“Dear Jon, I left the UK in 2008 under a cloud, a lot of things had gone wrong for me. Among them was debt. I had taken a job for Swindon council who promised to refund my moving expenses during the application process but when I turned up with the bills played dumb and denied any responsibility. So I borrowed ... Read More »

If you have been following the early tips I suggest for how to negotiate and settle directly with your credit card bank, you have already had several “just calling to keep you posted” conversations with your bank (I recommend you call your lender once a month, or every several weeks, up to month 5 of being late with payments). If ... Read More »

This post was inspired by my comment exchange with a site reader about negotiating a settlement with a Discover credit card that is now in the hands of a collections law firm. My comment would have been too lengthy a reply on the page the discussion originated, and this is also something that is not all that topical to the ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I went to the Art Institute as soon as I graduated high school, I had financial issues there. They said I was behind 7 payments with the school (but even until this day that doesn’t make any sense to me, because if I was behind even one I should have been notified.) so they said I had to ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, My wife works in the boston public school system. has for 10+ years. she has ~$95K in student loans. I thought she should qualify for debt relief since she works in the school system. Unfortunately, they look at our joint income, which puts us out of contention. Their formula doesn’t account for all the expenses we incur with ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, My wife and I purchased a time-share at Capital Cove thru Wyndham near Washington, D.C. During a follow-up session my wife and I were told we had to upgrade or we would not be able to keep our perks of being VIPs in the company. After several attempts to make reservations, 10 months out, and not being able ... Read More »

Question: I Can’t Pay My Bills. What Can I Do? Dear Steve, I’m so completely freaked out about my bills. I’m now so in debt and worried about it I can’t sleep, I’m depressed, and all my wife and I do is fight about money. I’m constantly telling my kids they can’t participate in any school events because I can’t ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I have about $18,000 in student loan debt. I recently was contacted by the Student Loan Education Center that said they were a third party company that was setting up consolidations for the US Dept of Education to consolidate my loans for a fee of $599. They said I qualified for an income based plan and then got ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I signed for 16,000 bank school loan, when a payment was late I received the bill stating the total was 21,000 two different loans, one for the 16,000 and another for 8,000. I told the bank 16,00 was mine. The story goes, the school told the loaner they only received 8,000 he called the bank and the said ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I have a question about my student loans. When I first graduated from graduate school, I was eligible for pay as you earn. This is because while I was in school, I had very little income, and I didn’t start working right away and so only had a partial year of income. I signed up for the pay ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I was injured at work really bad. (Neck/Back/Shoulder) I missed 2 years of work. I lost everything I owned: House, my business. my boat,motorcycle, work trucks, and property. Everything was gone.It all went to pay bills and just to eat as I had a family of 4. At almost 40 years old i had to retrain, the injuries ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, At the age of 40 I got a AA degree with Federal Student Loans. I do not work in my field of study. I am now 55 and I did miss a few payments after wife got sick and lost job and that chewed up our savings. I have been paying steady for the last 4 years and ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I have a federal student loan that I haven’t been paying on. My 2014 tax refund has been garnished. Is there any way to get this reversed. If I set up a payment schedule with the US Department of Education C/o Great Lakes Higher Education Guarantee Corp? Thanks, Roger” The Answer Dear Roger, If your tax refund was ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, My fiancée has over $60k in private student loans. The original amount borrowed was $35k she is a teacher and always thought the student loan forgiveness program would apply and we discovered it doesn’t We have calculated that she cant afford to pay the minimum payments and reduce the balance. Her last payment was May 2014, I read ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I graduated college in 2006 with an incredible private student loan debt. After working for over a year with the company I simply could not afford their ridiculous payments, I tried everything I could. In the end the loans went into default and I’m sure were sold several times over since. I have always kept up my federal ... Read More »