Monday, September 24, 2007

Chase Creditor Chasing Us

I knew the creditors would start coming after us harder, but the one that bit this time I wasn't expecting. We had a Chase credit card and due to bad financial situations, we have not paid it. The debt for it has been sold a few times now and the newest owner decided to send it to court. It was a surprise because this is our smallest credit card balance, I was hoping to tackle them in November, but they've changed the timetable.

I called the local attorney's office that is handling the case, they offered either $200/month until it gets paid (with interest) or paying it all off. I spoke to my wife this morning and looked at our budget last night, we're just going to tackle the $2208.25 balance by 10/2 instead (court is on 10/3). There will need to be some tightening going on, including:
  • We are going to have to push heavily on getting her student loans deferred for a bit longer.
  • We have a credit with our natural gas company and they read the meter wrong the last time they came out, so I'm going to call them and see if we can hold off this month paying them. Our credit is about $350 and due to misreading should be around $500.
  • Our house phone we have been paying right when the bill comes in, we'll delay paying it until it's due this time (next due date 11/10).
  • Check when we get back the $200 deposit we did with our electricity utility back in the spring (we were behind for a while, so they required more from us as a deposit).
  • Delay additional insulation until mid-October (we've been having warm weather that has been helping).
  • Keep in touch with the possible roommate from last week. Last we heard it was pretty certain he had a job in the area (doing drug test for it), so now it's a matter of him starting it and them moving in.
  • Mortgage will get paid on 10/12 after 1 roommate pays their monthly $350 and consulting job pays on that date.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Good luck with this. I'm surprised that Chase is going the lawsuit route--seems like the cost of the suit will be more than any debt repayment they can get. It definitely sounds like scare tactics.

However, overcoming this hurdle (debt) will make you that much more stronger. Debt is ugly and mean and horrible, and kicking this card to the curb will be a wonderful feeling.