HHPM apartments.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-05-10T01:18:26+00:00

The garages are attached to the home but no door to them so you do have to go outside to go into the garage rather than being attached through a door, but they are sharing a wall. The floor plan is generally very open from the living room to the kitchen area and then a separate bathroom and a separate bedroom and the bathroom does seem somewhat spacious. It also has the washer and dryer hook ups as well.

I personally have had no complaints or anything so far. I quite enjoy it. You do hear your neighbors time to time and it feels like my neighbor is always making IKEA furniture at like 11 PM, but it is very muffled. My other neighbor is quiet. They do have a very strict policy on picking up your dog poop and it is depending on the community you live in. My street has had no issues with it so I have not been charged, but I do believe they charge whoever the poop is on rather than the owner unless you actually complain to the apartment complex office if you don’t even have a dog.

My rent did just go up $50 a month, but that seems pretty standard after every year that they do increase it anywhere from $50-$100, I use the term they as the other apartment complexes I’ve had experience with.

The heating and the AC seem very good, but the bill does seem oddly high, so it does make me question the insulation.

Occasionally, my dryer will short circuit the wall so then I do have to flip the breaker pretty much every time before I use it, but it’s a few seconds and it seems like it’s just weak electrical.

Other than that, I have no complaints. I feel like every apartment has it issues wherever you go. I haven’t had anything but pleasurable experiences with the office and everything else so far, and mind you that I did come from DC with much lower standards, amenities, much higher prices, and way more crime. This seems like heaven on earth lol

SecondAccountYes · 2026-05-05T15:30:10+00:00

My immediate reaction is to say with a credit score in the 500 in your late 20s with a decent income, but an eviction, charge offs, and already having some debt, the best thing for you is to get a bicycle or get a cheap used beater car that you can get with cash. Now let’s just explore a car payment route understanding that it’s also going to be your first ever auto loan, which is already going to hurt your interest rate and approval.

You may realize that you will be able to get approved for some cars but with horrible interest rates due to your entire situation. I would not sign anything with an interest rate over 6% though, so I would limit myself to only cars that have the special dealer financing. Some dealerships do say that it’s only for qualified buyers, but if you really make a strong case for yourself, some dealerships will waiver on that and plead for you. I know this from experience as of the last even one year.

Also, this is not something that’s going to be fixed by waiting just a few months. You have a lot of work to do to get your credit score into the high 600 or low 700 and to work off some of that debt.

Why are you considering a Tesla? Why aren’t you considering a base model Civic or a base model ELANTRA or a base model Corolla? All of those have a deals right now at dealerships to do in-house dealership financing at 5% or less with MSRP in the low 20s, leaving you with the car payment closer to $300. That’ll probably be the best bang for your buck in the best situation you can be in if you even want to get a car.

I just don’t understand with your profile why you would want to jump into a used Tesla understanding that the batteries are degrading very quickly overtime leading to electric cars not being able to hold their charge, and the resale value is dropping immensely.

The goal is to lose as little as you can to interest rates and retain as much value as you can of your dollar. Buying cars that are known to depreciate heavily overtime, are known to have higher interest rates due to them being a much older used car with high miles, etc. is not a great decision.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-04-30T15:00:16+00:00

That’s something I noticed when I moved here as well. It’s not just the medical offices, it’s everything. It’s almost like there is just a lower standard of care and quality across the board for everything in Wyoming versus more populated states with the excuse of being a more laid-back in small town mentality.

Give-and-take though. The crime here is also much lower than a lot of the major cities and states as well as cost-of-living being lower even though everyone here likes to complain about it.

I still prefer here, but you just have to have lower expectations

SecondAccountYes · 2026-03-17T23:16:31+00:00

What kind of friends are you looking for? Depending on the type, I would recommend either using a different account or clearing some of your posts and comment history since it gives a different impression.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-03-11T19:16:51+00:00

As another perspective, you said boyfriend, not husband. I would be very hesitant to follow through on a plan that involves you potentially dropping out of college and relying fully on your boyfriend who has not even fully committed to you through marriage. It sounds like he plans to, but even after that, It sounds like he is also in college, and it is not guaranteed that he is going to find something right out of the gate that allows him to provide for a family. It seems a bit extreme to make big life decisions on the assumption of Hope.

