Hello. I just happend upon this site and it looks like it could really help me and my husband. Long story but my situation is like many others. College grad with 35k in student loans, a house we can barely afford and are growing out of quickly and about 28k in credit card and loan debt. Together we probably make about 55k a year, and although we haven't fallen behind in our payments, we rarely make much more than $20 more than our minimum payments. Both of our credit scores are actually very good, but living check-to-check is stressful and we can never get ahead of it. We are wanting to start a family but literally have no savings, have been in our house for only a year. What is the real story with debt consolidations? Will it completely ruin our chances of getting a bigger home in a few years? I have lots of questions about how to build equity in my home on a small budget (obviously) too, but first thing's first...Anyone have any insight on this horrible credit affliction?

Welcome to the board, sounds like you are in the same boat as myself... living check to check hoping that an emergency does not wipe you out. For myself it is always medical that keeps us strapped down, There are a few things you can do... 1. Contact all of your credit card holders and try to request reduced interest rates (here is a good site with templet of what you would use to request this): http://www.bcsalliance.com/creditcards_ ... rrate.html 2. If this does not work, you can also shop for other credit cards to apply for, look for balance transfer deals... like myself I just hooked up with Citi Bank 0% for 9 months on balance transfers then after that it goes to 9.9% interest rate. So if you can hop the debt around so that you can buy yourself some breathing room to pay on the balance and not the interest. Takes a lot of work doing this, looking for deals applying and getting approved... I have just started this myself, still very timid and slow moving on this, but hopefully if you get your debt spread out and utilization down over a number of accounts you can keep doing this until paid a good deal of the way down. It is slow though, and you want to use the existing accounts guardingly, not to charge as you are trying to pay down, switch if you can to just paying cash or writing check when you need something. 3. Start a savings account, no matter what, it looks good on applications as well when you are applying for new credit just the fact that you have a savings account. Don't have to be much... I opened mine about a year ago, going slowly, have only about $100, but what I have been doing is saving change - pennies, quarters, and such... from time to time I take this straight to the bank to put into the savings account. 4. Another thing you might try, I did this by accident, but it was great results for me. When writing a check for anything in the check book round up to the nearest dollar amount regardless of what you wrote the check for. I was forced to this, because when I started out accidently bounced a few checks, and wanting to avoid this I decided to put money in the checking account blind! Well my checking book got so bad, I had to turn it over to the bank to balance it for me - this was after a few months. When she contacted me with the results I could not believe it... found out that I had accumilated $700 blind money in the bank. That was really nice, got to use the extra money for a jump on bills. I would advice to learn and do this on your own, instead of credit counseling, when they get involve the accounts are manditorily closed! And you are stuck until the plan is paid off (or else there is some kind of strings attached penalty for opting out early) plus the creditors are very hard to work with once you back out. They will report CCCS on your credit report until completed. Oh biggest reason to steer clear is the fact that CCCS companies 80% of the time mess up your finances and credit reporting by common mistakes. Like not paying your creditors on time, they usually will keep your 1st months payment as their fees (resulting in default immediately). Stuff like this you have to be careful of. Definitely be worth researching and learning for yourself, a new skill that can benefit you now as well as later. If you are like me, you can be obsessed with paying bills, lol I always look forward to reading my billing statements to track the new balance updates, and get excited knowing I am all that much closer to having it paid down. Set goals. Pay minimum on everything except for the highest interest rate card, pull all extra money on that one, once it is paid off, then move down to the next highest interest rate account. As you get the opportunity - balance transfer high interest rate balances over to the lower interest rate cards. I have done this as well, it can work, just have to have patient have faith that you can pull through. NightStar Board Monitor/ Administrator   Posts: 8443Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2003 7:35 pmLocation: Illinois Website Top

Ok, so right now, you must be using more then 50% on your credit limits across the various accounts you have. Until you get the utilization down, you are not likely to be able to get new deals on the credit cards. Tough spot to get caught in, would suggest holding off on any new credit for better then 6 to 12 months - to pay down balances, and also to age the inquiries out of the immediate credit scoring. Still try the first suggestion, you don't have to actually apply for new credit, just threaten to apply - sometimes the creditors will give in and offer lower interest rate. It is your right, you can request this every six months - keep on them, it hurts nothing to ask. An account review is a soft hit on the credit score. NightStar Board Monitor/ Administrator   Posts: 8443Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2003 7:35 pmLocation: Illinois Website Top