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…
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