My sig explained (finally..and it's a fricken' novel) - Page 19

Rafster · 06-10-2006, 04:11 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by wizardPC

Debt as of 6/4/06: $13,732.48

That is amazing, man!

Congrats and keep it up!

Peace,

Rafster

IDdude · 06-11-2006, 08:25 PM

Wow I just got done reading this whole thread and all I can say it holy **** dude, great job and keep it up!!!! I feel your pain, though I'm only at about 2K but I'm 19 and go to school full time. It was freaking ridiculous how fast the debt added up for me, $50 here $150 there, and then the realization that I was down $2K without the cash to back it up. So my goal for this summer is to find a second and third job, and seriously work 60-70hr weeks if I can pull it off. I'm in my second year of college at a really great University, and I plan on going to Pratt for Industrial design to get my Masters once I graduate. Industrial design requires a lot of upfront cost, software, hardware, tablet, etc. so this whole being in debt thing has really retarded the whole process. I've been kind of motivated to get rid of it, but after reading this thread, Holy Hell am I willing to bust my ***. Hopefully in a couple of months I'll report back that I'm debt free and on the road to saving and spending responsibly.

wizardPC · 06-30-2006, 02:54 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by wizardPC

Debt as of 6/4/06: $13,732.48

Debt as of 6/30/2006: $12,361.86

Sidewalksalvage · 06-30-2006, 03:36 PM

!!!!!!!
Keep that number dropping!

Yevmeister · 07-08-2006, 12:50 PM

keep up the good work, i bought a new car last year, and got $4000.00 to go myself.

Yev

setite · 07-09-2006, 02:52 PM

Thanks for this unrelated article. I am not being sarcastic. I work as a credit card collector

for HSBC and I see people in your predicament and worse every single day, day in and day out. The thing I like most about your story is that you don't seem to be using a "debt consolidation company" or "debt management" or "credit counseling" service. Think what you will because I am one of the people that calls you and tells you to pay up, but such programs as I just mentioned are scams. The problem is that they are all businesses, non-profit or not. They give bad advice from the get go. They tell you to refer all collection calls to them, knowing that we can't call them legally without them first submitting a proof of Power of Attorney to us. Worst yet they tell you to stop paying your creditors immediately, knowing good and damn well they are going to keep your first payment to them, and not start paying us for about 45 days after you talk to them. A debt management program (here on out referred to as DMP) is bad for two reasons. Most times people are already unable to keep up and go to a DMP when they are over their credit limit and/or past due. Then when you go to a DMP you stop paying your creditor and your past due turns into 30+ days and not only does your credit show that your can't handle your debt by listing your with a DMP, but it shows that you waited too long which I'll explain. If you are 30+ days in the whole when you start with a DMP. You will most likely remain this way, unless you make a side payment, till the last month or two of your loan, unless your DMP actually pays a little over the agreed upon amount. This TOTALS your credit being that you aren't paying your debts as originally agreed and your running behind for several months. Worse yet is that the one rule of a DMP/Creditor relationship is that payments are made on time. Customers on DMP's are usually so grateful that they allow their payments to be automatically debited from their checking account each month, yet I am still calling 20+ new people daily that are the subject of defaulting from the program back to their high APR and 70+$ in late/overlimit fees and not knowing for several months. They say "Well CCCS is still making payments to you" or "Why is CCCS still taking my money". CCCS doesn't care about you. If they did they would inform you that they made a blunder by getting the payment to us 10 days later than usual even though you did the right thing paying them on time. The difference between CCCS and working with your creditor directly is that CCCS will take your money no matter what, and your creditor will only put you on a program if you really need it. Worst example I have is of a customer I spoke to, who was with a DMP. He had one credit card only, a Union Plus MC if I recall correctly. His APR was like 12% because he was a good customer. He had a very large balance around the 10,000 dollar mark I think. He was with a DMP and was paying them 250$ a month. Because they made a payment to us late he had defaulted back to his 12% APR and minimum payment of 200$ a month. Yes, he was paying them 50$ to pay us 200$ that he clearly could pay on his own. This particular situation is so odd I don't know if I should laugh or cry, but that DMP shouldn't be taking his money anymore... but they are. Ok enough of this subject, I wanna wrap this up.

