While I was planning on doing my April goals and going over my March goals, I have a confession to make. I was incredibly stupid when I was younger (not really a surprise) and even though I’m trying to get on top of things I made a mistake a few months ago. I forgot about a loan company I was working with to come up with a reasonable payment plan. I had sent in the application so I could try to get my loan out of default status but at the same time I was working with another company to get another loan under control. I was also looking for a place in town that we could move too.
Long story short, after sending in the application I forgot to follow through. I had come to an agreement with the second company and have been faithfully paying them every month. I’ve had a few issues with them where they don’t get the paperwork I send in until the third or fourth time but when they have an issue they leave me a message on the phone number I’ve given them and they do it after 5pm. And I get back to them. Well, I’ve had a few messages that are just hang ups—like we are getting the tail end of a message with no substance. And the phone numbers are always blocked or restricted so I can’t even call the number to find out who it is.
Then last Friday I received a call at work (and that bothered me too) that they were going to be garnishing my wages. I almost started crying in the middle of my office cubicle. I was frustrated enough dealing with a report at work and then I got that call. I had forgotten about it but I knew I had been waiting on the company to contact me—I just hadn’t put things together. I was able to get them to give me until Monday to send in my pay check stubs before they put in the letter to my payroll department to start the garnishment. Needless to say I wasn’t really happy this weekend—I was busy trying to figure out what I could do.
Turns out that I can’t build a time machine and go back to make better decisions—though, that would be extremely helpful, right? And there is no reset button to remake my choices. So I sent in my pay stubs and worried over everything until I heard back from my contact at the company. Turns out that I didn’t get my paychecks garnished but I do have to pay $250 a month. This is not that bad as long as I take out half from one check and half from the other check. It’s not that great either but I will still be able to save money for the wedding and a few other things. Now saving for my e-fund will be a bit harder—we are not going to have that much money left over after every pay check. But we are going to cut back where we can and just push onward.
The good part about doing this is that after 9 months I will have wiped out the bad charges I let rack up and the debt will be in good standing again. So that will be nothing but helpful for us. I just wish that I had remembered about this earlier and followed up with the company. It would have saved me a weekend of worrying and of course, I would have been partially through the 9 months to get that loan in good standing.
I had to confess to you guys though. I feel so guilty for even letting my debt get this bad and then forgetting about following through.