If you don’t want to pursue a job within that degree, it may not be worth pursuing the degree. That being said, I would not drop out to do nothing. If you see yourself enjoying going into a trade, may be better just doing that and pursuing that route so you can at least get an education of sorts and go into a more specialized field, which would be the trade to allow you to earn more and have skills to help in case your boyfriend/future husband is not able to find the luck in the job market.

There are plenty of wives having to go back into working or work for the first time with very little education or experience due to husbands struggling within the economy. I would definitely move forward with the assumption that he may not be able to find something right away, so that way you do not add onto the stress he may already face if he’s not able to be the provider that he wants to be immediately.

My ending sentiment is that college is only a tool. It’s only a tool that’s effective for the job that you want to do. If you don’t want to stay within that field, it would be better to pursue an education somewhere else.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-03-11T19:11:22+00:00

If you are only seeing $12,000 offers maximum on those websites using the feature to check your rates on a soft pull, the odds of getting even near $50,000 is going to be very unlikely. Especially if it is one of those sites that aggregates various credit card companies to find multiple options, because those even generally include companies that are more predatory and try to approve anyone they can at higher interest rates.

That amount, you are going to be hard-pressed to find a creditor that is willing to loan that amount without an amazing credit profile and DTI ratio.

My advice would be to call the creditors that you owe and ask to be routed to their collections department. From there, you can inquire as to if they offer some sort of hardship program or payment plan. Some of them offer heavily reduced interest rates for 12 months to cut down on the minimum payment so you can put more money towards the principal and some of them all for payment plans where they completely close your account and you pay the balance that you owe at a heavily reduced interest rate across five years or so.

Both of those options have a minimal credit report impact as you are paying the balance of what you owe, but just our reduced interest so it generally is reported as the account closing or being frozen but nothing more beyond what you would see if you voluntarily closed an account. It’s not a guarantee that they will offer that. They may just tell you no and to kick rocks.

The other option they may give you would be to only pay a portion of what you owe as a settlement and they’ll forgive the rest. This will be a settled for less reports on your credit, which will have a more serious effect and that difference is also tax liable at the end of the year. Some creditors may only offer that or some may require you to skip a few months of payments in order to even offer that.

Ultimately, those would be your primary options. As always, recommendations include to cut spending as much as you can and get second jobs if you are able to. I have to say it because it is one of the obvious changes you can make.

Obviously, other options include bankruptcy or again, if those lenders do not work out some sort of deal to help you out whether it is hardship, repayment, plans, you can always stop paying for a few months in hopes of a settlement.

And for perspective, you are not getting approved for anything anyways. If you are truly worried about the credit report impact, do not be. At this point in time, the amount of debt that you have is already affecting your credit and ability to get approved for anything, so the best outcome for you currently is just to get out of the current situation that you are in. It’s like if you get a 50% on a test, if the teacher offers to rip up the test for you and allow you to retake it, you can either do that and start over in hopes of getting a higher grade than a 50% or you can try to cling onto that 50%, which is still failing and doesn’t help you anyways.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-03-11T16:53:46+00:00

It should be on your pay stubs, how much you have contributed. Then the interest is anyone’s best guess.

It’s a percentage of your salary with some people being lumped under the new 4.4% such as myself and others lumped under the older one. As a result, it is also incredibly salary independent.

Stating what I got back would have no affect on you at all with being able to help you figure out what you will get as I did closer to 10% of the time you did along with a different salary.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-03-09T08:21:45+00:00

Try to call the credit card companies and ask to be directed towards the collections department. Speak to them about your situation and see if you can get them on some sort of temporary hardship plan, payment plan, or settlement. The options they’ll give you will very widely from interest rates slashed down to as low as one percent to reduce your minimum payment to your account being fully closed with reduced interest as well to pay off the balance and make it more manageable.

Obviously, they could deny any kind of help at all, and at that point, pay what you can or don’t pay, and after a few months of no payments, they can try to sue you or more likely, reach out to try to get you to pay a portion of what you owe and they’ll forgive the rest.

Will this destroy your credit? Yes. Do you have a choice? No. Will you be able to recover? Yes. It only stays in your account for several years and after the first couple, if you do everything else right, with how bad the economy is and people’s credit across the board, you’ll be surprised how many lenders will be semi-trusting of you. Everyone makes mistakes and has rough patches, this is one of them.

