OMG credit card debt, what would you do?

[DisneyBamaFan]

We just have one card, so we won't have any knocking them out one at a time.. ...

Sorry - missed that. If it is only on one card at 8%, don't sweat it. Pay as much as you can each month. 8% is not bad for unsecured debt. I would not trade that for secured debt (as others have already noted), especially at 8%.

Good Luck!

BTW, does HHS stand for Hartselle High School?

 

[dd50]

Do not, do not ever put unsecured debt onto secured debt. Cut back on every thing that you can cut back on and just keep paying it down. Since you only have one card you may want to look for another with free BT with zero interest. They are out there but do stay away from Chase and BoA as they have been cutting limits as you pay down so you always look like you have used 100% of your limit.

 

[PGHDisneyfan]

HHSTiger- Thats a rough road to hoe but I am in about the same jam. We NEVER carried a balance on a CC- EVER! My wife and I bought a foreclosure and had to dump $30k into it to make it road worthy. All the sudden we cant pay it off and have a balance each month. I lost my job and have been out of work for a year, my wife was sick and in the hospital so now we have those extra bills to pay. It takes sacrifices- lots of them big and small. We treat ourselfs to 1 dinner out a week, cut all the bills back to a minimum, started selling off old stuff on craigslist and ebay. Lastly we didnt book a Disney trip this year :scared1. In the past trips never costed us more than $1000 since I could cash in Hilton Honor points to stay at the Double Tree and still had enough for park passes. Now that Im out of work its a no no. But like everyone said never tie an unsecured load like a CC to your house.

Good luck!

 

[HHSTigerFan]

Do not, do not ever put unsecured debt onto secured debt. Cut back on every thing that you can cut back on and just keep paying it down. Since you only have one card you may want to look for another with free BT with zero interest. They are out there but do stay away from Chase and BoA as they have been cutting limits as you pay down so you always look like you have used 100% of your limit.

We have tried to transfer the balance, best offer was 7.9%, which is what we have now..

 

[HHSTigerFan]

HHSTiger- Thats a rough road to hoe but I am in about the same jam. We NEVER carried a balance on a CC- EVER! My wife and I bought a foreclosure and had to dump $30k into it to make it road worthy. All the sudden we cant pay it off and have a balance each month. I lost my job and have been out of work for a year, my wife was sick and in the hospital so now we have those extra bills to pay. It takes sacrifices- lots of them big and small. We treat ourselfs to 1 dinner out a week, cut all the bills back to a minimum, started selling off old stuff on craigslist and ebay. Lastly we didnt book a Disney trip this year :scared1. In the past trips never costed us more than $1000 since I could cash in Hilton Honor points to stay at the Double Tree and still had enough for park passes. Now that Im out of work its a no no. But like everyone said never tie an unsecured load like a CC to your house.

Good luck!

We have cut back some stuff, our goal since Jan 1 was to go out to eat less than 10 times before our vacation in June, so far we have only gone out once, and that was with a gift card from Christmas, so we aren't even counting that one...

Craigs List has been a flop, listed a few things and havent sold anything.. Been doing ChaCha a little at night, hoping to make enough to cover our fun money at Disney, have a ways to go there, but that is slow sledding..

Signed up with a few temp accounting places over the last week or so, maybe that will turn up something until I can find a job..

 

[englishteacha]

We will never tie our home into debt or for a business. I had a friend who borrowed against their home for a business and the business failed and they lost their home. We had a family member who had a paid for home refinance to "pay off" a lot of debt. Now they owe more on the house than it's worth and probably will be paying on it for eternity.

It's just one card. Pay all your regular bills (heat, lights, etc.), cut out additional expenses and pay as much towards that balance as you can. My husband and I paid off about $14,000 in debt (student loans and a small credit card balance) in a year on $30K. You can pay down your debt with your current income easily. Just do it!

 

[Swimalie]

Normally we wouldn't go, but the trip is mostly paid for, has been since before I got sick, about all we need is spending cash, as the room, tickets and DDP are all paid for.. And thats all assuming I haven't found a FT job yet, if I do get a job, will have to see if I can get the time off..

Okay. As long as you are good about the credit card debit it sounds like Disney will be a good trip. How about listening to Clark Howard? He's great.

 

[bumbershoot]

And no offense, but I would throw up if I had to listen to Dave Ramsey..

And honestly, we aren't that concerned about it because our mortgage payment is so low..

And I think we are going to Disney in June, had a trip planned prior to getting sick, had the resort paid for(DVC rental, owner was AWESOME by pushing our dates back, but needs to be used by August) ,park tickets bought and $1000 in Disney GC's for DDP... kids have had a tough 18 months, so what the heck..

Who said you had to *listen* to him? I don't know what his voice sounds like, I've only seen his picture on the book from the library and his website. I get most of my info from normal humans who post on llnoe.com. It's been a great help.

If you're not concerned about it...why mention it?

As for Disney...if it's prepaid, no refunds, that's probably something you don't want to miss. But the longer we go into this, and we have a 20% car loan (vomit at that interest), the more we see things as "if we spend x on THAT, we are paying 20% interest on it, since that money could have gone to the car."

