“Dear Steve,
I am going thru a seperation. My only income is a ss. disability check in the amount of 788 per month. I have 37000.00 in unsecured debt. Can you help me?
Can you help me find someone to settle my debts?
Thank you.
Angie”
The Answer:
Dear Angie,
I say this with the utmost of compassion and sincerity, what the hell are you doing trying to settle this?
Unless you have an extra $17,000 laying around you don’t need to settle this debt, you need to go bankrupt. Based on the $788 being your only source of income there is no reasonable expectation you would be able to save enough money to settle any of this debt.
You might want to check with the free pro bono legal clinics to see if any of them can help you. Click here for the listing.
Alternatively, if you have not other assets, and you don’t plan to have any big windfall coming up then you may simply elect to let the debt go delinquent and allow creditors to sue you. Creditors can’t garnish your disability income so even though they may sue you and win judgements they would not be able to collect on them. But if you decide to follow this route the collectors will continue to contact you and give you are hard time. With the bankruptcy route it will close the door on the debt forever and you won’t need to think about it again.
Please update me on your progress by posting updates here in the comments section of your question. I’m very interested in how this works out for you.
If you have a credit or debt question you’d like to ask just use the online form. I’m happy to help you totally for free.