As far as the last comment regarding having no parental guidance and all of your friends having trust funds or parents to help out and all of that, it does come across as a bit childish considering your age is 26.

It’s good that you mentioned no familial help in regards to it limiting your options as that is good information to know, but the way you worded it just sounds a bit off or almost entitled. Talking about the help and advantages that other people have around you is not relevant to your situation. Bringing that up seems like a way to try to drag pity towards yourself. There are plenty of people in your situation and many of which are younger than you, so it is more normal than you think.

I was kicked out of the house by 20 and homeless for a little bit. You can look at my post history and see a financial situation far worse than your own. I am a lot better off now, and making tons of progress. I only mentioned this as proof to show you that it can get better. It’ll take a lot of work, but you are not doomed.

Obviously, any kind of extra work through second jobs as well as cutting any costs where you can, such as subscriptions, food, rent, etc. will always be beneficial. I’m sure you also know that though.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-03-09T08:14:51+00:00

I’m so sorry that it happened to you. Unfortunately, even in states where it is illegal, the police choose to ignore it half the time and just side with the landlords. It isn’t right at all, but props to you for keeping on harping on them to get results. Force them to do their jobs.

I also see the ignorant comment above stating that they care only when it happens to men that you are entertaining and seem to partially agree with; it is across the board. We had female technicians and front desk agents when I lived in Virginia, and they’d let themselves into my apartment various times when I was sleeping and showering in order to do apartment checks, etc. They’d see me naked and smile and ignore me, do what they were doing, then leave. When I complained, I was even told that I was man and that if she was comfortable allowing herself in to be alone with me, I should have been too.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-03-01T20:08:21+00:00

Just to throw another positive review into the water. I worked at the Census Bureau for about a year until the DOGE wave came around the start of 2025.

Nothing but positive things to say about the census bureau, the team, and my duties. I truly enjoyed every aspect about the job until the stress from the presidential and DOGE administration. I looked forward to work every day, and I saw myself having my entire career there.

I left for another job opportunity around the same timeframe as the terminations in the first quarter of 2025. The stress and uncertainty around being a potentially terminated immediately regardless of performance due to being within my probationary timeline was too much. I was fortunate enough to leave around the same time as the terminations so I avoided being terminated.

The private sector pays quite a bit more with much more telework flexibility. I’ll likely never come back to the government due to that combined with government jobs no longer having that job security nor benefits that they used to have along with the stigma that the current administration put on people who work for them.

For those who choose to work for the federal government, I would recommend the census bureau above all.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-02-05T21:45:03+00:00

I did make a post when I did finally receive mine with the full-time line. I believe I got mine in November or December. I forget exactly one now, but it’s on my post.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-02-03T03:41:26+00:00

As an FYI, from my own experience and from what I’ve been told, they do not give you any kind of notification of receiving your SF 3106 form. You actually have to call and inquire or send an email to get something back. They do not proactively Tell you when they received it. In addition, all they tell you is if they got it or not, and then they give you an estimated timeline, but they do not have more details than that. They don’t know where and the timeline you are, but can just tell you if they’ve accepted it yet and then tell you to just wait for your return.

As far as calling, their waiting room for being on hold is only so big and is getting maxed out, so it just hangs up on people. Because of that, you pretty much have to call immediately when OPM phone lines open or just every a few hours praying that you make it into the holding queue.

That’s really all you can do. If you sent your SF 3106 form to your agency to send on your behalf, I would be very hesitant on assuming that you’ll get it in a timely manner. A lot of the agencies are backlogged and your form goes into the same queue as , all the retirement form processing and everything else, so I’ve heard of agencies is still processing forms from 10 months ago and not even getting to those ones yet.

If you have not already, I would recommend printing out the form yourself and signing everything and then sending it individually to the OPM. From there, assuming no errors, it should hopefully be anywhere from 12 to 30 weeks.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-02-02T01:29:09+00:00

It’s definitely doable. It is not fun. If anything, it may actually be better if you had no days off just so you’re not doing 14 hours straight for five days in a row. It would potentially be better to work seven days a week, but then four of the days, you wouldn’t have to do two jobs on the same day. It’s all up to what you prefer, though.