Sometimes things do get spent. We're planning a visit to WDW in December (the car should be paid off in July, and then we're starting to attack DVC) because we have the DVC points (bought into that just before the financial scare that brought us to changing things) and don't want to rent them out, and we can visit family out there anyway, but don't think we haven't had the "this is silly, we're saving for that and paying this off at the same time, once the trip comes around we'll be paying 10% interest on this trip, basically, since it could have gone to DVC" conversation!

So sometimes we spend, but we definitely get that out into the open!


If you have CDs you don't want, I just used abundatrade and secondspin. Secondspin accepted all the CDs I sent to them and is sending me a check in the amount estimated on their site before I sent them in, and they send a flat fee for the cost of shipping the CDs (doesn't seem they include the packaging weight though). Still waiting to see how close abundatrade comes!

 

[FinTech]

You would be trading a secured asset to be pledged against your unsecured debt. Why would anyone jeopardize a valuable asset such as your home by taking a short-term unsecured debt and rolling it into a long-term debt even if the interest rate is preferable?
There is another alternative that you should research. Just google "credit card debt resolution" or "zero credit card debt".
Easy settlement for 10 to 15 cents on the dollar in the next 15 months and clean credit at the end.

 

[Heidijs]

I wouldn't do that but I think I'd look at refinancing maybe...15 year rates are around 4.4% right now!

I'd try to find a 0% intro rate...we had about $10K on like 3 different cards and we consolidated on one that had 12 months 0% on transfers...helped a LOT to get it down...

 

[deerhart]

if you can come up with a lump sum (especially if the card is banked by one of the companies that got a bail out) then you may be able to settle the debt for under or about $0.50 on the dollar.

 

[kyhardy]

I agree that you should try to refinance your home and use the savings to pay down CC debt faster. We did it and it is really making a difference for us.

 

[minnie1928]

if you can come up with a lump sum (especially if the card is banked by one of the companies that got a bail out) then you may be able to settle the debt for under or about $0.50 on the dollar.

Settlement will make a ding on the credit report and the difference between the amount owed and the amount paid will be considered taxable in 2010.

 

[HHSTigerFan]

If you have CDs you don't want, I just used abundatrade and secondspin. Secondspin accepted all the CDs I sent to them and is sending me a check in the amount estimated on their site before I sent them in, and they send a flat fee for the cost of shipping the CDs (doesn't seem they include the packaging weight though). Still waiting to see how close abundatrade comes!

Has anyone else used either one of these??? I have a ton of DVD's that we never watch, at least 100 I could sell and would never miss..

 

[DawnM]

We did not have cc debt, but we did just refi to a 15 year loan and got a 4.5% rate!

If you can move that 6% to a 4.5% and get a 15 year and add in your cc debt to your loan, you may break even way before a 12 month period.

We did the math, and even with the closing costs, we will break even just before 10 months' time AND have way more paid off in principal.

Your income is about the same as ours and yet our mortgage is much higher. I wish it weren't so and we do hope to downsize at some point (if the mortgage economy doesn't totally tank!)

I would at least look into that option.

Dawn

I wouldn't do that but I think I'd look at refinancing maybe...15 year rates are around 4.4% right now!

I'd try to find a 0% intro rate...we had about $10K on like 3 different cards and we consolidated on one that had 12 months 0% on transfers...helped a LOT to get it down...

 

[LoraJ]

I would just tighten up your budget so that you can pay $1000 - $1500 to the credit card and pay it off as soon as possible. If you get a tax refund, it all goes to the card. Stop using the card. Once it's paid off you will have all of that money a month to dump into savings.

I listen to Dave Ramsey podcasts and use his site but definitely bang my head against the wall with some of the things he says. That said, his plan of getting people out of debt does work. I listen to the podcast and read his boards to keep myself motivated to stay out of debt.

 

[DawnM]

BTW: I can't *listen* to DR speak either. He annoys me to no end, BUT, I can read his books.

We don't follow DR specifically, we do another program through our church, but I do follow the same guidelines as DR and we currently only owe on our house.

Dawn

We just have one card, so we won't have any knocking them out one at a time..

And no offense, but I would throw up if I had to listen to Dave Ramsey..

Min payment on the card is $520, finance charges of about $180, right now we have budgeted to pay $750... And honestly, we aren't that concerned about it because our mortgage payment is so low..

And I think we are going to Disney in June, had a trip planned prior to getting sick, had the resort paid for(DVC rental, owner was AWESOME by pushing our dates back, but needs to be used by August) ,park tickets bought and $1000 in Disney GC's for DDP... kids have had a tough 18 months, so what the heck..

 

[Jen_in_NH]

Has anyone else used either one of these??? I have a ton of DVD's that we never watch, at least 100 I could sell and would never miss..

I've used secondspin for both CDs and DVDs. Their prices tend to vary on how new, popular, or rare the title is. An older CD that isn't hugely popular now only got $0.50 But when I did a lot of those, it added up quickly.

They paid me by paypal, and it was paid within 2 weeks.