Well my life is screwed...

Well, 2 years ago I quit my crappy job making $9.50 an hour and joined the US Air Force. At the time the only bill I paid was my credit card bill.

Now I'm being discharged. And depending on how things go - I may or may not have benefits. It's partially my fault, and I take responsibility for that.

In that 2 years now though, I've accumulated...a lot of new debt.

I have a car payment now (I didn't before, I took the bus everywhere). I have 3 more credit cards (horrible, I know).

I've been able to pay all these bills with what I've been getting paid...

well, I'm probably able to get my old...shitty job back. Only now, I'm going to hardly able to have any money left.

Advice?

 

3 credit cards??? What in the...

Anyways, there are not enough details to really give you any valid advice on how to go on, but intuitively I'd suggest to reduce debt as much as possible. How much is left on the car-loan? Can you make lump-sum payments and how high? Depending on circumstances like these you may want to decide to sell the car and pay more of the loan in order to save on interest.

Other than that... get rid off your damn credit cards. Murica... I don't even have/use a credit card! Do not spend money you don't have anymore!

 

Going back to Tacoma/Seattle.

Anyway - the credit cards aren't THAT bad. My credit score is in the 700's.

Car has about 15K left on it to pay.

$700ish on Amazon.com (new computer)
$1800 on Bill Me Later (various things from eBay)
$1,200 on Furniture Row (on furniture, because being an E3 doesn't pay a lot and we needed a bed and a dinner table)
$950 credit card through my bank

All in all? Not a lot of debt once you forget the car. I'm trying to be positive. What sucks is this is the SECOND time the wife has had to leave a nice job because the military. First was because of where we got stationed, and now because we're going back to Washington. My parents said I could stay with them, so it's not like I'm going to be homeless.

 

What value does the car still hold?

 

The number of credit cards isn't the problem, it's how much you owe in total. I've hit hard times (although right now I'm in a better state so I'm not asking for sympathy yet) but I still have two credit cards that I use regularly, one credit card that only gets used when something auto renews but I have forgotten to move it and another credit card that I never use. I'm still paying them all off every month, having four credit cards isn't a problem.

I'd cancel the one I only use accidentally but it's a marks and spencers card and they send me store vouchers every timeI use the card. Which although they are more expensive on some things, having a few vouchers is quite handy. The two cards I use regularly give me cash back, one is 3% for fuel purchases and the other is 1.5% on supermarket purchases.

I probably wouldn't be able to get so many cards now with my income slashed, when I was at my peak I had more cards than would fit in my wallet.

 

no, the car loan is 3.9%. The car was NOT purchased new.

It MIGHT end up being honorable, general, or under honorable conditions. Basically, in the USAF you go to basic, then tech school, then your station. When you arrive, you are given CDCs, Career Development Courses. It's a series of volumes that pertain to your job and after about a year on station you take a test.

I got 64%. Passing score is 65%. Literally a single question. This was last November - because it was a single question is why it's taken a year. When a CDC failure happens - one of 3 things can happen.

1) they discharge you
2) they file a CDC waiver and it's like you passed the test.
3) they reclass you into a different job.

Because it was literally a single question difference - my commander wanted to do a CDC waiver. However, everything was caught up in limbo, and now it's coming to be that they're going to have to file it as a discharge. Why? Simply because - they USAF needs to get rid of as many people as possible right now.

I was told that I ended up joining at the wrong time - bottom line, if I had joined 2 years earlier - they would have just waived it. Hell, a ton of people in my squadron had waivers that joined in 2009.

Example of this rush to seperate? A friend of mine, same career field - different wing, just was discharged Friday. Why? He has had 2 PT test failures. According to the AFI, you need to fail 4 within a 24 month period before the commander is able to recommend seperation. Why did it happen when he failed 2? (And passed 3 since then??) Simply because - they USAF needs to basically trim the fat on manning.

it's a really shitty situation of wrong place, wrong time.

 

I don't think the failure of a test would lead to a dishonorable discharge.

I figure you already google but "failed test discharge" (I was curious about it) brought up that it'll be honourable if you only failed the test.

 

Realistically if you bought wisely then the car should still be worth around what you owe on the finance so that pretty much takes care of itself leaving you with the other lines of credit to sort which is roughly $4k; I wouldn't class that as unmanageable!

I'm not sure exactly how credit works in the US but here is the UK your best bet would be to consolidate all of that debt into 1 single debt by taking out an additional credit card with 0% interest on balance transfers and purchases (that 0% will be for a fixed period of time, around 9-12 months). In that time you should aim to pay as much as you can until that time limit comes to an end then you can move the debt again using the same method.

It's a shit situation you find yourself in but you have to look forwards and there are people in far worse situations than yourself.

 

Or you could do what I did and wrote a letter to all of my creditors and told them how fucked things really were and asked for a period of leniency or really small payments. I'm now paying £1 a month to each of the people I owe money to for the next six months.

They'd rather get something than nothing and in some cases they'd rather take less from you than the full amount if they believe that you paying up will screw you in the long run so they never get it all back.

 

Definatly not dishonorable. Things need to go to military court for that. (Rape, murder, etc). Its gonna be general under honorable conditions or other than honorable.

My wifes taking it harder than me - i have lots of stuff to sell, my dad is trying to get me a job where he works. 16 an hour and full time

 

get a second job if possible until your debt is cleared up, i also have 3 credit cards outstanding and a phone contract and some overdrafts although nothing sizeable they'll be easily sorted once i find a new job.

as a side note and not to detract from your situation, there's been a lot of "my life sucks" threads recently :-( sad times!

 

How much is the car worth? It might be worthwhile to unload it.

 

He has said that he managed without a car previously so if he can manage again without it and the value of the car covers the remaining balance on the finance then it makes perfect sense to clear this off whilst he gets his life back on track.

 

Time Machine

 

Apparently in the 2 years I've been gone the public transit budget went WAY downhill. They tore down a bunch of transit centers and they cut back the bus schedules.

 

In the UK it's slightly different. If you make an offer to your creditors that you'll pay £1 a month to pay off the debt and they refuse and take you to court, they can get a judgement and you could then say you can only afford 50p a month and they are forced to accept. As soon as you make an offer to pay a reduced sum they are screwed, because the law sees that you are at least trying to clear your debts. It only works for unsecured debt though, if it's secured they can reposes (car/house/etc).

With mortgages they are being forced to accept offers now though. If your mortgage has a high interest rate that you're locked into then you can ask for a lower interest rate. You can go from a repayment mortgage to interest only and in some cases get the interest added to the capital and don't pay anything. But you have to be upfront and have a dialogue with them. If you keep quiet and just stop paying then the law is on their side.

It's hard to reposes a house as they aren't allowed to use force to evict you. Most of the time their paperwork is wrong and it's only because people give up and hand over the keys that they can do it.