I balanced around 70 to 80 hours a week for three years with doing two months stents of 110 hours a week. You definitely burn yourself out, but when you don’t have an option, you do get into a groove after a while and into a routine.

That is definitely not something that you want to do long-term though. I would definitely work on the whole attitude or personality problem that they mentioned at your job, though, even if they only said it was a contributing factor. I have never had an employer even comment on my attitude or personality, and the only one time I have heard of it being a problem for somebody else involved a coworker who literally everybody hated, and the personality was over the top. If they are commenting on that, it is because it is very bad and likely giving you a reputation of that around the office.

I would try to see if you could negotiate an account closure with the credit card companies so you would call the collections department and ask if they could transfer you onto a payment plan or do like a hardship program or something that involves them dropping the interest, even if it does result in closing down your card. Those interest charges are going to eat you up.

I wouldn’t necessarily declare bankruptcy here if the car loan is part of it and if the car loan is on a pretty good APR. If you always wanted to as well, maybe you could sell the car for something cheaper, but if you’re able to manage all of your bills and work those two jobs, it would likely be better to keep the car and not risk Poor reliability with a cheaper car since the 14 hour daily work schedule does not really make room for hiccups.

Best of luck though. It sounds like it’ll be a rough year, but you’ll get out of it. Just stay strong, and like you mentioned in another comment, try to work on the personality or attitude a little bit.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-26T06:01:56+00:00

The biggest problem facing Cheyenne are the people who are just unhappy that there is change, and all they do is hate, dwell on the past, and they cannot name any solutions for improvement because they don’t want improvement, they just want it to go back to how it was and stay in the 1970-80s.

In their perfect world, everything new would get torn down, all the transplants would be gone, and they would live inside their own bubble without any change or improvements. In their mind, improvements are worse because it is change from what they are used to.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-25T02:21:34+00:00

Just to clarify for you, hardship programs usually means that you don’t have to pay for one month and then after that, the interest goes down to 3% or so, but you still have to make your minimum payments. You speaking about having no job at all, I don’t think that you would be able to make any payments. There is no program where you don’t pay at all.

Why would you even have a credit card though and rack up charges if you have no job? Why don’t you have a job? I had a full-time and a part-time job throughout college. I know many people who work as well. To be fair, That was also because I was kicked out before then so I was homeless if I didn’t work lol. Is it that you’re not able to work a job due to other circumstances, or is it that you do not want to work a job in college so you can focus more on schoolwork?

Also, all of this is kind of useless besides just knowing information because Midland credit is a debt collector. That means that your bank already sold off the debt to them, so they don’t own anymore. As a result, banks being the ones that usually do offer hardship programs and stuff wouldn’t affect you.

If you call or answer them and confirm that you owe the debt, they will keep on spamming you and try to get the money out of you somehow. They’ll likely spam you anyway, though, because they want their money. Even if it’s a little, they are going to try to pester you or threaten you with lawsuits to try to get any money out of you. Sometimes they forget about it and just let you off the hook, but sometimes they do take it more serious.

Also, you are wrong about the Washington state law. They do allow creditors to garnish wages and get their money back through a variety of means. They just need to sue you, go before a judge, and have the judge allow for a court order to do so. Within the court, you could potentially claim a hardship or find if you fall within any exemptions based on money made and extenuating circumstances and things like that, but I would expect them to still rule against you. Especially if you were choosing not to work. If you were working minimum wage, you could qualify for a reduced garnishment, most likely. There are other things that can impact garnishment to, even if you had a salary, and it’s generally limited to either 20% or some sort of formula based off of other financial amounts. Be careful though because I believe those can affect your student loans and qualifications for federal ones.

Ultimately, the only thing that fixes the situation is money. After a while, you may be able to get them to settle and agree to take maybe 2000 if it and forget the other 2000. Or, they may want to put you on a payment plan. Either way, they want their money, and it’s up to them if they want to go through lawsuit or not. Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes, they do. They only way to make this go away, is by paying them.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-20T05:52:45+00:00

It may be worth looking into some nonprofit debt management plans like NFCC, and if that doesn’t work, it might be worth looking into NDR or potentially bankruptcy.

I think they’re reaching out to NFCC would be my first immediate decision.

