STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Well, after the auto-body charge goes through , I'll have a total of $800 in CC debt.  I plan to pay $200 in August towards it and the $100/month after.  I'm thinking with X-Mas bonus at the end of the year, plus a possible pay raise relatively soon, I might be able to pay more per month than that.  Ideally I'd like to have it all gone by the end of the year.

I do also have about $7200 left on my car loan too, but that's auto-withdrawn every month at $263/month.  I don't consider this loan a burden really, in fact I never include it when I say I'm "so-and-so much in debt".

I have $50 taken out of each paycheck automatically to be put toward my card (I only have one with a balance). I found that by doing it out of each paycheck its a lot easier and if I take it out right away I'm not tempted to spend it. It also makes my avaerge balance go down faster so I pay less interest by paying twice a month.

Just make sure you don't use the card whil you're trying to pay it off. I made that mistake and then realized its stupid to pay 50 bucks on it and then turn around and charge another 50...

Well, I kept seeing ALL these commercials about debt consolidation, and I was tired of paying ALL THOSE bills each and every month, now I just pay them, and they pay my creditors. Of course, it's kind of like bankruptcy, but a lil' different, b/c my cred. report says I have 35+ accounts in good standing, so.... LOL I gathered all my cc bills, gave them the balances, and they also asked me about my other expenditures (car note, rent, cell phone), etc. to see exactly how much I would be saving, faxed them a blank copy of a check so they could have my acct. #, and they debit my acct. on the 5th of each month, or I can have it changed, my choice, but the 5th is good for me! LOL Some of my creditors were an ASS, and I took them off the program, but I'll work that out w/them later on......LOL I'm really glad I did join, b/c I KNOW I would've STILL  been paying on MOST of them way after 52 mos., no matter how much I sent them, those APRs are/were sky high. Hope this is helpful, if not, let me know. I wish I wasn't that much in debt also, but alas, I was. THREE of my cc's I can pay off this year, on my own, but I still would have to go thru my program, and they would do it for me, so I'm REALLY happy about that!!!

shopchicago33 wrote:

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TheLovelyLady71 wrote: I joined a debt consolidation program back in July '02, owed $23,000+ in cred. card debt, I'm not ashamed to admit it, and now my balance on ALL my cc's is down to LOWER $8000.00!! I'm so happy about it too, I'll be done in Nov. 06 or somewhere in that are, I'm with this company for 52 mos, so I guess that's about right. That'll be EXTRA MONEY coming in! Trust me, I've learned my lesson, I was just young & foolish, and charging my BUTT OFF, if you know what I mean. I now have ONE cred. card, and it's only $700.00, but I won't even let myself get crazy w/that one; I'll either use my debit check card, or pay cash. LOL  I think it's OK to have ONE major credit card, for emergenices, but I think I had maybe 15 or 20 for ANY and EVERYTHING, hence my HIGH cc debt. I may do a debt consol. loan w/my cred. union, but I'd have to see what my current intrest rate is w/this company I'm already with, and compare. I'd hate to go to my bank and be stuck paying them back for longer than what I already am.....LOL-- Edited by TheLovelyLady71 at 16:51, 2005-07-27 Wow that's great that you've paid so much off!  Can I ask how you went about joining a credit card debt consolidation program?  I'm not nearly that bad in debt - and I can definitely pay mine off in the next 1-2 years, but I just want to get rid of it as fast as possible.

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Well up until a few weeks ago I didn't have any debt luckily but now I have 2 furniture store cards that I will be paying off within the next 6 months hopefully.  They amount to $1100 which isn't bad and $500 is a graduation present (matress) that they are paying but is in my name for the credit.  My plan is to pay the other 600 off in monthly installments of 70-100 a month just depending on my bills and stuff.  I hate having bills so even though I have 12 months to pay it I want to get it done quickly so I can sleep at night.  Plus I'll probably be getting a new car (used of course) in Dec/Jan so I'll just be replacing one debt with another really.

The key is budgeting it in and making sure you pay your bills first, yourself second, and then spend the rest if you want.

