Need advice

Do you have good enough credit and income to get a mortgage on your own? and dont answer with telling us how much, thats your personal business but something to ask yourself, if not then your DH is gonna need to fix his credit first before you can even think of getting a place.

Is it possible you can use half of the money towards a down payment and the other half to pay off some of his debt?

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Posted by Espo22

Do you have good enough credit and income to get a mortgage on your own? and dont answer with telling us how much, thats your personal business but something to ask yourself, if not then your DH is gonna need to fix his credit first before you can even think of getting a place.

Is it possible you can use half of the money towards a down payment and the other half to pay off some of his debt?

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He actually has a good credit score. Unfortunately if we used half there wouldnt be enough. I don't think we will be able to afford a house for a couple of years anyway.

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

Do you have good enough credit and income to get a mortgage on your own? and dont answer with telling us how much, thats your personal business but something to ask yourself, if not then your DH is gonna need to fix his credit first before you can even think of getting a place.

Is it possible you can use half of the money towards a down payment and the other half to pay off some of his debt?

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He actually has a good credit score. Unfortunately if we used half there wouldnt be enough. I don't think we will be able to afford a house for a couple of years anyway.

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let me just say that they dont only look at credit score. They also look at your debt to income ratio. DH has good credit, never had a late payment. BUT he had debt and what they do is they take your debt and subtract that from your income, bc as they see it thats money you owe. So if you make lets just say $80k and owe $40k then they see it as you have $40k since the other $40 belongs to others that are owed that money. They will say how can you afford to pay x amount a year plus pay off what you should be paying off. DH had to take care of his debt which he paid off this summer but before that even with his good credit, they dont want to see you owe over a certain amount.

I really dont know what to tell you -- what would you do with the money if you put 'save' ? Keep it in a bank account for an eventual house purchase?

DH had some school loans (not a large amount, but still a few thousand) and we were debating whether to pay them all off, some, or just keep making payments. His loans were 6%, we are only making around 3% in ING (our savings account) and the market is totally unpredictable now so we decided it was better financially topay off the loans now. If we left that money in the bank it would be like taking a 3% loss.

I voted for pay off everything but the 0% interest cards for right now, because your debt will continue to snowball with the ridiculous interest rates these cards have.

You can always try to negotiate with the card companies and tell them you'll pay off your balance now if they will knock off some of it... who knows, many places will negotiate with you

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Posted by Espo22

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

Do you have good enough credit and income to get a mortgage on your own? and dont answer with telling us how much, thats your personal business but something to ask yourself, if not then your DH is gonna need to fix his credit first before you can even think of getting a place.

Is it possible you can use half of the money towards a down payment and the other half to pay off some of his debt?

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He actually has a good credit score. Unfortunately if we used half there wouldnt be enough. I don't think we will be able to afford a house for a couple of years anyway.

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let me just say that they dont only look at credit score. They also look at your debt to income ratio. DH has good credit, never had a late payment. BUT he had debt and what they do is they take your debt and subtract that from your income, bc as they see it thats money you owe. So if you make lets just say $80k and owe $40k then they see it as you have $40k since the other $40 belongs to others that are owed that money. They will say how can you afford to pay x amount a year plus pay off what you should be paying off. DH had to take care of his debt which he paid off this summer but before that even with his good credit, they dont want to see you owe over a certain amount.

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Yea thats a really good point I didn't think of that!

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Posted by bluegreen08

I really dont know what to tell you -- what would you do with the money if you put 'save' ? Keep it in a bank account for an eventual house purchase?

DH had some school loans (not a large amount, but still a few thousand) and we were debating whether to pay them all off, some, or just keep making payments. His loans were 6%, we are only making around 3% in ING (our savings account) and the market is totally unpredictable now so we decided it was better financially topay off the loans now. If we left that money in the bank it would be like taking a 3% loss.

I voted for pay off everything but the 0% interest cards for right now, because your debt will continue to snowball with the ridiculous interest rates these cards have.

You can always try to negotiate with the card companies and tell them you'll pay off your balance now if they will knock off some of it... who knows, many places will negotiate with you

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Yes it would be in the ING account. He is paying 20% on most of these cards.

I will definitely try to tell him to negotiate thats a good idea

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

Do you have good enough credit and income to get a mortgage on your own? and dont answer with telling us how much, thats your personal business but something to ask yourself, if not then your DH is gonna need to fix his credit first before you can even think of getting a place.

Is it possible you can use half of the money towards a down payment and the other half to pay off some of his debt?

---

He actually has a good credit score. Unfortunately if we used half there wouldnt be enough. I don't think we will be able to afford a house for a couple of years anyway.

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let me just say that they dont only look at credit score. They also look at your debt to income ratio. DH has good credit, never had a late payment. BUT he had debt and what they do is they take your debt and subtract that from your income, bc as they see it thats money you owe. So if you make lets just say $80k and owe $40k then they see it as you have $40k since the other $40 belongs to others that are owed that money. They will say how can you afford to pay x amount a year plus pay off what you should be paying off. DH had to take care of his debt which he paid off this summer but before that even with his good credit, they dont want to see you owe over a certain amount.

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Yea thats a really good point I didn't think of that!

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yeah neither did we lol. I mean we checked his credit score before we started the process and thought ok great we're fine. He makes good money and thought again ok someone with this credit score and income is gonna have no problems. But that was not the case lol. We've had to dedicate months to JUST fixing this. WE've also had problems with things being on his credit report that shouldn't have been there, such as a $25k CC that has been closed for years

I actually read an article in Kiplinger's recently that said if the debt is credit card debt, that's the only time it's wiser to rush to pay off the debt instead of saving money. The reason is b/c of the interest rate on CC's. If I were you, I'd try to eliminate as much of the debt as you can - maybe keep a percentage in savings.

