I Co-Signed A Car and It Was Repossessed

Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I put myself into a lot of debt and I was trying to be proactive in the situation and I joined one of these like debt relief programs where you know you pay monthly and then there's a settlement fee or whatever. And being in that process I actually helped my ex-boyfriend get a car. He got that car so now I'm accumulating more debt outside of what I already have in my creditor's debt relief program. My question is is it best for me to maybe just file for bankruptcy because I'm still getting calls from the other creditors who are in my debt relief program. I'm just you know trying to negotiate or sending me notifications about whatever you know the balances are owed and I now I'm accumulating even more debt outside with the repo. And it's uncontrollable for me right now. I'm paying like toward maybe some like $366 towards this debt relief program to three creditors and I'm only paying one of the creditors at this point and I'm thinking like it's going to take me years to try to get all of them settled and I don't want to keep on just investing in something that's just going to like I don't know that's not helpful at the end. So I'm not sure what to do. Well yeah that's very stressful if you're if you're making many deep breaths right now I understand that and you should keep doing that. So let me just make sure I understand the repoed car. Your name was on the repoed car? Yes it is. And was it rolled into the debt relief or it's just separate and they're just coming after you for the difference? Exactly yeah it was not part of the debt relief it's separate and they're coming after me too. Understood. What is let me talk about the repoed car first. Uh what is the deficit that they're coming at after you for? Uh $14,000. Oh girlfriend okay they've already auctioned the car off or is it? Yep okay it's already taken yeah I can't get it yeah. And you don't know where your ex-boyfriend is? Hey guys George here with an important heads up. Mortgage interest rates just dropped and that is great news if you've been holding off on house hunting or refinancing but it also means a lot of other people are about to jump back into the market. And my good friends at Churchill Mortgage will give you a custom plan and a special offer so you can buy or refinance the smart way before the market shifts. So go check it out by going to churchillmortgage.com slash ramsayoffer. That's churchillmortgage.com slash ramsayoffer. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSconsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. You don't know where your ex-boyfriend is? Um I do and I don't. I try to no contact type of situation. No contact okay. Okay so I'm just gonna hit you with something that just really really really sucks and I think you know this. That is it's on you girl. Um unfortunately when you sign when you co-sign with somebody you're you're just as liable for the debt and you could say if you said I'm not going to pay it you're just gonna feel the the dings and the dings and the dings and the dings on your credit. Um and I feel like it's more so about it dinging up your piece because they're calling you right? So you're gonna have to add this to your snowball and I hate to tell you that. It is a lesson learned the hard way. Sorry. So what's your total debt load that you're trying to get relief from? Um so there's three creditors. One is 11,000. Um another is like seven eight thousand and then another is six thousand. Okay so in that in that ex-relationship like I pretty much one was a loan um and then two are credit cards that I kind of maxed out just so I can leave the situation and get an apartment on my own. Understood. So what do you make a year? Um a year I well I know I bring home maybe like 38 39 a month. Okay. Um and then there's overtime and things like that so. With overtime what does it look like on a on a month where you do some good overtime? You know what that's you know what to be honest that's actually I want to say that's including the overtime. Okay okay. Um yeah. Okay and then just I always like to know where people's housing fits in that equation because if you're paying too much for your housing it it throws this whole thing off kilter. So what are you paying what are you paying for housing? Um so right now I'm in an apartment complex and it's like 1892. Okay that's what's eating your lunch. Christine that's a that's half your income. So I'm saying I'm literally like living like I'm I'm so like I'm living like paycheck to paycheck but on top of that I'm I'm in one of those like stupid app situations where like you can borrow from your Oh girl stop. Yeah I know I'm I'm telling you I'm I'm this is what I've done for myself. I know I know okay. That's why you're sorry. Okay we're both on your side. Yeah we're on your side. But you gotta stop. You you are you with us? Yeah I'm here. Okay all right. So here's what when's your lease up? Um it would be next June. Okay is it a one bedroom or two? It's actually a three bedroom. I have three kids with me. So you have three kids. Okay so what I try to do is I'd go to the leasing office and I'd say hey um because I'm pretty sure you can do this. If you just say hey I just want to switch apartments in in the complex. This one I'm having a hard this one's just too much for me. I want to go down to a two bedroom or I want to go down to a you know a one bedroom and maybe I put whatever you have to do. I put myself on the on the fold-out couch and I put two bedrooms and one two kids in one room and if there's a baby I put the baby in the crib next to me right. That's what you need to do ASAP. Because okay with three kids I will hate myself saying you need to work more right. That that feels very impossible. Um I'm sure there's something you can do but I feel like the bigger way that you can make an impact is on that line item on your budget and basically to cut it down to I don't know a thousand eleven hundred somewhere in that range. Um do you see what I'm saying? No yeah I understand. Right and it's going to feel terrible. You're gonna feel like oh I have three kids. I'm making them share a room. I'm uprooting their life. I'm making them. I'm making them. I'm making them. You're going to make them understand what it looks like to right wrongs and make things right and that's the lesson that you're going to be teaching them doing this. So tell yourself that when you start beating yourself up. Jade would you recommend she quit paying on this on this debt relief nonsense? Yeah let's go to that. That's super yeah debt relief done. We're done. It's a scam. The reason that they're calling you the reason they're calling you is because the way those places work is they say pay us the money we're gonna hold it in a pool basically and we're gonna wait until these creditors get desperate and they're ready to make a deal. That's why they're calling you because they haven't been paid and so you've probably paid a bunch into a pool. How much have you paid in? Um so I've been in this debt relief for maybe like two years now. Oh my gosh and nothing's been paid off? And nothing's been paid off because obviously well the the best of it was like the the larger amount creditor is the one that offered first and I accepted it because I didn't know at the time you know what to do so yeah so that's the $11,000 one and it's like I haven't made a dent in it. Yeah so we're getting out of that today. I would if I were you I'd call them up and say I don't want to keep doing this anymore what's going to happen and just make sure you read through what the contracts said so that you can come into the conversation and say hey I want to I want to get out of this I realize this is what I must pay or this is the penalty because there's going to be some penalty fee and just realize this was not the way out there's a couple of things Christine that you're going to pay what we call here stupid tax which is it's really a I didn't know tax and you're going to feel that and it's going to be in way of I spent years paying a debt relief program to get nowhere and unfortunately I co-signed on a loan but what you're going to find is doing this on your own you are going to go so much further faster Christian's going to pick up we're going set you up with every dollar and there's free coaching on there I want you to call the number to get a couple of minutes of free coaching so you can figure out your next right steps and call us back anytime you need us we will we'll be here to help you create your free every dollar budget today the simplest way to budget for your life