new here, about to have nervous breakdown

[plcm29]

I am looking for a board where I can find support through this difficult time. Please advise if this is the right place or suggest others.

We had a lot of credit card debt but didn't worry because we had stock and it was going up and up. Well, you guessed it, the bottom fell out of the stock market and now we can't pay make ends meet. We haven't missed any payments yet but we borrow from Peter to pay Paul and are almost out of credit. You can also guess that the credit card companies decided we have too much debt and doubled or more the interest rates. Where do we start?

I would so appreciate any advice. I don't know where to start. I've researched it and this is one problem I can't find answers for. Most books tell you to pay off the one with the most interest first. That doesn't apply to us. We are way beyond that.

If we don't find an answer soon I think I will have a nervous breakdown and that will just make the situation worse.

[CRK]

I know where your coming from, im about 80-90k in on my cards ran them up over last 4 years, diviorce then 40% lost in pay, then no job at all,i did same as you and thought things would get better and was robbing peter to pay paul.the last 3 months i havent put more then 100 dollars on my cards(pay about 2k a month on cc)well they have started to raise rates 15% wasnt enuff they need 26% another card went to28.99(never been late on any payment) and the feeling of working to pay the cards off is going to screw them,im going to talk to a bk lawyer and see what my options are thats probally your best bet to with this new law that starts oct 17 2005,im tired of the stress, a hour doesn't go by without me think about which bill needs to be paid next

[edwards2]

We all so know how you feel..unfortunately. I have read from financial gurus that you pay the account with the lowest balance first so that you can feel a sense of accomplishment. Then you use the money you were paying on that one and double up on the next lowest balance and so on. People who have used this system have said it works. Of course it helps if you have the resources to do that. We tried that and it did work until we suffered a monster medical catastrophe. Then we went backwards trying to meet medical payments and were only able to pay the minimum on our credit cards. While we didnt owe as much as you did in cc debt we certainly had the medical expenses. We did the robbing Peter and paying Paul thing until there was nothing left to rob. I think the stress symptoms are pretty uniform at least for people in this forum. Filing BK is drastic but it is a way out - not easy and a little embarrassing but at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We finally decided to do it and we havent looked back. If you have other options - by all means take them but if you dont you need to act quickly. The infamous BK law is purported to be the law that might keep people like us from having a choice like BK. You have a lot of support on this forum - use it. No one here will judge you. We are in no position to and for that matter, no one else is either.

[plcm29]

Thank you for understanding. I guess our only option would be to take money out of retirement, pay a penalty on it, and it still may not be enough to pay all the debt. Then I'm afraid we'd end up losing the retirement and still have to file for BK.

What happens to folks like us after the new law goes into effect?

[CRK]

I think the new law is that you have to pay back what you can, like a 13 and i think repayment goes longer,so we still cant dig out as fast, and forget it if another major problem happens