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

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Time for another credit card debt report.  Time just flies by so fast.  And the credit card balances go down so slowly.  I can see why the promises of bankruptcy and debt settlement are so appealing.  They promise to have you debt free in months and not years like it takes when you pay it off on your own.

I’ve looked into debt settlement but not bankruptcy.  I would not qualify for debt settlement because I can keep up with my credit card payments for now anyways.

My income went up almost $900 from last month which was a nice welcome surprise.  It’s nice to get a bunch of $200+ checks from so many companies each month.  Now if only I could get them up to $300 and $400 a month from each company, that would double my income and I could pay off my debts faster.

Freelance/web development income for May 2009 was $5700. Up $878 from April.

Expenses were $5195.  April expenses were $5585 so we did better here this month but we are still in the red from the month before when we spent more than we made.  Hard to get out of debt when that happens.

It’s not easy knowing that your income and expenses can fluctuate each month because you work for yourself but I would not have it any other way.  I do not like having a boss at all. I like having the freedom of being able to see all my kids games without missing one due to work.

Now let’s see what my credit card debt looks like this month.

USAA $1,776.12
AT&T Universal Card $8,223.18
Discover Card $8,883.78
Bank Of America $15,275.45
Chase $13,219.96

Chase sent me a nice letter saying I could skip a payment this month if I wanted to.  How nice and thoughtful of them.  Yes, we’ll still charge you about $150 a month in finance charges on your $13k balance but sure go ahead and skip a payment.  We’re here to help you!

Baloney!

So I sent them a nice payment of $300.

So total credit card debt for June 2009 is $47378.49

Total credit card debt as of June 3rd, 2009: $47378.49

Total credit card debt as of May 1st, 2009: $47925.74

Total credit card debt as of April 4th, 2009: $48064.93

Difference of $547.25

Total credit card debt started with: $62124 Feb 2008

Total credit card debt paid off: $14745.51

And now let’s take  a look at my other debts.

$7712 IRS Tax Debt, paid off $1000.  IRS approved my payment plan and it starts June 28th. $250 a month until it’s paid off.

$7713.58 Auto Loan – Original balance $11,000. Made 2 payments so far, 46 to go…I hate car payments.

And then the student loans whatever they are.  Around $38,000.

So may be close to owing under a hundred grand now…better than owing over a hundred grand…

That’s all for today.

Have a great day!

-Adam

The Credit Blogger

Here it is May already and I wanted to talk about not paying off credit card debt for May 2009.  Why do I say not paying off debt? Well because I took a look at my numbers for this month and I barely paid off $130 this past month on my debt but still paid over $500 in interest charges.  So that kind of hurts.  But what can you expect when you buy a new Dell computer! And not just any Dell computer, an Optiplex business PC with a 22 inch monitor.  I bought the PC due to my old one slowing down and being really slow when I am trying to encode videos about products and services I am promoting.  So to be more productive and not wait 20 minutes for one video to encode, I bought a new one and can make twice as many movies in half the time.

I will get to deduct the cost of the PC as a business expense as I work for myself and use it for business purposes.

I don’t buy things like fancy TVs or designer clothes or any electronic devices.  I think of iPods and iPhones as cool luxuries but if they are not free I am not buying them.  The only reason I got a new cell phone was because it was free including shipping and handling.  I didn’t have to pay a thing for it.  It’s not the fanciest model out there but it gets the job done – it makes phone calls.

And this new PC was a necessity not a luxury since that is the determining factor on when you should buy something as I will be using it for business.

Now let’s take a look at my credit card debt for May 2009.

USAA $1813.58
Discover Card $9014.26
Chase Card $13372.85
AT&T Universal Card $8409.63
Bank Of America $15315.42

Total credit card debt as of May 1st, 2009: $47925.74

Total credit card debt as of April 4th, 2009: $48064.93

Difference of $139.19.

Total credit card debt started with: $62124 Feb 2008

Total credit card debt paid off: $14,198.26

And now let’s take  a look at my other debts.

$7712 IRS Tax Debt, paid off $1000.  Waiting to see if the IRS approves of my payment plan arrangements as I don’t have an extra 7 thousand dollars to pay this bill.

$7849.95 Auto Loan – Original balance $11,000.

And if I could ever remember my SallieMae username and password I would know the total amount of my student loans.  It’s around $38,000 give or take a few hundred.  And I’ve been paying on it since 2002 when I graduated and my original balance was $38,000 give or take a few hundred.  That’s what you get when you defer your student loans for 2 years.

Total debts: $100,947.69 give or take a few hundred.

Anyone want to lend me a hundred grand? That would really help my pay off my credit card debts and other debts. )

Thanks for reading,

Adam

The Credit Blogger

It’s time for the credit card debt report for this month.  Last month I mentioned that I had to buy a new used card since my 94 Camry was on its last leg.  I went ahead and found a good deal on an 05 Camry for $11,000 of which I paid $3000 cash from a whole life insurance policy I have and borrowed the rest from my credit union at a rate of 5.4% for 4 years.

So add that debt now to my list.  Oh joy.  And also last month I talked about having to pay almost $7,000 in taxes.  Now that number is almost $9,000.  Yikes! Guess I’ll be making monthly payments to the IRS for years to come too. I have $2,000 in savings I can make for my first payment on April 15th, tax day, and then start making payments.  Lesson learned from all this is that if you are self employed, you have to make quarterly payments to the tax man.

All that said, here is my credit card debt report for the month of April 2009:

Bank Of America: $15,643.42

Discover Card: $9,167.42

USAA: $905.47

AT&T Universal Card: $8,796.74

Chase: $13,551.88

Total credit card debt as of April 4th, 2009: $48064.93

Total credit card debt as of March 2009: $49,186.32

Difference of $1121.39, did better than last month where balances only went down about $700.

Total credit card debt started with: $62124 Feb 2008

Total credit card debt paid off: $14,059.

My monthly income for the month of March was just a hair under $5,000 and my expenses were about $4,200.  That leaves me with a small margin of about $800 to help pay down debt.  I liked Jan better when my income was over $7,000.

I’ll keep working on building out new domains, promoting the ones I already have and just getting more content out there to generate more income so I can pay off my credit card debt and get my own house.

That’s all for now.

Thanks for reading,

Adam

The Credit Blogger

P.S. There’s a new debt book on late night TV called Debt Rescue, it looks eerily similar to Debt Cures because it talks about how you can eliminate debt overnight and how you can get free money from the government.  I’ll try and do a review of it when I get my copy.