Can’t Afford My Credit Cards. Living on Food Stamps, Child Support and College.

– Stacy “Dear Steve, My situation is this. I am in credit card debt in the amount of over $10,000. I have recently moved to try to get a better education to get a better job. I am a single mother with three children and do get government assistance in the form of medicaid and foodstamps. Before i moved i just barely was able to make the minimun amount on my credit card payments. Now that i have moved, i’m looking for a job. I am approximately three months behind on my payments now for my credit cards. I don’t know what to do to get out of this situation. I want to have good credit…i almost have my car paid off…it’s just these credit cards that i’m having trouble with. I would appreciate any advice you could give. I’m looking for work and am just living on child support and going to college full time. I can’t make the payments for my credit cards….other than finding work, is there any help i could get to get the interest rates down or other options? Thank you. Stacy What can i do to help my situtation with these credit cards? Stacy” The Answer Dear Stacy, Debt problems are best resolved with an increase in income or a reduction in expenses. With your current situation it seems unlikely you are going to be able to increase income enough to make ends meet. I don’t know how you manage to juggle college and three kids. Heck, I can’t even answer these questions and watch just one 9 month old. The best course of action is going to be to give yourself a reasonable period of time to find additional income, if you can’t them you are faced with dropping out of college to work, looking for additional benefits you might be eligible for (Benefits.gov), or looking into discharging your debt with bankruptcy. Even if you don’t want to consider bankruptcy at first glance, you owe it to yourself and your kids to meet with a local attorney and discuss what bankruptcy would mean for you. At this point the goal is to get you headed down a path that might be able to keep you and your kids safe from a financial disaster. Please keep me posted on what happens by updating me in the comments section below.