Monday, February 16, 2009

Turmoil Part Duex

I hear you. On everything. We have been working to pay off credit cards for quite a while now and have really hit them hard over the past several months. Then one card decided to close our account - not due to not paying on time or anything of that nature but because...well, not sure. Then I got panicky thinking that the other cards were going to do the same...so, I asked daddio for a loan to pay off our cards. I drew up a contract and am paying him the amount I would have paid each month to two cards plus a bit of interest. I planned on paying off 2 cards completely, then I read a bit more about what credit cards were doing so I decided I would pay the majority off of the highest interest rate card and then divvy the rest out to the other cards as long as I could divvy it up so that they would take a significant hit off of the balance - the rule was that I had to be able to pay the balance off in a 6-9 month period for it to be even slightly worth it (especially considering interest rates). Right now - we are looking at how fast we can pay off the rest without paying off the entire thing...READ MSN Money!!! I think that they do have some really good things out there. I don't agree with everything but they certainly gave me the heads up on credit card companies and what they were doing in this 'economy crisis'. They informed me enough to feel like I was making the right moves in what I was doing with our cards. Not that I enjoyed taking a loan from family...but hey - he is in the position to help out and we are paying him back so it is a good move. We still have to get through the crap that Amex pulled on us though....that is another long and difficult story and one that we are working on getting sorted out with them...bastards.
This next few months I hope to carry only about 5% of whatever the card limit is as a balance and I'm using all of them once a month to keep them active as well. I hope that none of them try and pull anything on me - like closing the account. Just an FYI - call the cc up and ask them to re-open your account as this is a negative hit on your credit score. If they do not open it back up - especially if you paid on time all the time - start the letter campaign and I think that there was something on msn that had a link to where you could report things like this happening. There are some new rules in place - you just have to know your rights and argue a bit AND write to them. I think it is definitely worth it especially when you have a negative standing then for that account. If at all possible - call them first and close your account. It looks better. Not great overall but better if it comes from you. I hope that we just get our stuff lower in the next few months.
Food - I love food. I especially love food when I am completely and utterly stressed at work and get no sleep and and and I could go on and on and on. I have decided that I will do what I can to eat healthy and work out. I am really hoping the sun decides to show itself for more than a few hours out here and like the fact the days are getting longer. I feel this enormous guilt that our Son has not seen much of the outside world besides going car shopping with us a couple of weekends ago. To me that is very very sad. I will enjoy our evening jogs here in the coming months. Ha - coming months....not right now mind you. I don't have the mental stamina for that.
Keep your chin up - things will get better.

2 comments:

Tea~ said...

Yes, yes - AMX is my 36k to 1k shitlist. HSBC is the one that popped off an closed the account, I will write. =) Thanks for the tips. Momnlaw called yesterday (we told them of the impending job loss over the weekend) and offered a loan. What a nice (scary) thought! =)

javagirl said...

You know what? TAKE THE LOAN!!! Put something in writing regarding how you'll pay it back (make it so you can easily do it) and have everyone sign. It takes a load off...but also - write those bastards and fight them. This is happening all over and it is aweful. Amex did that and THEN sent the account to their collections...and we were told that it was still a part of Amex, etc....not so much. Amex put on our credit that we did not pay on the balance - funny - I've been paying on it for a year...and that hit our credit report stating that they wrote it off. So we decided that we will not pay it until they change the credit report status. It has already fucked things up for Doug's credit so if we don't pay it it won't matter...very weird and I would think unlawful thing to do.