r/DebtAdvice

23F. I opened two capital one credit cards while in KS (2021 or 2022) I now live in GA. I stopped payments probably 2-3 years ago. One was $700 the other $300. The $700 card has $798 due and I can still pay this off through capital one but the other one is unavailable because it was sold to a debt collector idk who. I’m given these payment options for the available card: $479 in full, 3 monthly payments of $159 ($479.35), or $93.21 over 6 months (559.24). If I settle it says my credit report will be updated to charged off and paid in full for less than balance. My credit score is 587 should I settle or leave it unpaid?

I recently went for a bankruptcy consultation. Based on income of 10-11k a month total debts including attorney fees is 102k (includes 2 cars at 50k combined) they offered a ch 13 with worse case scenario of 3050 a month for 5 years. They mentioned we would most likely be at the worst case scenario. I feel like something is not clicking though for that amount a month I can try to knock out most small credit cards and then move into the bigger ones. And not be stuck in it for 5 years! Eventually get rid of one of the cars that is 40k of the total. Should I get a second opinion or do I really not understand it.

I am 22, made the biggest mistake of my life by thinking 'oh I can just pay it later' and kept putting everything on my credit cards. My mother also asked me to open credit cards because she couldn't. (Not her fault, it's on me for spending money I never had).

Anyway, I am about $11,600 in credit card debt and I want to pay it all off asap before my mom finds out. I currently only have a part time job but am actively looking for a second job. (I just applied to 5) I am looking for another part time or full time at this point, anything.

My credit is shot and I just need to know what I should do beyond this point. Should I pull out a loan and use that to pay back the biggest chunk of it or just wait until I find another job and use that money to pay off everything. I live in California and every job I have applied to is about $20/hr as they are all fast-food jobs.

Please someone help me out here.

I know I have messed up, if I had a time machine to tell myself to stop I would do it in a heartbeat.

Thanks.

I am a younger person in my 20s long story short I had an issue with a leased vehicle that I traded for a new 2025 Camry financed at 52k (late 2024). At that time I was a leasing agent working full time and could technically afford everything, since that a lot of things changed, relationship issues and break up, trouble in the workplace performing/holding down a job. I had to move back home in 2025 and had 2600 cc debt as of now I finished paying of my credit card debt so now all I have my car and insurance and basic expenses besides savings money, My issue is that I have still been struggling with work and finding decent jobs and when I do something always happens or I end up not being good enough. in the mean time after some recent work struggles, I started work as a server which seems it will at least pay my bills but leave me to fend for myself with gas and food, and staying mentally sane. My question is what money moves can I make to fix my issue? Rn my current car loan is 43k loan balance, 4.99 apr and 800 per month and the insurance makes it 1100 basically a rent payment and that infuriates me. What do I need to do to make sure I can still build savings, and be on the right track to have a successful life? I would eventually like to buy a house and plan for that too. I just don't know how I can do anything in life rn with this debt not being controlled? I have also tried going to dealerships but I am underwater always and the only solution they offer is a new car lease which in theory could work but work technically cost more and not work bc I drive lots of miles and go to lots of places since I have been forced to do more deliveries.

See my dad was defrauded by a person that he'll invest money in crypto and s*it and took 30lacs from my dad for which he had to take a home loan and now he's not paying it back I know it my dad's fault all over but suggest me the ways to recover I need to recover or my home will be gone he has given a cheque of 17lacs i think but not sure if he played in that in some way like putting the date of something else and can I use recovery agents or some other help tell me whatever you can guys I'm fucke*

TurboDebt has almost 8000 reviews and a 4.9 rating, and one ad stated that it’s not a loan and it’s not bankruptcy and you don’t have to pay it back. Sounds great. 

I looked at some reviews as well. Some of the glowing reviews loved that the salesperson had just walked through the process with them the previous night and many seem to be about the enrollment process, but not the actual day-to-day with the program. 

That said, some of the negative reviews were quite negative.

Is Turbo Debt legit? Has anyone here worked with Turbo Debt and care to review how does it work? Any advice?

I have 3 large debts I am trying to payoff...

Car Payment Owing $8135 at 7.740% APR

Preferred Credit Loan of $3900 with No Interest if I Pay before January 2027

Time Investment Loan of $9790 with 11.99% interest that begins on 6/15/2026

I had a plan in place to tackle the preferred credit loan by making about a monthly payment of about $450. Im worried about the Time Investment Loan hitting me the hardest. Is there a way I can get this paid off and have a lower interest rate with consolidating? Using a HELOC? I tried calling a Debt Relief Program but it seemed too scammy with a interest rate of 23%

Any advice is appreciated!