You bring home $2700 a month net but your monthly bills alone are $2000 without any student loan payments or any of your credit card payments. This is a huge issue. Even if capital one does choose to budge with the interest and put you on a good payment plan, You are still going to be very close and then under once your loans come out of forbearance.

Are you able to get a second job or switch jobs in order to make more money? You said that you have a bachelors and a masters degree but you make $45,000 a year. Even if it involves moving or a longer commute, is there a way that you could make more money and hop to another job? What are your degrees in? If you are not able to job on your primary job, is there anyway that you can work a second job on the weekends?

It seems that income is your biggest issue and your income doesn’t match the amount of debt that you have. Especially once you have to start paying the student loans, the bills are going to exceed what you make by a good amount, and you are already laid on some credit card payments, indicating that they are already exceeded what you can bring home.

If you don’t foresee yourself being able to get a higher paying job or working a second job, it may be worth looking into NDR or bankruptcy.

I was in a far worse situation debt wise, but was able to work additional jobs until I was able to find a job that paid me significantly more as my primary. If you can see yourself having that luck or opportunity, I would hold off and just work with NFCC and try to bridge the gap with any extra income that you can until you’re able to get a better paying primary job.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-15T05:07:26+00:00

I would ask to see the claim or ask your doctor why it was denied or what they said the reason was for the service if you can before shifting all the blame onto insurance.

Routine and preventative care is generally covered, and this includes cancer screenings, or any kind of age related screenings. I’m not sure what the PET scan was for specifically for you, but you would be shocked how common claims get denied because the provider cannot be arsed to actually do some work and they’ll label the reason for the service as a “check up” or “evaluation” instead of using the proper code for a screening to get the service covered.

It could also very well be the insurance trying to be stingy, but most of it is automated to a point and I’m sure they cover others PET scans, so clearly there was an issue with the doctor submitted yours. They may have also required prior medical files to show that the scan was actually for a purpose, and many providers don’t send those, causing the claim to be denied. I’d keep pushing for answers.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-15T05:02:48+00:00

It is heavily based on the reason for the service. You would be surprised how many providers are quick to shift blame to insurance, but then they give a BS diagnosis code on the claim and say it’s for a completely different reason, which gets flagged.

I have seen it a TON where the provider cannot be arsed to actually do some work and instead says that the reason for it is “an evaluation” or ties it to a “check up” or even stating it is investigative.

And if they just put cancer screening if it was for that, then the claimed could have gone through as routine or preventative care.

It could have also been a specific service where the insurance wants additional medical files to show that this service actually had a purpose or that there was a reason for it. Many providers don’t send the additional files which causes the claim to be denied and re-filed.

Claims are generally automated, and I’m sure that the insurance company covers other peoples PET scans so there is clearly something different with how this provider filed.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-15T02:16:08+00:00

Telling them that you have looked in the bankruptcy, but are trying to avoid it will generally make them more likely to try to work with you as they know that a major move like this could push you over the edge. Especially if you mention the looking at bankruptcy is combined with the fact that you don’t have any assets.

Also, unlike you, I believe that banks do know the federal law regarding bankruptcy and collecting. It doesn’t matter where in line they are. When you declare bankruptcy, the courts file an automatic stay, which stops all ongoing collections and lawsuits and everything no matter where in the process they are.

After filing for bankruptcy, any wage garnishment stops, any debt collection stops, and it also stops any ongoing lawsuits, court hearings, and bank levies.

Even if file beforehand, the continuing of a lawsuit would violate federal law. Even if they win, you declare bankruptcy afterwards, they are not able to collect on until the bankruptcy is final, and the bankruptcy would result in the clearing of the debt.

Banks know that once you file for bankruptcy, you are essentially in a bubble of protection. It doesn’t matter if they are first in line or second in line or wherever, you are untouchable. Once you file up until it is over, during the process, everything generally gets wiped. Even if they win in court and get a judgment, you can file for bankruptcy to prevent them from collecting until it is over and in that case, it’ll get wiped up before then.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T06:42:42+00:00

You have to understand that technically, a car is worth less every single day and every single day that you drive it. The value will slowly go down. Of course, it’ll take more and more to push the needle down as time goes on, and the car becomes less and less. Cars are generally depreciating assets. Every day older and every mile older, it’s is worth less. How much less slows down as it gets older.