The second bad thing about a DMP is that you don't need them. At all. Example of a DMP vs H/S(hard ship) program. A DMP can send a proposal to your creditor and lower your minimum payment and your apr. Say you owe 5000$. Your minimum payment would come out to 100$(2%) and your APR would be like 9%. This is not bad. But with a H/S, a program you can enroll with directly with your creditors, is better. A long term program gives your a minimum payment on 5k of 85$ a month with an interest rate of 0%. The difference between the two is that you must prove to the creditor that you need the program. The one way I know of this being accomplished is through a Debt to Income Worksheet listing all of your household income, and all of your household expenses. Essentially this worksheet shows if you really can't afford your credit card payments or if you can, and are just a ****ty budgeter, which I find most people are. WizardPC illustrated this in his mention of his spending habits being altered for his goal. When I call a customer who has a small credit card with a 15$ minimum payment, and they tell me they cant pay it, and I find out that they are paying 140$ a month for cable/satellite tv I want to shake them, hard. Americans are in debt because we live beyond our means, we spend 10's of thousands in credit because, as WizardPC said, he could afford the minimum payments. The reason I have customers who owe as much now as they charged 10 years ago is because of our country's misconception about the uses of credit and the minimum payment. A minimum payment should be thought of as how much you pay when you had an unexpected expense that month, it is the bare minimum a creditor will allow you to pay that month, but NOT the amount you SHOULD pay. You should pay double that. I personally don't think you should ever have revolving debt if you don't have to. You shouldn't be paying a card off in years instead of months. I am by no means smarter than you people, I am just lucky that this early in my life(I'm 20) I got a job that's training will help me for the rest of my life. I just woke up so if this doesn't flow right, I apologize.

Unknown Entity · 07-18-2006, 11:53 PM

Current Debt:

House = $295,000
School loan= $52,000 - My wages are getting garnished for this in about 3 weeks.
Car= $11,000

Grand total= $358,000...

Sidewalksalvage · 07-21-2006, 11:04 PM

Wow thats rough...

wizardPC · 07-28-2006, 04:43 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by wizardPC

Debt as of 6/30/2006: $12,361.86

Debt as of 7/28/2006: $10,991.36

Coming soon: 4 digit debt!

BoyNextDoor · 07-28-2006, 04:57 PM

nice going... keep up the good work... you da man...

DavidIQ · 07-28-2006, 05:00 PM

Keep it up man...get to that $0 debt!

bobjones931 · 08-23-2006, 10:25 PM

Way to go! I just read your thread. Keep it up. I got introduced to Dave a couple of years ago. It is the best thing in the world to have $0 debt. I am looking to buy a house shortly and nothing is cooler than saying that I have ZERO debt to a home lender. Again, Keep up the good work!

MatrixPC · 08-24-2006, 10:17 AM

Dammmm, good job keeping it down Wizard.....
As for $0 debt in this country is somewhat impossible.

I'm glad that I paid off my student load (10K), about 7.5K CC debt all within 2 years after grad. Also, I only have to pay car loan on the Matrix for 2 years when the loan term was 3 yrs.
If someone kind enought and payoff my mortgage, I am sure I will be debt free for a dam longgggggg time

Oh regarding to DMP. Everytime I see/hear a commercial regarding to DMP, I just laught my *** off. Worst off, they show that once you in the program, you can have a nice vacation in the Bahamas or nice sandy beach in Hawaii. There is absolutely no free lunch in this country.

tjsharktank · 08-25-2006, 01:48 AM

i read the whole thing and i while i think its great u want to pay it back, blah, blah, blah.... have u thought about bankruptcy? WAIT... before you get your panties in a bunch like most people. I do it for a living, I work for a Chapter 13 Trustee. Obviously I dont know your entire situation (i.e. home ownership, etc.) and student loans dont get discharged but some of that debt (maybe half or more) could be gone. at the very, very least, u could have to pay all those credit cards with NO MORE INTEREST from the date of filing.

Just my opinion. If you've got that much debt, you're credit will be better after bankruptcy. Believe me, I've seen people buy a house the day after they get discharged.

Good luck whatever you do.

Friedrice · 08-25-2006, 03:15 AM

like you I learned the hard way. By moving to a non- english speaking country, i was maknig good money tutoring people when i was still in college. With the income came the preapproved applications which was soon followed by maxed out cards. I stopped tutoring and the bills started pilinbg up. Paid them all off, moved to Australia for a few years, came back and started the cycle again. I started buying more expensive toys and i've only learned that it sucks when 60% of my monthly pay goes to pay for a gadget i got on a 0% plan 2 years ago which stopped working a year after it was bought. I thought i was smart getting stuff on layaway with 0% but it all adds up and i'm stuck paying for lots of **** i no longer own. Lesson learned!