It has been months of sleepless nights; worrying about how I was going to get out of the enormous amount of debt that I'm in. Well miracles do occur and this week Chase settled a $20,000 debt with me at 45%. They were very nice to me through this process and would just make calls and see if my situation had changed. I wish I could say it has, but truth is my phone hasn't rang with new business for over a week now; the housing market is just dead.

So now I'm waiting for my IRS refund that is still tied up. I still have about $4,000 left for debt settlement from the money I borrowed. So I don't have enough money to settle with anyone right now and I have two creditors left. I have some money tied up in an escrow account that may come to me by June, about $3700. I'm having a moving sale on Memorial day weekend and I'm selling a lot of my furniture and lots of other things I've accumulated through the years in my basement.

Hopefully, everything will come together and I can finish this credit card mess. I'm not talking to the last two creditors for the rest of this month, I talked to them last week and actually had a heated discussion with the meanest creditor I have; they have been the worst and have treated me like a piece of crap since day one. I have had nightmares about that last creditor; I hope I will be able to settle with them soon.

As you all know I'm in a lot of credit card debt and my income in the housing market, crashed. Since last October I've been trying to come up with money to settle my credit card debt. My first creditor, BOA, I had a balance of $59900 and they settled for $23,000 early on, which was a huge relief. Since then I have been struggling with collection calls.

Last week, I unexpectedly got a call from a Supervisor from Citi card company that I have a $26000.00 balance with, he advises that he has listened to the tapes of my hardship and feels it is serious and they might like to settle. He ask me what I can give and I tell him all I have left at this time is $10,000 because I just did a large settlement with BOA. I've had to borrow money and sell personal belongings to get to this point. He says he will think it over, take it to Management and will call me back by Tuesday or Wed. next week. I finally hear from him on Thursday morning this week and he said they would take the $10000 as settled for less.

I was so excited; another credit card resolved and just three more to go totaling about $54000, I'm over half way there. Citi has been very nice to me throughout this whole process, they always treated me with respect and were nice to me and even gave words of encouragement. There are some very nice people working there.

So how do I get through the rest of this? I have a little money left, I have a used car to sell, I've got my house on the market and I'm going have a yard sale to get rid of extra furniture; some office supplies and etc. I'm still waiting for my tax refund, an escrow refund and my stimulus payment. When I pull all this together I'll have an estimated $24,000; almost half of what I owe my credit card companies.

When I get through this I will have to start saving for my tax implications. I also have a car that is in need of a lot of repair and I can't fix it until I know I'm successful in my debt settlement. The car is 8 years old but will run nice once I get everything repaired. I figure my credit is shot for the next two years so I'll have to drive it, it has about 130,000 miles on it.

Someday this housing market will come around and when it does and I can catch up and start saving for another car; I'll pay cash for a used one, no more car loans, no more credit cards and hopefully when the house is sold; I'll have just one mortgage left I want to plug away at.

Ambitious plans for a brighter future.