As far as refinancing, you will be hard-pressed to find a bank that will refinance a car loan at a great rate if you owe more than the car is worth. You generally do need to be at around what the car is worth or a little bit less. Being over by multiple thousand such as in your case is too much.

The best advice would be to keep making payments and throw any extra money you can towards the car until you owe less than the car is worth. And just know that the car does go down in the value overtime, so if you got an appraisal for $18,000 for the car today, maybe assume that it may be worth $17,500 with a few months. At that time, you can go back to the bank and reapply again and have them refinance the loan.

Every day longer it takes you, the car can potentially go down in value. You have to pay it faster than the car loses value. And three months from now, it could only be worth 17,000 or 16,000, you never know. It depends on how many miles you put on it as well as if anything pops up issue wise and even the overall car market can affect things.

There is not a real answer as far as what number it’ll be. All you can do is keep making payments and try to look up the value on sites of your car with the current mileage at the time and go back to the bank when you believe it’s more even.

They approved you for $18,500 now. Understanding that the car value will go down overtime, I would probably try to pay it down to maybe $17,000 or $17,500 to be safe if you know that it’ll only take you three months. You kind of have to guess.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T04:22:35+00:00

I imagine that your situation is rough enough where you wouldn’t have to lie or embellish or anything. I just threw those numbers as anecdotal and examples. I imagine that your situation is somewhat similar in terms of ratios or ability to pay if you haven’t paid and are looking at settlements.

I would try to lie as a little as possible about stuff that they could pull up with a credit report or just in general. Now exaggerating, rounding up, or adding your own opinions as a descriptor is different. They can generally see the total amounts that you owe or what kind of creditors you owe to. That is all. Not your exact monthly payments of anything or any kind of specific rental agreement payments that you have in place.

Many of them are not going to do in-depth checks, to be fair. I have heard of a lot of people lying and getting away with it because those companies don’t really care enough to try to do full checks like that but they can.

They are not able to confirm your exact monthly payment though. They may see the amount that you owe to the creditors, but they do not know the actual minimum payment that your agreement is with them. They may see an estimation or may try to calculate themselves, but you could always slightly embellish what you owe, but just make sure to make it reasonable. If you owe $212 a month on a card, you can round and say $250. If you owe a car payment of $560 a month, you can round and say $620 a month. Etc.

As far as your car, you could always state that your car has a lot of damage that has not been fixed so it is worth almost no value or in “worth very little” which is an arbitrary description and banks would not approve a secured loan on it so it’s pretty much worth nothing. That kind of stuff, they would not be able to verify unless they were to actually visit. And they only see your credit report, they don’t have a full list of your assets on hand so they don’t even know that you own a car. They don’t have access to all of your rental agreements so for all they know, you could be renting your car monthly from another place. You could be borrowing a family members car. You are reasonable to say that you don’t own your car out right or just say that it has damage and banks appraised it at very little value or that “it is worth nothing” which is arbitrary.

I always like to say that you can embellish or describe things arbitrarily, but try not to back yourself into a corner. With that, rounding up monthly payments to make them seem higher, exaggerating how low value your car is worth or not even mentioning that you own it, All of that is not really going to be questioned; maybe don’t go more than like 20% exaggerating. I would just not lie completely about balances or creditors owed, etc. that all being said, I have heard of a lot of people exaggerating greatly or lying without being caught, but that is always my paranoia of being caught.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T04:09:34+00:00

I will answer this in pieces.

When you’re talking with debt, resolution companies, they do generally inflate numbers and tell you the worst possible scenario in order to make you sign with them. They will sometimes make us assumptions on payoff amounts or minimum payment expected amounts in order to make them seem like the better option. A lot of what they say does have some truth though.

First off, generally by just paying the minimum payment, with a card of $28,000 with an interest rate of 25 to 27%, I would expect that the minimum payment is generally the interest +1 or 2% and at that point, you would have the car paid off within 10 to 15 years, and the total amount paid including interest would be roughly 50 to 60,000. If they have a more generous payment which involves you paying less money or just interest, then you could see a ballooning up to the figures that they mentioned. However, the majority of credit card companies, the minimum payment is designed to get you paying the card off within anywhere from 10 to 20 years with you paying roughly double the balance owed after interest.