Also - it is EXTREMELY hard to get a mortgage right now - banks are upping their standards significantly b/c of the state of the market. If he has tens of thousands of dollars of debt, getting approved for a mortgage at this time is unlikely because of the current state of affairs.

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Denise - are you only able to do that if you are in financial trouble (like have been missing payments and stuff)? If I'm in good standing can I call up and negotiate like that?

my advice to you is get rid of his debt. then just save money for a down payment. dh and i are homeowners and trust me you want as little debt as possible when you have mortgage to pay and oil bills, electric bills, cable/phone bills, i could go on and on.

this is only my opinion, but i personally would get rid of as much debt as possible first. b/c remember you're going to want to do work on a house you buy if you don't buy a brand new house and you'll want to have leverage with how much you borrow, which will make your payment higher and add a large mortgage payment on top of high monthly credit card bills, all i can say is, i hope you haven't gotten used to eating!

good luck with your decision!

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Posted by JB1122

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Denise - are you only able to do that if you are in financial trouble (like have been missing payments and stuff)? If I'm in good standing can I call up and negotiate like that?

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might be harder if youre in good standing bc they will prefer for you to make lower payments and paying the interest. I had a CC from 2001 that i still owed money on, i didnt even know, for 4 years they've been sending the bills to my old address i finally got a call and got into an arguement about this and the lady fought with me that they've sent me notices, when i asked where they told me the wrong address.

You can call and say you would like to pay off your credit, which alot of ppl think a CC would love to hear that but they actually hate hearing that. They lose money in the end by doing this. I would at least call up and fight for a lower interest rate, you can do that.

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Whats a good way to negotiate? Just say I dont have the money?

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Whats a good way to negotiate? Just say I dont have the money?

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depends on the situation with his CC's. But yeah you can say listen I dont have money right now, what can you do for me. Is he in bad standing with any of them?

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Posted by Espo22

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Posted by JB1122

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Denise - are you only able to do that if you are in financial trouble (like have been missing payments and stuff)? If I'm in good standing can I call up and negotiate like that?

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might be harder if youre in good standing bc they will prefer for you to make lower payments and paying the interest. I had a CC from 2001 that i still owed money on, i didnt even know, for 4 years they've been sending the bills to my old address i finally got a call and got into an arguement about this and the lady fought with me that they've sent me notices, when i asked where they told me the wrong address.

You can call and say you would like to pay off your credit, which alot of ppl think a CC would love to hear that but they actually hate hearing that. They lose money in the end by doing this. I would at least call up and fight for a lower interest rate, you can do that.

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Funny you mention the interest rate thing - DH has great credit but had a similar situation - he moved and in the move he didn't get his bill for one cycle. When he got it, he had missed the prior payment so they increased his interest from 11% to 30%!!!!! He called up and paid the card off and said he couldn't believe they would do that and said he wanted to close it. So they begged him to stay and in exchange for staying gave him like a 7% interest rate, lol.

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Posted by Espo22

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Whats a good way to negotiate? Just say I dont have the money?

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depends on the situation with his CC's. But yeah you can say listen I dont have money right now, what can you do for me. Is he in bad standing with any of them?

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No he pays on time every month he just pays the minimum so they are making a lot of money off of him.

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Posted by Espo22

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Posted by JB1122

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Denise - are you only able to do that if you are in financial trouble (like have been missing payments and stuff)? If I'm in good standing can I call up and negotiate like that?

---

might be harder if youre in good standing bc they will prefer for you to make lower payments and paying the interest. I had a CC from 2001 that i still owed money on, i didnt even know, for 4 years they've been sending the bills to my old address i finally got a call and got into an arguement about this and the lady fought with me that they've sent me notices, when i asked where they told me the wrong address.

You can call and say you would like to pay off your credit, which alot of ppl think a CC would love to hear that but they actually hate hearing that. They lose money in the end by doing this. I would at least call up and fight for a lower interest rate, you can do that.

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isn't this considered a 'charge off' on your credit report? i did that with one card once a LONG time ago and i definitely know it negatively effects your credit score and doesn't leave your record.

it's hard bc all these CC's are a**holes, they dont care about helping you. I remember something Suzie orman said on oprah and its so true. She told this one guy who had alot of debt and how they were calling him and he wouldn't pick up. She said how he is doing exactly what they hope for you to do. They call bc they have to but they are praying you dont pick up, they want you to mess up bc in the end it will be more money for them.

Dh had paid off this 1 cc off, he had 0 balance. Right after this they put his card on hold and said they have to check some things out and he couldnt use the card. Its like he was being punished for paying it all off. This happened with my bloomies card too, i never used it alot so i had paid it all off bc there wasnt alot on it to begin with. They put my card on hold too, i was so shocked. I asked the lady why and she said she had no idea but just what it says on the computer, i said i just paid it all off so makes no sense.

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

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Posted by kimNanthony

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Posted by Espo22

Call up every CC and ask them to cut a deal, just about all of them will do it. Theres 2 ways you can do it, one you can pay only 70% or lower of what you owe but to pay it right then and there. Or you can pay about 60% then and there and the last payments will be monthly payments to pay the rest off. Fight with them and try to see how low you can get them to settle for. I did this for 1 card i still owed money on and i owed over $2k and since i paid that day i only had to pay about $1200

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Whats a good way to negotiate? Just say I dont have the money?

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depends on the situation with his CC's. But yeah you can say listen I dont have money right now, what can you do for me. Is he in bad standing with any of them?

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No he pays on time every month he just pays the minimum so they are making a lot of money off of him.

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Kim if he is just paying the minimum then he is probably just paying the interest and a teeny bit of princinpal. Now that I know that, I feel even more strongly that you need to pay of his debt. If he only makes the minimum, it won't ever get paid off.