I am so excited to write the fact that after several long decades, I am finally debt free! I reached out to MMI in November of 2016 and completed my debt management plan with MMI in June of 2021.The road to get here wasn’t easy.
For approximately 20 years, my then-husband and I were very bad at managing money. If we wanted to buy something, we would just put it on a credit card. In October of 2016, I decided to add up the total balance of all our credit cards and I was completely shocked that they equaled about$100,000! I was sick to my stomach. At that time, we could only make the minimum payments on all the credit card bills and the interest rates were very high. I felt like we were never going to get out of debt because we couldn’t make extra payments. We ended up in this revolving circle of just being able to make the minimum payments which added up to about $2300 a month. If there were an emergency repair in the house or a medical issue, we would have to charge it because so much money was going out each month just to pay the minimums, leaving us with no extra money and just adding to the $100,000 debt. When I realized the debt amounted to $100,000, I decided to start calling the creditors to negotiate our interest rates, as I have heard many financial experts suggest this. The first two creditors I called said there was nothing they could do unless one of us lost our job or there was a medical issue precluding us from making our payments. I then called the third creditor. I explained our situation to them, and they suggested I call Money Management International. I had never heard of the nonprofit but I was so thankful for the suggestion because my then-husband and I were on the verge of filing for bankruptcy or doing a debt settlement. Our counselor, Geoff Brown, was able to get us on a monthly payment plan. I would periodically login to our online account with MMI, and I would see the total balance going down every month and being chipped away. It was such a great feeling to see that and to know that within five years, it would all be paid off. Also, we didn’t have creditors contacting and harassing us. It was one payment and MMI distributed the money out to each creditor. Even our credit scores had very minimal impact. Two months before making our last payment, my credit score was 808! If we had not entered the DMP program, the debt would have surpassed both of our life expectancies as it would have never been paid off with the way things were prior to the program. I can’t tell you what a huge relief I felt making those payments every month. It was so stressful having that much owed in credit card debt. MMI also helped to change our spending habits. I am now of the mindset to only spend money on the necessities and try to save the money first for those things that aren’t necessities. I don’t ever want to be in that type of situation ever again. We didn’t eat out nearly as much and we cut our vacations as well, but those sacrifices were so worth it when we were finally able to make that one final payment! I can’t thank MMI nearly enough - if I can pay off that huge amount of debt, anyone can!
30 ноя 2021