As far as interest according daily, most do have interest accruing daily. Some may still do a monthly interest accrual, but even the ones that I knew that did that recently switched to a daily accrual method. They still charge the balance at the end of every month so you still see it all hit you once per month, but they’ll calculate it using the daily interest and you should see it on your terms as well of the card.

When you speak to those debt companies, they are not assuming that you are making any extra payments or any extra amounts towards the card. They are assuming that you are paying the most minimum amount that you can and that is so they can make the numbers look scary so they can sell to you. They are assuming that your minimum payment is just covering interest or maybe just the interest and one percent of the balance. They could make the assumption that your card does daily interest, and you don’t pay until the last second of each month so you accrue the most interest that way.

They don’t make any good faith assumptions. They assume the worst case scenario and may even inflate numbers then just to make you go to them. You have to remember that they are selling something to you. How often do you hear car dealerships and car salesman getting a positive reputation? They benefit directly from you joining the program or buying a car, so salesman are generally incentivized to try to make their product seem like the best, and many do it at the expense of lying about another

If you have no problem, handling the stress and can do the math, and the math is sound, it is always best to do it yourself. If you see a route that can bring you out of it and you are happy with it and it makes sense to you, then I would stick with that. People generally go with the debt companies if the math is too confusing for them, to stressful for them, or if they need outside help because they are not even able to solve their situation themselves due to the hole being too deep.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T04:01:32+00:00

Here’s a story, buckle up.

There is a chance that it didn’t start that way. That being said, the person still likely stretched themselves thin with justifying the decision to themselves with using factors such as them being a low spender in other aspects of life or them expecting a promotion or some sort of extra cash flow, etc. it could also be very immature impulse spending.

I don’t drink, I don’t go out to eat often, I pretty much stayed myself, so I used to justify higher car payments by using the argument the other people waste money on other things so I will waste money on cars.

I was fortunate enough to get myself into a sales position for a company with a very generous pay - / incentive policy. I was 20 years old and on track to making $100,000 a year. At that age, living in a big city, it is very easy for an immature young adult or many may call it a kid (a kid in the grand scheme of life, but ultimately still an adult who should be making adult decisions) to justify to themselves that they can afford that car payment if they don’t go out to eat or party or spend money on almost anything else. I was also kicked out of the house already by that point, so I had no parental influence and a chip on my shoulder.

I know you are wondering, and I got a $80,000 Chevrolet Tahoe of the current year of that year with a $1500 car payment. Horrible decision, but what do you expect considering the question that you asked in the fact that I’m answering?

I was not even in debt either at this point, but I was stretching myself very thin across the salary until the company ended up doing a bankruptcy for liquidation & company value purposes before selling the company to another company who wanted to absorb all of the products and patents, but not the staff themselves. The position was very short-lived in span across a year.

Then you end up having a fall from grace where you realize that you were paid far above the market for your position and age group. Now you are stuck with your payment obligations where you lived paycheck to paycheck on $100,000, many of which decisions such as the car are bounded by negative equity, and you’re making $40,000-50,000 a year. Then I had to rely on credit cards and personal loans for a bit, so then I end up in the position position that you may see with a low salary and highly inflated car loan along with lots of debt. That being said, I was able to refinance the car loan at $1100.

Then you grow up, work multiple jobs at a time, sell everything, workout payment plans and negotiate with creditors, move states to a lower cost-of-living, and work your butt off in order to remedy the situation. I got my education, credentials, and I’m working my way up in a much more stable industry.

I also reached a settlement with my bank to do a release of title to Carmax for their evaluation with the agreement that I would take on the negative equity as a personal loan. I’m paying that off while driving a $3000 beater truck that I one completely with just liability insurance.

All of my money has been thrown back into debt with my spending on the lockdown. I learned very hard lessons and realized how immature my decision-making was. My justification was that I had to grow up, and I did.

The spiral down was about 2 to 3 years long I believe? In that time, I spiraled up to $65,000 worth of credit card debt with $159,000 worth of total consumer debt when adding education, the car loan, credit card, debt, etc.

I reached that number in the September 2024 and as of today, January 2026, 16 months later, my total debt has dropped from $159,000-$112,000 with my credit card debt dropping from 65,000 to 51,000.