Hmmm.....I'm not sure how the debt program has (or even it has) affected my cred. score. I meant to pull out my cred. report last night to see what it says next to my cc's that are on the program. I don't think it hurts my cred. score, NOT AS MUCH as if I had filed bankruptcy, I was NOT going that route. LOL I may have to look into that in the NEAR future, but I really don't think any real harm has been done. It's really up to you, and how you want to get out of debt.

jacL wrote:

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This is so encouraging!  I currently owe more than you did, but a lot of it is from student loans (though I do have more CC debt than I should).  I always wondered about debt consolidation.  What does it do to your credit score? 

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kind of like lovelylady did, i created an excel spreadsheet with all of my outgoing expenses and how much i make monthly.  then i can tally up how much extra of my pay i want to throw on a debt. 

unfortunately, i dont think i will ever be "debt" free.  as time has gone on in my life i realize there is always something to be paying for.  even if it is just a house mortgage.  you will always have cars or a house to pay for... so i don't count those in my "debt"... so right now i only have $15K in student loans to pay (which actually don't count against you either in the grand scheme of things)... i pay about 1K per month towards my student loans currently and should have them paid off by next year.

Hmmmm....I will DEF. check my credit report after I'm done w/my debt program. I don't even know what my cred. score is, and well, I pretty much have everything I want, but I still want a half-way descent cred. score, so thanks for the FYI. I think I'm COOL w/the company I'm w/now, all my monies are going to the creditors, so I feel pretty good about them, but it IS so many of them out there that you just never know.... Funny thing is, I applied for TWO credit cards last month, and GOT APPROVED w/pretty high cred. limits, but I was just seeing if I could get them, and I did, but I won't be using them.....LOL

LMonet wrote:

 

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I would definitely check your credit report after going through a debt consolidation program - my parents did one and were told that it would improve their credit score.  However, it did exactly the opposite and their credit was pretty shot because of it.  Not as bad as a bankruptcy would have looked, but pretty darn close.  That's something I would make sure of before I got involved with a debt consolidation company - and make sure they're reputable!

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I'm trying to pay off my credit card balance too, and I've been so frustrated with it.  My balance was about $1,200 and at first I was putting as much as I could (about $700) into my credit card, only to run out of money later in the month and start putting things back on the credit card.  Then I got a little carried away during Christmas, then had to buy plane tickets, etc. and then came to the realization that although I was putting about $500 a month towards my credit cards, I wasn't getting any closer to paying them off.  So, I've scaled back my payments a big and its working pretty well.  We just got the house painted though, so that was a big chunk of change that went on the card.  I'm planning on doing a big payment in August and another big payment in October and then smaller payments in Sept., Nov., and Dec. for the holidays and my DH's b-day. 

I've created an Excel spreadsheet to help me plan this and I should have my CC paid off around Jan., which is exciting.  Also, I only have one credit card and see no need to have any more than that.  All of the company credit cards that you can get are a joke--if you get a 10% "savings" on your purchases and don't pay off your entire balance that month, you're going to get charged about an 18% interest rate, so you're going to pay more in actuality.  Not a bargain. 

ETA:  Also, I've recently made a new policy:  I leave my credit card at home.  For my day to day life I don't *need* it and I only end up putting things on it that I shouldn't.  I'm taking it on a trip with me next week, in case of an emergency, but until it's paid off, it's staying at HOME.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...paying off debt. It's not fun when you're paying for your college mistakes while in an entry level position that pays a good 30% less than most entry level positions out of college. If I wasn't in the right area of the industry, I would never put up with it.

This probably isn't a plan, per se, but I'm paying off my debt with every spare cent that doesn't go towards living expenses, rent, and bills. I have budgeted a few special events so I don't feel like my life is boring as all heck, but I'm defintely not shopping all the time, having a Starbucks fix on a regular basis, or eating out the way I used to. I only have one credit card left with a few thousand on it. I've calculated that I will be debt free starting next March if I can keep the payments up. And then I'm paying off my bill every month in full. Hopefully my one mistake won't screw things up too much.