond! There are forums and phone #’s and people out there that can and will help you. Debt is only debt, you can get into it and out of it, but you only have one life and you can’t get it back.

There is always hope!

Ok - now on to my other Debt stuff:

Well it’s the new year and what better way to start of the new year by settling one of my accounts! Well already had the settlement agreement but I just scheduled my final payment $3800 to be paid on Jan 3rd! So once this clears (and it will I have the funds there already) I should receive my letter that it’s settled about 10 days after that. Feels good to have two cards down, now just two left! yeah!

So thought everyone might find this interesting - my credit score was originally about 660 or so before all this happened, of course I couldn’t get a loan to refi my house or anything because of our Debt to income ratio and because we have other rental properties, etc. So that also started us down this path, anyway, we haven’t been making any payments toward our primary house in about 5 months, we are still waiting to hear back from the lender, I just spoke with them on Friday and they said they will have an answer for us in about 4-5 weeks, crazy but I think they are actually trying to re-modified our loan which is a good thing, anyway, back to my credit score - 660 a few months ago, I stopped paying 4 credit cards and we have the 2 house payments (1st and 2nd) that are showing up 120 days late. Last week my credit score was 479, then just yesterday my score jumped 59 points!! My score is now 538! Of course not good, but it jumped that much just because the previous card I settled now shows up on our report as “settled” “Paid”. Wow, that many points for just the one card! and our house payments other CC’s are still showing late! But I guess it means yes you can increase and improve/repair your credit score. It will be interesting to watch our score and debt to income change as we go through this process. Also - my husbands credit did the same thing, as these cards are in both our names, his went up 59 points as well. Not that I need a credit score now, but seeing it increase is alittle exciting!

Well it’s almost here, so thought I would write my goals and thoughts down and see next year how close I get. First off this year has been somewhat stressful, and great at the same time! Stressful because of all the debt and still trying to get a final answer on our house, but we made hugh progress because of my unexpected bonus and hope to continue making progress in the new year. A recap -

My debt started at about $140,000 - not including any of the houses we own. To date this is what has happend:

14K - 401K loan - they told me I defaulted on this, (read my other post, basically I think they just screwed me but I’ll deal with it and move on) I will have to take the hit on my taxes this year so - $14,000 - gone

25K car - got this down to $23275 - and will keep making my payments

4K - other CC’s - paid these off

1K - reserve line - paid off

12K - Business CC - down to $11750 - will keep making payments

72K in CC - debt settlement - settled one for $6376 - settled 2nd one for $4100 - total $10476 - which leaves two cards -balance for both of these is about $49K - but I think I will need 20K to settle.

So using what I truely “owe” at this stage and the total of CC in debt settlement I know owe: $96025 and reduction of 31% of our debt - now using what I think I can settle the last 2 CC’s for about $20K - total debt would be about $67025 a reduction of 52%. Pretty good, but still not good enough, our house is still killing us so I need to get this back on track and then put every cent into this debt so we can try and work on our HELOC. I want to get our bills down to the point of just my income, not using any other sources. This would be a hugh relief.

So my goals for 2008:

Pay off Business equipment loan - currently at $8741 - I made both Jan/Feb payments to just stay alittle ahead

Pay off Business CC - $11,755

Pay off 2 cards in DS - $20,000 estimate - might need less maybe more

Make regular payments to Car (0% interest) year end balance would be $17995

Also- if we get to keep our house (working with the 1st lender now) try and pay at least 5K towards the 2nd loan - this also involves bringing it current and then paying down 5K on principal.Pay all the medical bills from my hubby’s surgery - Estimated 5K

Put $300 away per month in other investments. Total for they year - $3600

Total I need - $59,376

Well considering I only “take home” for the year about $60000 (after taxes, 401K etc) seems I have an uphill battle, but I’m thinking of getting another less phyically demanding job, also looking to my hubby to get a part time job, and my take home doesn’t include any of the bonus type things and embroidery $ we get through out the year. So all those funds can go straight to this plan. Lofty goals I know and if I don’t make it I’m not going to beat myself up about it, it did take time to get all this debt so it will take time to get out of it. But at least I finally made progress! Our debt is finally going DOWN! after years and years, having a plan, reading the Women in Red boards to keep me accountable and the DebtCC forum for all kinds of great information and watching what we are spending, we are finally seeing some progress. But I’m not perfect and with the new year also brings new temptations, so need to keep that all in check and move in the right direction.

So happy new year everyone! 2008 is going to be great!

Oh yea - one last personal goal - start working out again, I did so well until the end of Oct, lost 10 LBS now I need to get back on track and lose the last 15 I’ve wanted to for some time. Financial and personal well being, that’s a great 2008 goal!