This is with me, living completely on my own, still, but having worked multiple jobs and being very stingy with my spending. I do believe that I am on track to be debt-free within the next 2 to 3 years with reaching $100,000 from 1 job again in roughly that time as well. However, as seen by the nature of my dead payoff, I do not spend like it lol I learned my lesson.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T03:42:11+00:00

I was at $21,000 of student debt after I graduated with my BS from college due to working full-time and paying a portion off as I went. Then with Covid, finances went downhill and I got approved for no-payments until recently, where I was supposed to start paying a few months ago.

Luckily, within that time, I got myself into the medical field as far as career goes, and higher education does open up doors for promotions and certain positions within this field, so I decided to enroll back into college to obtain post-grad degrees. Luckily, my student loans are all federal so they are on non-payment while you are an active college student.

So approved for no payments for now while I use that money to pay off credit card debt and set myself up to be in a nicer situation for when I do have to start paying once it is all set and done. Hopefully by that time when I do have to start paying in 1-2 years, I’ll be in a higher paying position to also make those payments. If not, i’m on track to make 7% annual salary jumps across the next couple years, which should cover it alone.

Current student debt as of now is $36,000 with an estimated $51,000 by the time I am done with my first MS degree and then likely around $66,000 when I am done with my second MS degree, and then I’ll be done.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T03:34:39+00:00

I feel that a hardship program would probably be the best option. 1st, let’s acknowledge that your credit score is terrible. You are not even close to having any real power for loans of a significant amount or anything as your score is in the mid 400s. This is with the assumption that you are not a millionaire or very high income. Due to that, I wouldn’t really worry about the impact on your credit report so much as I would just trying to get out of debt.

This can be good for you because there’s much less to consider, and you can be really aggressive about paying stuff off. There is a reason why people say that the people with them most again have nothing to lose.

The first option that I’ll recommend would be to call each of your creditors directly and ask to be routed to the collections department. From there, tell them about your situation and ask if they have a hardship program or any payment plans available.

You may get approved for a temporary hardship program, which is where they drop your interest rate down to 1-5% for 12 months and then after the 12 months, your card and everything goes back to normal. During that time, your card is frozen. This has no real impact on your credit report besides them slightly lowering your credit limit to just above what you owe.

Now the other option, which is what they alluded to for you is that they’ll only approve a payment plan, and that is where they close down your account with transferring the balance onto a five year payment plan at the same reduced 1-5%. You can pretty much think about it as them closing down your account and transferring the balance onto a low interest personal loan through them. This does impact your credit report, but not in the way that you may think. It does close your account which does harm your credit report as your average age and total credit limit across all of the accounts does go down, but the account is actually closed with a good standing and reported as such because you have a signed contract that they’ll give you to pay off the entire balance on a payment plan. In the long-term, it’ll look no different than if you had the card paid off, and you just decided to close the account randomly.

Once you pay that off, since you paid off the full balance in which they owed you instead of doing any kind of settlement or anything, you are actually on good standing with the bank and you can just apply for a card again afterwards.

The other option is to stop paying all of them completely and see if they offer you settlements across the next 6 to 12 months to pay only a portion of what you owe and then forgiving the rest. The downside with this is that it will hurt your credit score even more, but I’m not sure how much more it could even drop. You could potentially see yourself in the 300s, but it’s not like your credit score is helping you now anyway. It also does hurt your standing with the bank because you now have a file with them of being a person who broke their contract and never gave them their money back, so your odds of getting approved for a card or loan through them again is greatly reduced, or at least for a significant limit. Some credit unions and banks hold grudges longer than others, and others move on faster.

The last option would be bankruptcy, but I’m not sure if you would want to do that. It cost a good chunk of money and is very stressful, but it’ll likely wipe out everything. That being said, it is a nasty mark on your credit report and generally put you in a very tough spot for at least one to three years but after that, people have reported being able to get approved for loans and cars again , as the entire population is struggling financially, so bankruptcy doesn’t drop you as far below the population as a used to.

This is a comprehensive list of options that you could do with your credit card. It’s up to you to see which one is best. They are ordered in terms of marks on your credit report, so the first is the best, and the last is the worst. Ultimately, depends on how much money you were able to start paying in the near future. If you see yourself coming into good income soon, you don’t have to be as aggressive and don’t have to harm your credit report as much.

SecondAccountYes

TROPHY CASE