Hey Everyone,

First time poster but I'll lay out my situation as best I can. I do want to start of by saying I have gotten MUCH better on the frivolous spending such as out to eat and unnecessary purchases. I have only gone to the gas station 1 time in the last 2 months, so i think I am in the right direction as far as my spending habits are concerned and I'm ready to start chipping away at the debt so I can get back on track to have emergency funds and not stress money as much

I am 36 years old and live in a pretty LCOL.

income as IT specialist per month after retirement/healthcare taken out- $3896/month (paid once a month)

What gets taken out-
mortgage with escrow - $1050
Electric/water/sewer/trash pickup- $200 (usually 145-170)
Gas- $72 (locked in price, never changes)
phone - $64
Spotify - $25
YouTube premium - $15
twitch subscriptions- $35
school loan - $50 ($3k-ish left)
car insurance - $152
Lawn care - $50
HVAC membership- $30
Chase credit card- Minimum $343 ($11,094 balance)
AC replacement (full condenser and labor)0 - $150 (balance remaining $5,173)
house renovation / BS spending consolidation loan- $824 @ 15.79% through USAA ( $38,218 Remaining, I am a Veteran but I feel like this is a high %)

If my math is right, I normally have around $800 left for groceries/gas for car (prius thats paid off with a 10 mile commute)

I guess my question is is there anything I could be doing different? I feel as if I am drowning a bit due to stupid decision in my younger days in the military of just using credit cards and transferring and just being stupid with money. I do have almost 3x my salary in a 403b and maybe $2k in a HYSA I treat as an emergency fund but I know i need to do more.

If this needs to be put into another subreddit or formatted differently please let me know.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

I just received a $35K settlement check, and I currently owe $43K in student debt at an average interest rate of 7.5%. Should I continue making $1,000 monthly payments (minimum is $430), pay off the loan using the settlement plus $8K from my $30K savings, or invest the money in the S&P 500 ETF and keep making the $1,000 payments?

My account was charged off in December 2025 and the last payment I made towards my balance was in May 2025. I want to pay off my debt but I’m in college, an international student, and didn’t even have a job till 4 months ago, that too, part-time. I barely even make enough for food expenses to make it through the whole month.

I have also been locked out of my capital one account because I changed my number after my phone was stolen and I’m unable to verify the log in. The only way I have been getting updates on my account has been through my email for the past 6 months. I have been meaning to call them to get access to my account so I can check the status etc. but I’m afraid that I’m going to get sued if I make that call….

Any advice on my options here and what to expect in this situation would be greatly appreciated.

**Additional info: I only have this one credit card and don’t have any other debts, nor have I had debts in the past.

I don't understand and no one can provide an answer. I know so many people who just don't pay their medical bills. What happens? We live in Wisconsin. I've seen that the statute of limitations is 6 years. But 6 years for what? 6 years to bug me? Collection agencies are all over the place. What happens if I just don't ever pay my $140 bill? It goes away?

I hope this is the right place for this question. But I'm currently being sued for a decent amount (2k) for a debt I don't recognize and is not on my credit reports? A little background, my ex got me into a decent amount of debt (not a huge amount) over 7 years ago Because of that my credit score plummeted so I haven't opened any credit cards or got any loans in those 7 years simply because I always got denied, which leads me to be even more confused about this debt.

I got a summons to go over my income/assets, but before that, my question is: is there any way to find out what this debt even is? Who it's from, when it was created, etc? The plaintiff is a debt collector and it doesn't say who they got my debt from.

Any help/advice is appreciated!

Hello, I am in need of serious help and any guidance is appreciated.

I love my mother but she has gotten herself into a situation that I (30f) feel like I’m not qualified to fix.

1. She owns a small manufacturing business.

2. IRS is threatening to seize assets.

3. She’s taking high interest loans out to cover payroll and expenses in between getting paid by clients.

4. All her personal credit cards are maxed and she’s being sued by one of them (I forget which one)

I have no idea what I’m doing. Any help is appreciated.

So I made a dumb decision and financed a 2018 Audi q3. The car had only one prior owner who took get care of the vehicle and at the time of this post it has 56,246 miles on it.

My Monthly payment is $479 and my insurance is $300, totaling $779 a month. My total loan is $20,208 at 8.8% I’ve made the decision over the past few months to pay $600 a month towards the car instead of $479 and extra $121.

With this current set up, after all of my bills are paid I am able to save $500 a month and have $700 a month of “free money” This is a comfortable spot for me as I usually am not spending $700 a month anyways and will almost certainly have money left over from month to month.

But looking at how I’m sending $900 to the slaughter each month I’ve been thinking about selling my car.

I’m currently about $5500 dollars underwater on the loan. I could save the $5500 in about 2-3 months if I use my taxes, paychecks, and the savings that I currently have. Then I could pay the underwater difference and sell the car to free myself from the loan. This seems like a good idea but the thought of throwing 6k away and to not have the vehicle or anymore savings sucks. The good part is I would free up 900 a month going forward.

