A little backstory: While recently on vacation in NY, I was charged with a crime (that I was later found not guilty of), and was held in county jail for 211 days. My bail was set at $50,000 because I didn’t have any ties to the community, and no bail agency would issue me a bond, as I was from out of state and could not pay to live in NY while I fought my charges on trial, so planned to fly home if I bailed out, though I assured them I would have returned for court dates. So, bottom line I was stuck in jail for roughly seven months.
Prior to going to jail, I had never missed a payment on any of my credit cards, and my credit score was just over 700. About 705. During this time, all three of my credit cards ran out of their introductory APRs, and all three went completely unpaid for 7 months. One account was closed, and the other two remain open. Upon my exoneration, I immediately took what little money I had and paid to bring the two accounts still open up to date. However, because I lost my job due to being in jail, I am about to miss my next months payments, even if I AM able to find employment quickly.
My credit score after this fiasco was 494, and after the recent payments is at a 511. After 7 months of no payment fees and interest, all of my credit card debt combined totals about $9,500. I do not have any student loans, or debt of any kind outside of this. What I’d LIKE to do is take out a loan with a place like SoFi, to consolidate my debt and pay it off, so that I can stop paying the ridiculous interest rates I am now stuck with. However, as my credit score is now in the toilet, I have not even applied for any such loan, as I know I am 99% sure to be turned down, and a hard pull for such a likely unhelpful scenario would just further affect my credit, without any real benefit.
Unfortunately, I can’t think of a way out of this scenario that does not simply entail making minimum payments, essentially paying down interest, for the foreseeable future while I get back on my feet and get established in a decent paying job. And once I have a decent job again, I still live in CA and thus have a high cost of living — meaning that I likely won’t be able to take very large chunks out of the debt any time soon, and therefore will be paying high interest on these cards for quite some time while I pay them down.
Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. If you are somehow unable to tell from the way I write, I am no expert in finance/interest rates/etc. I’m new to Reddit, and new to this sub, so I apologize in advance if I have not provided you adequate information to help, or have violated any posting standards/rules.
Thank you all for any time you’re able to spend giving me some advice.
Submitted February 05, 2018 at 02:12AM by l2yanlvl http://ift.tt/2nJtW5i
