Six Figure Debt

I guess I should consider this good news, but it is odd how we got to this.

Today I received a call from Bank of America, remember, we just decided last month not to pay our credit card, instead we decided to save the money and attempt to settle our debt with the credit card companies.  Well, today BOA call to see why our bill wasn’t paid on time and we informed them of our plan to seek a settlement with them to pay the cards off in full.

Every Sunday I am going to focus on good news in the world.  I find it thereputic to seek out some good news each week as I feel constantly beaten down by the string of bad news and dire predictions.  I am an optimist by nature so I tend to look on the bright side of life but it is hard when myself, friends and relatives are struggling so hard in the current economic state.  So, here are a few stories to relieve the stress and hopefully put your mind at ease for a few minutes.

It seems like lately all we get is bad news, the newspapers, the television news, the Internet, you name it all they do is deliver a huge dose of bad news everyday.  It has gotten to the point where I just ignore most of it, but I do feel like it is starting to take its toll.  I’m sure  I and not alone when I say that I feel completely beaten down by the economy, bad news and my job search.

We are taking the advice of Dave Ramsey and we have stopped paying our credit card payments, except for American Express because they were willing to drop the interest rate on our credit card.

As I said in the previous post, none of the credit card were willing to provide and help with our current situation so we have simply started saving our money and not paying the credit cards.

Last week I ran into a woman who was using the “envelope” system to budget her money.  I asked her if she listened to Dave Ramsey and she laughed and said “yes, he’s saved our financial lives.”  We chatted for a while and she told me how she took Ramsey’s advice and called her credit card companies to “settle” her debt.  She said she had great success and was able to trim $50,000 off her balances by simply calling the credit card companies.