Help, please......

Have you thought about doing it yourself? These companies are not going to do anything "special" that you can't do yourself. The only difference is that you will be paying them a fee. And why pay them a fee when you can do the same yourself and use that money towards your debt?

Check out the forum for Payday Loans here. I have no experience with PayDay Loans but understand from reading the boards they are the worst to deal with.

As to the rest of your debt, I'm going to share with you what I've been doing...and it's been working! It's a cut and paste of a previous post of mine so forgive me it it sounds a bit off.

The best thing you can do for yourself at this point is to utilize what money you have to the BEST of its ability. This means you need a strict budget and stick with it. It???s your only lifeline at this point, and as I said earlier I speak from experience.

Figure out what money you have coming in for the month and try to come up with an exact dollar amount as possible. When you are low on funds every penny counts.

Next, you are going to pay NECESSITIES ONLY. The reason I wrote that in caps is because everyone has different ideas on what a necessity is. This caused many heated arguments in my marriage!

A necessity is something you need in order to live. Food, shelter, utilities, and transportation. Examine these necessities and see what can be trimmed from them. For example, food. (Food meaning GROCERY BILLS (eating out is not under food but under entertainment because it is a luxury). Some people say your grocery bill should be $100 per person per month???.but I find that figure insanely low. It can be done will careful planning and coupons but I???ve never ever been able to get anywhere near that figure. Utilities???see what can be cut. Cut your cable bill by getting rid of premium channels. Or get rid of cable all together. If you have a cell pone get rid of your landline. Make sure your cell phone plan fits your usage- don???t pay extra for a lot of minutes you never use. If your car payments are killer, consider selling the car.

After necessities are paid, take what???s left and distribute it among minimum payments to your credit cards and loan accounts that you???ve been paying.

Once minimum payments are met see what else you need to factor into your budget and look for missing categories.

Now that your budget is done see what figure you have left. You now have a few options with this figure.

If you have credit cards and loan accounts that you have defaulted on and have collection agencies/debt collectors chasing you on then you need to take this extra money and STOCK PILE it. Personally I wouldn???t put this into a bank because you don???t want your bank account seized. I couldn???t leave it in my house because I had no self control over cash. So I had my mother open an account in her name and I went and deposited my extra money from my budget weekly. With my name not on the account, I couldn???t withdraw it and spend it frivolously.

Now that you???ve made a budget and trimmed the extras you next goal is to bring more money it. Get a job at Mc Donalds or the local Pizzeria while you seek other employment. Head to the mall to see who is hiring. Get an early morning paper route.

Have yard sales. Sell on Ebay and Craigs List. Check Craigs List daily for items people are giving away for free and go grab them, then sell at your own yard sale. Return soda cans. Pick up every penny laying around the house and get a change jar going. Look for someone who needs a ???handy man???. Elderly people may be looking for someone to do their grocery shopping. People like to pay others to mow their lawn. Things like that.

Any money that you bring in will go into your stockpile. Let this stockpile grow; this will be what you will use to settle accounts with collection agencies.

When you receive a phone call from a collection agency, don???t answer. Instead, immediately send a DV letter to them. Make sure they have their proper papers in order. This takes a while, sometimes a few months! During that time your stock pile is growing. This is a good thing.

Once you went back ad forth with the collection agency and have all the proper documents, make an offer. I usually start very low. I take what the ending balance was when it was with the original creditor, deduct all the fees and interest that has be tacked on, then offer 25% of that balance. Low, yes but who cares. Let them counter offer. If the counter offer is too high, you can make another offer. Come up slightly. Point out that you have no assets and are trying to be reasonable. If you have to go back and forth with the collector a few times that is good because you are growing your stockpile of money???.aren???t you?

It???s a long process, but it works. It???s what I???ve been doing. Take it one day at a time???it get???s better!

Stonebroke took a lot of extra effort to give you some excellent advice! I can't add a thing! The only thing I may suggest is that you take the free consultation offered on this site and check the rankings of debt consolidation companies on the ranking link then decide for yourself what is best! Here are a couple of articles I wrote that my help you!
http://tinyurl.com/debtcall
http://tinyurl.com/pdltrap
Good luck and remember to take care of yourself first!

I apritiate all of the effort Stonebroke.

I do actually understand what you mean by necessities. My husband and I already went through that debocle. :o/

When we first got into our financial situation months ago (when my husband lost his hour) we had to sit down and figure out what was actually considered necessities.

