My Family struggles with Debt

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2006
My Family struggles with Debt
11
Mon, 12-07-2009 - 12:56pm

I have so many things to post about this week ladies! I've been sitting on this topic for a few days now because it's painful to talk about. I have been getting calls from credit card companies about my dad. My dad started a business with my uncle about 5 years ago and it is just not doing well in this economy. My dad has made hardly any money this year. last year he only brought in about 20 thousand (if that!) and he's been using credit cards constantly for living expenses but I guess it's finally caught up with him. He emailed me last week about how he didn't know if the business was going to pull through and he was sick of working so hard for no money. He said that he had turned off his cell phone because of the calls from creditors. And so now they have started to call me. I keep on telling them they have the wrong number and that's not a lie either because they have never asked me once if I know who they are calling about. I told my dad to maybe think about bankruptcy. If the business fails then he is going to lose everything. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tools (he's in the woodworking business) because they signed a contract with their shop owner and they have to pay for 5 years and it's only been 3! It's just a mess. I feel so bad about the predicament he's in because I've sooooo been there. And when I was there, my dad was there to help me out but I'm still unable to help him out. I told him about this board and said that if he ever has any questions then I'd post them here.

Another bad thing that happened this week. My husbands father is in deep trouble too and not really of his own making. He has a lot of credit cards (7 or 8) and he had excellent credit but recently he reached a limit where he now has too many credit cards (long story, but has to do with Circuit City going out of business and Best Buy buying all of their lines of credit) so all of his cards lowered his credit limits. His credit score was hit hard when they did that because it affected his debt to credit ratio, and since his credit score took a hit, they also decided to raise his interest rates.

So both of the fathers in my life are now struggling heavily with credit cards. My BIL and SIL are struggling as well. I'm so glad that I got out of that mess before this economy hit!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-04-2008
Wed, 12-09-2009 - 1:37pm

Go ahead Abbie, I would love to help.




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