Sorry to hear about your job loss. I was in the same boat as well with the economy when the company I worked for went bankrupt. You really are going to have to make some hard choices. Working two jobs, doing side work, and anything else you can do for cash. Your going to need to pay off both of your debts in full. Give them a call and let them know about your situation. They will be willing to work out something, even if it's $20.00 a month, it's better then nothin*** Ask them to stop or cut down interest and stop fees. As for getting a car. Your going to have to save and pay cash. This will work out better for you in the long run since you will not have to have a car payment or full coverage insurance unless it's a higher priced vehicle, which I don't think you will be gettin*** You might look into going back to school. There are a lot of great opportunities. You might qualify to go for free and even have board paid for. Hope that helps. Good Luck

Is there any way possible my bank would let me consolidate?

You can talk to them but most banks would rather just sell them debt to collections.

You can always check out National Foundation for Credit Counseling

They are a NON-PROFIT credit counselor service so they generally do not charge fees for most of their services and are highly rated by professionals in finance.

Hope that helps

Banks are just too large to make wise financial choices anymore. I doubt you will ever find anyone other than a 5 dollar an hour payday clerk who is going to be readin off a computer screen. Its usually by the book and the personal touch in banking is gone. I would goto a buy here pay here car lot or POT lots as they are sometimes called and buy a decent daily driver for around 2 grand. They are not pretty but they do run and you can get into them for around 200$.



Mark

Bill,

Getting your credit back on track is going to take a little work and/or some time. You are basically in the situation where you will need to have a good down payment to have a chance of financing a vehicle and a good deposit (first, last and security deposit) to move into a place, unless you can find someone that needs a roommate.

Regarding the vehicle, to be honest you would probably be better off saving up some money and buying an inexpensive vehicle with cash. The money you are saving on payments which would inevitably be based on a high interest rate due to your credit would be better used to keep the vehicle running and towards taking care of the bad debts. Since they are already with collections agencies, you might want to start putting money aside until you can attempt to settle the two debts.

In the meantime, I would look into obtaining a secured credit card once you can save enough money (usually $500) to use for the security deposit. This is not the same thing as a prepaid card. A secured card with a major bank will have reasonable fees, and will be reported to all three major credit reporting agencies. Once your accounts are settled and you have a little positive history with a secured card, you will be well on your way to having a good score again.

Although you would think that all prepaid debit cards, whether Visa or Mastercard, would report to all three major credit agencies, that isn't always the case.

A prepaid debit card is a great way to become more self-disciplined in your budgeting habits which is a real plus! I have been using a prepaid debit card in place of cash for the last couple months and although I like it because it keeps me on-track, you need to become really educated on how to use the card to avoid fees.

The one I use is Mango Money, a MasterCard product. I want to be real honest and say that I'm also doing freelance writing for them. I'm learning about how to better budget my money but at this time they are working on ways to get this reported to credit agencies.

Regardless of which card you decide to use, be a smart shopper and read the details on how they may charge you for certain transactions.

All my best,
Kim