“Dear Steve,
We started our own business about 6 years ago. We had just finished building a new house and the business was one that takes a few years to build up. Not enough income coming in, lots of new expenses for the business led us to the perfect storm of debt. Now our business is starting to really thrive, but we have so much debt we can’t imagine getting out of it. Tons of credit card debt mostly because we had to rely on them to survive.
How do your recommend we go about attacking this debt? Should we focus on one card at a time and get rid of it and then move onto the next one? Won’t we get even further behind if we only pay mimimums on the other cards in the meantime? Would the debt snowball idea work in this case? We don’t believe in walking away from debt that we are responsible for…
Any advice you have would be GREAT!
Thanks!
Julie”
Dear Julie,
The debt snowball approach can accelerate your debt payoff. ReadyForZero.com is a free service to help automate this for you. It’s worth looking at. In fact you can use the free How to Get Out of Debt Calculator to review your options.
What I’m about to say it not designed to push you towards bankruptcy. But I’m sure you’d agree that you can’t make a fully informed decision unless you know all the facts. In order to make sure you are educated about your options it’s also a good idea to talk to a local bankruptcy attorney licensed in your state. That way you can know what bankruptcy would mean for you and if you then decide to discount it, that’s fine.
The key issue to examine as you develop this roadmap out of debt is if you are able to payoff your debt and save money at the same time. I’ve just seen too many people put all their eggs in the getting out of debt basket, only to not be prepared for a random emergency expense. And then, guess what, it lands back on a credit card and erodes the progress you made.
So in evaluating the best path for you let’s not push anything off the table for consideration till we see what fits your circumstances.
Does that seem like a fair and reasonable approach?
Oh yes, you might want to read How to Get Out of Debt. The Honest and Unvarnished Truth. It will help you to put it all in perspective.
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Can someone explain exactly what the Debt Snowball is? I’m in desperate need of an alternative to bankruptcy. Especially being that I’m only 25.
See https://getoutofdebt.org//tag/debt-snowball/