Sarah asked: I have a number of credit cards that I had to live on for a few months when I moved away to school. Now, I’ve got a job and have been trying to get rid of them and just live on my paychecks. I had planned on becoming “debt free” (excluding student loans) within 3-4 years.
Or not.
One of my credit cards (Chase) was over-drawn. I did not realize this for some time, as I never used the card and my father had agreed to pay for it. The initial limit was 2,500 dollars. Last month, it was overdawn to about ~2,600 dollars. This month, it’s overdrawn to ~2,818 dollars. The jump? The credit card is now charging me %29.99 interest.
There is no way in hell I can handle that. At all. Period. I have enough income to pay off my bills — rent, utilities and phone, food, gas, car note, and just enough to keep up with my “get out of debt” plan — until this thing came along. But how can I head off this debt if Chase is tacking on exponentially hundreds of dollars EVERY month? This is more than my entire income!!!
My parents can’t help, and I’d prefer to get them out of my financial business altogether (I have a deliquency on my credit report where my mother signed up for a card under MY name and then no one paid the bills — until I discovered it six months later). I went to the bank, but they won’t help because my credit is bad because I have an overdrawn card!!! X.x And I really do not want to turn to bankruptcy; I mean, damn. I’m not even out of my first year of college yet, and I’m already taking a dump on the rest of my financial life. :/
Anyway, I need SERIOUS help here. (I have over 5k in debt, not including student loans, which tack on several more thousand)
In response to some answers: I think you’re right and I may just be panicing… I don’t have the cash to pay off the overage, though. However, I recently discovered (since posting this) that my father hasn’t paid the card in eight months even though he tells me he has. So, either Chase has not been crediting my account, or I’m being lied to, but while my parents have some spending issues, they’ve never lied to me like this before… so I have to wonder where all that money’s been going. :/
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