I'm sorry if this is a bit long or unclear, this is my first time posting here and I'm not sure where else to go or what to do.
I am a 22 year old national guard soldier trying to get back into the local university. I just got back from years of training and am trying to I'm to readjust to being a civilian again. I am working part time in addition to regular monthly drills and don't make a lot. I also don't spend a lot and have been putting most of what I make into savings. Filing taxes was fairly easy and turbotax allowed me to check my credit score as I had filed with them.
I haven't really tackled credit whatsoever before this as I had been an incredibly impulsive person before the military and worried that I'd go out of control with credit. So I didn't touch it and instead developed a healthy habit of saving and budgeting before even considering getting a credit card. I know I was stupid to not regularly check it earlier, but I thought the second best time was to do it now.
Turns out my credit score is dismally low as there is more than 30,000 dollars of debt in my name which is more than triple of what I have saved up over years. My mother has opened three accounts in my name and while she has been making the minimal payments on time, she's racked up a tremendous amount of debt. Some of the cards were opened as early as when as I was 2 years old.
I have documentation of everything that has happened, with each page of account information saved as PDFs.
I have spent the past couple of days trying to not panic, I've confronted my parents and am currently looking for cheap apartments so I don't have to live with them anymore. However, I don't know what to do beyond that, really. 30K of debt is enormous and I don't even make that in a year. I don't even know how to BEGIN tackling this. I just know that I'm heartbroken and I feel absolutely betrayed. I never thought my own mother would steal my identity.
Should I put off college and try to pay it off by working more jobs? Should I stay living with my parents to save on rent? What should I do to tackle this debt and fix up my financial situation so I can move on with my life? I don't want to be my parent's piggy bank anymore.
Submitted April 19, 2018 at 09:23AM by Hipception https://ift.tt/2JYh1XB
