Suggestions on paying off my debt!! please!?

So i was irresponsible, out of work, and in school and i neglected to pay my credit card bill...also my address and number recently changed and i failed to realize that bank of america had sold off my account to an attorney's office who is now calling me. I've finally started working again, but they're asking me to pay the balance in full, and theres no way i could possibly do that in a reasonable amount of time. i talked them into putting a temporary hold on my payment status, until i could figure out an option to get that balance paid off as soon as possible. What would be my best option w/o asking someone (a friend or family member) to help me out....any loan companies (since its no longer with a bank or collections, interest is not an issue) or agencies that could possibly help?..the debt btw is about $4500...i know i must sound really stupid and irresponsible right now, but any suggestions would be helpful! i really don't want to bring any family or friends into this mess with me!

If it's just one credit card, here's what I would do.

Write out a WRITTEN budget and give every cent you make a destination. Only spend money on the essentials (food, gas, rent, mortgage, insurance, utilities, etc.). If you have cable or satellite, cancel it until you can get the card payed off in full. Don't eat out at restaurants or buy any expensive food.

Apply all extra money towards the credit card payment. You'll have to fight them until you get it paid off, but they'll deal with it. They just want their money.

DO NOT trust all of the credit services out there, namely the ones who claim that they can "get rid of your debt for much less than the amount due".

They do this buy stopping all payments, angering the lender, and then finally negotiating a pay-off deal for only a apart of the debt. This WILL HURT your credit. Badly. Sure, they can SOMETIMES get the debt payed for less than you owed, but it's not worth it.

You're going to end up paying the money you owe, but when you get it over with you'll feel much better.

If you have more than one loan, list your debts smallest to largest and work them into your budget. Pay the minimum payments on everything but the smallest debt. After the first debt is paid off work on the next one. This is Dave Ramsey's way of paying off debt. He calls it the debt snowball. It doesn't make mathematical sense (they should be listed by interest rate or rate of growth for it to be mathematically correct), but the idea is after you pay off your first debt you get a sense of accomplishment that gets you excited about paying off the next debt.

Good luck! Hope this helps!

You should call a consumer credit counseling service. Most city's have free service that will contact the credit card co. & work out a payment plan with them.

You certainly aren't stupid! Some of us just get to learn life's lesson the hard way! If we were all taught about credit in school, this would be a different conversation. I would first try to get a personal loan if they are unwilling to make a "reasonable" payment solution. If neither of those work for you, talk to Lutheran Social Services.

You're not stupid, in fact you are making the same mistake that our culture leads most people in to.

I agree with the previous answer abotu the Dave Ramsey way.

Here is another helpful resource too, it's part of a free online personal finance course:

http://www.financialfreedomtrail.com/deb...

here's the link to the course:

http://www.financialfreedomtrail.com/mon...