The main problem is when I look at the break down, let’s say it takes me 3 months to save the $5500. It’s April now so April, may, and June I would be saving and From July until December I could save $5400 in total once the $900 is freed.

If I keep the car and continue saving $500 a month from today until the end of the year I could save $4,000 in total AND still have the car. Also I wouldn’t have to drain my savings to do this so it’d be more like 4,000 plus what I have in savings now ~ $1500 so honestly at least $5,500

So the math is very close. One situation just has more risk when it comes to actually keeping the car. And the other frees up my flexibility to be able to spend pretty much how I want. I know if I keep the car I’d still have to factor in gas and maintenance but I will have to pay gas and maintenance regardless because I will need a car no matter what.

I have a 2015 Mazda that is fully paid off, the only problem with it is , I was in a bad accident so the car ugly but that’s about it. But that car has 155k miles and I’m not sure how much longer it will last. I would hate to spend 6k, sell my car, save $5,400 dollars and then need to spend it all again on a new car. I guess you could say well that’s only 11k instead of 20k which makes sense.

I’m just having a rough time with this. Please any helpful, USEFUL advice would be appreciated.

I filed Chapter 7 back in July 2018.

Is the 8 year waiting period from the date you filed or the date of discharge?

I went through several job losses and series of financial hardships relating to unexpected health issues over the past few years.

Also, does it look bad or strange if you look into filing days after the 8 year waiting period. Is there a certain amount of time to wait since I do not want things to look questionable.

I know there are likely a lot of people falling on hard times with the job market and layoffs being the way they have been the past few years.

Life happens and I would love to hear from people who have filed several times.

Hello everyone, I need advice from reddit but I've been getting texts from a debt collector about a Fitness membership that I started when I was 16 and I remember asking to cancel so I thought I was done with the gym but then now 3 years later I get contacted by a debt collection service. For context I am now 19 and from Finland I just need advice on what to do about this? Do I pay the debt collector or is there a way I can reach out the gym. Please help. I'm not sure what to do.

Here is my current situation: I make 70k (used to make only 45k, which is when my debt was really built) and I put as much as possible into my debt each month but so much is going to interest and it feels like nothing is budging.

I have 21k on a 21% APR card, 1k on a 24% APR card, and 17k left on a previous consolidation loan.

Is it a good idea to do a new consolidation loan to lower my interest payments? I feel like I’m throwing $300+ in the trash every month. If I do that, should I do a larger loan that will cover all of my debt and I only have one higher payment each month? Or should I just cover the cards and have two smaller payments each month? I assume the second option would be less of a hit on my credit score, and I accept that this will be a hit to that, but my consistently high credit usage isn’t exactly doing me any favors.

Please be nice I built a lot of my debt when I assumed I would be sewerslideal enough eventually for it not to be a problem. But now I’m mentally better and facing the consequences of my actions 🙃

Do I save money by sending payments when I have the money? I'm talking about a credit card. Say I send $300 . Then another $300. Then 400. Or is it the same as sending a thousand? I know the average daily balance is less but does it matter? The way they do the math, I don't think I'm saving money. Just curious.

I (24 F) had some minor charges on my accounts already, probably barely even 20% utilization on two of my cards and my credit was at 750. Then life happened and after a medical emergency I ended up having to max out all 3 of my credit cards. I owe about $22k in total.

My partner and I agreed to go through with the medical procedure together on the terms that we both put in equal payments towards the credit cards every month. That didn’t happen. For a little over a year it was just me paying off the minimum for each card because that is all I could afford with the other bills I take care of. I would throw in any extra money I had after paying off my bills as well. As time passed, the interest started accumulating and payments started feeling like they were going nowhere and not making any sort of impact.

I switched tactics months ago to try the snowball method in hopes I can knock out my lowest balance credit card however I still feel like I haven’t been making any type of progress. It’s been 2 years already and I feel stuck and hopeless. I was looking into maybe taking out a loan to consolidate but my credit has plummeted to around 590 where it wouldn’t even be worth it as I wouldn’t get approved with a decent interest anyways.

Some info on my debt:

My minimum payments are $180, $240, and $278

Total interest a month adds up to about $400

My annual salary comes up to probably a little over $50k (before taxes)

After bills and other financial responsibilities, I really only have about $900 to work with every month, which is basically all my minimum payments and like $200 to throw in.

Current tactic has been paying the minimum on my highest balances and paying the minimum + $200 on my lowest balance

I’m not sure how to make it easier for me, I’ve already cut unnecessary expenses as well as not using my credit cards anymore. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have just told me to file bankruptcy but for me that would be a last resort as I really don’t want that on record for myself.

Does anyone have any advice on what the best way to tackle this debt would be or how I should be approaching the way I’m paying it off?