Credit Card Debt Report 2011 – Where Has The Credit Blogger Been?

Hello-

It’s time for another credit card debt report. Like I said in my last post over 2 years ago – time just flies by so fast. I have not written since June 2009. The reason being was I was not doing so well financially. I experienced a financial hardship and was struggling to pay the bills and did not feel like writing about that situation at the time.

Here’s some of what happened:

Unexpected medical bills for daugther
IRS bill for self employment taxes
Student loans coming off deferrment
Drop in self employment income

I was unable to afford the over $1,000 a month in credit card bills along with all my other expenses.

As I mentioned in June 2009, I was looking at debt relief options. I was considering bankruptcy and debt settlement. At the time I was not able to qualify for debt settlement because I could afford all the minimum monthly payments. When this changed, debt settlement was the option I would choose.

Unfortunately going through a financial crisis basically forced my path to debt settlement. I used a do it yourself debt settlement course called Zipdebt to lead me through the debt crisis. From late summer of 2009 until spring 2010 I was getting all the debt collection calls I could handle as I could not make any credit card bill payments.

I was attempting to settle my Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, and Discover Card accounts. I was using my USAA credit card to pay my business expenses.

At first no one wanted to settle. This happened for the first 3 to 4 months I fell behind on my bills. After 5 and close to 6 months the banks had a change of heart and were willing to settle.

The good news is that I was able to settle my Bank of America, Chase and Citibank debts. A total of over $43,000 for $13,000. The money for the debt settlement offers came from family, a whole life insurance policy, and savings.

So here is what my current credit card debt situation looks like:

USAA $11,106.54
Discover Card $4,676.27
Capital One $796.33

I have paid off my auto loan which was $7713 in June 09. I was able to use the debt snowball to knock out this loan early before my financial crisis hit.

My IRS tax debt is around $5000. This is for tax year 2010 and the rest of 2009. The IRS takes a payment of $450 a month.

Student loans are still up over $35,000 and coming down slowly with my $202 a month payment.

So it hasn’t been easy.

Just hanging in there and keeping my head up.

This is just a summary, there is more to share soon.

Have a great day!

-Adam

The Credit Blogger