The only 'reward' we are giving ourselves is that we do have a Netflix account. But other than that, we don't have any other memberships or services we pay for other than basic utilities, basic internet, the cheapest family cell phone plan we could find, PGE, car and rental insurance, and gas. We don't even pay for cable. I cut my husband's hair and I make my son's food so that we are not wasting our money on over-priced Gerber meals. Our food budget is $200 every two weeks (based on pay periods) and that includes food for all three of us and all household necessities. Its been made a little easier by the recent opening of our new Target. They have many of the basic food stuff we use for even cheaper prices than our local "save with us" grocery stores. I have mastered finding the decent tasting, non-name brand items also. We make all our meals and make meals that can be stretched.

So yes, I understand necessities and sticking to a budget.

Our problem is that we still didn't have enough money leftover to try stockpiling on the side. We could, but it would take MONTHS before we could try paying off one card.

We already sold everything we could afford to live without (which was how, along with a decent tax refund, we paid off our car a fews months early so that we had one less credit account).

So stockpiling funds really isn't an option.

Since I last wrote the message, I had contacted a few of my creditors to advise them of our situation and that I was trying to work things out. Surprisingly, three of them were VERY nice, they not only understood what I was trying to get across but they even stopped calling me while we work this situation out.

One of them is a bank issued credit card. They advised me to seek out a reputable non-for profit CCCS and gave a company they have recently started directing clients to for financial help.

I just spent over an hour on the phone today with one of their counselors and we think we have it worked out. They helped me work out a new budget and we are going to consolidate most of the accounts into one manageable payment. I understand that it would be cheaper in the long run if we did this on our own but the problem is that there is just not enough funds. It would take too long to save up the money and we seriously risk being taken to court in the meantime.

The new budget has us paying the payment to all accounts (except one), all of our bills and necessities and still have around $100 a month. Which is crazy!

The only downside is that one of the bills cannot be included because they already knew up front that this creditor would not work with them. But my couselor knew aprox. how much my monthly payment with them should be, and if we can work out a way to get it out of collections and back into a regular payment, she budgeted the monthly payment in and it still left us with a little cash left over every month.

So I do wish there was a way we could do this ourselves, but considering the circumstances, it is a. not wise for us to allow these accounts to go any further into collections and b. because of our financial situation, they are barely charging us to be on the plan.

Thank you so much though for your spectacular advice. If we had not allowed the accounts to go into collections like we did (per the advice of the previous company), I might have been possible but not now in the situation we are in.

good luck with everything! i climbed out of debt myself, it can be done but you have to choose which path is best for you and your family :)
good luck.

There is a lot of good advice here:
How to settle your debts yourself and simplify your life. Going through a company is not going to effect whether you get sued or not. You may also wish to look into a possible Chapter 13.

The best of luck to you.

i agree about the chapter 13, i was thinking of that myself when i read the post..

I just thought I would let you all know, we ended up doing things ourself. As nice as the second company was, they were still charging us quite a hefty fee.

As of right now, one of our cards is set to be paid off my October. Two are in financial hardship programs that are allowing us to put small amounts while working on others, and two others we are just chunking away at as much as possible. There is still the possibility of something happening in the meantime, but so far, it seems to be working.

Excellent! Thanks for updating us. Should you ever get stuck, feel free to ask.

The best book ever for people working on building up savings and cleaning up their credit is Elizabeth Warren's "All Your Worth." Get a cheap copy on Ebay and follow the 'rules' and you will be in much better shape in a few months.

congrats, gem! :)

I have been reading forums about debt management for months now. I was able to meet all my payments and more for the past months, but recently, my hours have been cut. I am doing two jobs, six days a week (72 hours) to meet bills. Unfortunately, with the new credit law, it seems that my interest rate have risen, and chase has increased the min payment of a balance transfer card which my sister let me use. I am considering entering a hardship program with my cards, but my financial situation is temporary until my husband joins us from abroad ( he is currently unable to help since he earns just enough to pay bills and rent). When he joins us, his earnings would definitely help pay our debts ( 85K) in 3 yrs in my estimation, including savings. Only thing is, when he is here, we need to buy a car and I don't know if any car company would give us a loan if they pull my credit report affected by me joining the hardship programs. I made a budget and I need 1000 more mothly, if I don't join hardship programs. Can someone advice me pls.