Spending money. Thorough a combination of a lot of bad luck and a few bad choices, I’m stuck playing credit card musical chairs to keep enough cash for rent and bills. “Ability to buy groceries/toiletries/medical copays/etc.” is functionally a subscription for me. Few years of rice and beans in my future until I can dig myself out… good thing I like beans I guess
The worst I can imagine (aside from housing…) would be the others in Maslow’s pyramid base: air, water, food, clothing.
Air would be some straight up cyberpunk shit.
Water/food would also be horrifying. We currently see meal subscriptions as a luxury, but for those without access to a kitchen and/or with disabilities that prevent them from reliably using one… ah fuck that’s dismal.
Clothing would be fuckin weird. Because such a ridiculous volume of it exists due to fast fashion, I can’t see this happening on Earth in the near future, thankfully.
If it’s gonna take more than a few years to pay off, you might consider defaulting. Credit card debt is some of the most easily dischargeable debt.
That can range from offers in compromise to declaring some sort of bankruptcy to just not paying them anymore (the latter might have repercussions if you have seizable assets or enough debt that the carriers think it’s worth going through the courts to try and garnish your wages, assuming you have regular W2 income). Or if you currently have decent credit, a refi might even be a good option.
Do your own research, this is not financial advice.
I know people that just stopped paying and basically nothing happened. Credit scores went through the floor, but that’s pretty much it. Within a couple years they were able to open new cards, and after seven years the dings fell off their credit reports.
What I’ve been doing is shuffling the debt between new 0% APR intro-period cards every time the 0% of the previous card is going to expire, and just eating the cost of the balance transfer (usually 3–5%) which is still significantly lower than if the balance were to start getting hit by typical card APR (~25%)
I have considered doing bankruptcy but yeah I’m worried about wage garnishment. Also I had wanted to maybe buy a houseboat within the next 7 years but at this point that’s almost certainly off the table so it may actually be worth just looking into bankruptcy at this point.
Right now I’m more focused on getting a full time job since my freelance stuff has been too slow to pay all the bills…
About 2 years’ worth of rent (I live in NYC, to give an idea) in credit cards and a similarly large chunk in student loans
I was someone who paid off my balance in full at the end of every month for about 10 years, then bam, COVID, more fuck shit, rent needing to be paid via credit card several months (even more expensive as they take a usually 5% or more fee), and here we are
Spending money. Thorough a combination of a lot of bad luck and a few bad choices, I’m stuck playing credit card musical chairs to keep enough cash for rent and bills. “Ability to buy groceries/toiletries/medical copays/etc.” is functionally a subscription for me. Few years of rice and beans in my future until I can dig myself out… good thing I like beans I guess
The worst I can imagine (aside from housing…) would be the others in Maslow’s pyramid base: air, water, food, clothing.
If it’s gonna take more than a few years to pay off, you might consider defaulting. Credit card debt is some of the most easily dischargeable debt.
That can range from offers in compromise to declaring some sort of bankruptcy to just not paying them anymore (the latter might have repercussions if you have seizable assets or enough debt that the carriers think it’s worth going through the courts to try and garnish your wages, assuming you have regular W2 income). Or if you currently have decent credit, a refi might even be a good option.
Do your own research, this is not financial advice.
I know people that just stopped paying and basically nothing happened. Credit scores went through the floor, but that’s pretty much it. Within a couple years they were able to open new cards, and after seven years the dings fell off their credit reports.
What I’ve been doing is shuffling the debt between new 0% APR intro-period cards every time the 0% of the previous card is going to expire, and just eating the cost of the balance transfer (usually 3–5%) which is still significantly lower than if the balance were to start getting hit by typical card APR (~25%)
I have considered doing bankruptcy but yeah I’m worried about wage garnishment. Also I had wanted to maybe buy a houseboat within the next 7 years but at this point that’s almost certainly off the table so it may actually be worth just looking into bankruptcy at this point.
Right now I’m more focused on getting a full time job since my freelance stuff has been too slow to pay all the bills…
Being a grownup is so boring I hate this
out of curiosity, how much total debt are you carrying?
About 2 years’ worth of rent (I live in NYC, to give an idea) in credit cards and a similarly large chunk in student loans
I was someone who paid off my balance in full at the end of every month for about 10 years, then bam, COVID, more fuck shit, rent needing to be paid via credit card several months (even more expensive as they take a usually 5% or more fee), and here we are