I interviewed with job # 1 on Friday.  The position is within my field, not exactly what I am trained to do, but a position that certainly is within my skill set and one that I am qualified to do.  The interview went great and I am confident that I will get an offer from this company.

Job # 2 comes from out of town.  It is exactly what I have been trained to do and have been successful at for nearly 15 years.  The guy who is doing the hiring is a bit of a flake, but he seemed way more serious than he has in the past.  He says he will call this week about flying me to town to discuss the position.  I have my fingers crossed for me and my family.

On a brighter note, my wife’s business is on fire this week.  For about a month things have been horrible and I felt like we were in danger of not meeting our business obligations.  This week it all changed and we are back on track.

I’ll update you more next week as the situations changes.

To make matters worse, our small business, which was growing nicely in January, February and March has come to a near dead stop.  I don’t know if it is just a cycle or if our customers have just stopped spending money.  I hope it is a cycle but at this point I am losing hope that our customers will return.

All in all, this is a very depressing time, not much hope, not much opimism.  The debt grows and our income shrinks.

At this rate I fear we will be at absolute zero within months.  Through the hardship, I’m optimistic about new beginnings.

This morning, I woke up, decided I needed some positive news in my life, so here it is…the “GOOD NEWS” roundup!

Irrational Pessimism? @ Million Dollar Journey.  I think I am falling into irrational pessimism and I am normally the most optimistic person in the room?  You?

Teen makes self-less birthday decision.  Maybe be really are raising some of our kids correctly.

Airlines Bring Some Humor to the Skies.  Guess what today is?

The Cure for What Ails You: How to Beat the Misery of Discontentment @ Zen Habits

Today I received a call from Bank of America, remember, we just decided last month not to pay our credit card, instead we decided to save the money and attempt to settle our debt with the credit card companies.  Well, today BOA call to see why our bill wasn’t paid on time and we informed them of our plan to seek a settlement with them to pay the cards off in full.

In less than a month BOA has dropped their settlement offer from 10% off the current balance to 50% off the current balance.  The two cards that we discussed have balances of $2800 and $5400.  Today they offered to settle for $1400 over 4 months and $2700 over 4 months.  It is a savings if $4100 on a debt of $8200 if we can pay them off in 4 months.

I am going to agree to the deal and begin paying off the final balances on these two credit cards.  As much as it disgusts me that I cannot pay them back in full, I need this deal to get back on track.

Settling my debt with the credit card companies will help me avoid bankruptcy and only damage my credit score for a couple of years.  I am on the right track.

OPEC keeps output steady to help heal sick economy  This is good news as many experts believe cheap energy will be on of the vehicles that pull the economy out of its current malaise.  We still need to work on energy independance in the United States, but lower energy costs are essential for our economic recovery.

GM to Feds: We Won’t Need That Extra $2 Billion Just maybe General Motors has found a way out of its awful financial situation.  I didn’t give them much hope when they came to Washington D.C. asking for more money last week, but it appears that they have stablized and are on the way back.  The stock was up 24% Friday.

Simple pleasures gain ground This is by far the best trend to come out of a recession.  Families are spending more time together.  I have fond memories of staying in with my mom and dad.  I can only think of one time that we actually went out to dinner as a family.  We always ate at home and entertained ourselves with games.

Even in a recession, some companies are hiring.  There are jobs to be had in this economy, if you are qualified.

High School Basketball Teams Bring Sportsmanship to Life. This story is a couple of weeks old, but it give you hope that all people are not evil.

If you are like me you could use a little positive news, so every Sunday I will post positive stories and whatever good news I can find.  It will be therapeutic to me and hopefully give you a life too.

Positive News roundup

U.S. Health care system pinched by nursing shortage.  If you’ve been laid off, maybe you should return to school for nursing.  It looks like there are plenty of jobs.

Look on the Bright side, many still have jobs.

The Beaver Returns to Detroit.

Daylight Savings: A Boost For Troubled Economy?

As I said in the previous post, none of the credit card were willing to provide and help with our current situation so we have simply started saving our money and not paying the credit cards.

The object is to build our emergency fund and then begin to seek “settlements” with our credit cards.  We will do as Dave Ramsey says and call the credit cards that we can afford to pay off, at a reduced amount, and seek to settle and close the account.  Unfortunetly the credit cards won’t even discuss a settlement with you until you are 60 days late, so we will simply bank those minimum payments and use them to settle when the time comes.

Ramsey claims that this is a better route to take than to simply file bankruptcy.  Our credit report will only take a small hit and we should be able to have it back to respectability in two years.  Although neither of us care about our credit score as we don’t plan to ever use credit again.

I’ll keep you updated on the progress of our credit card reduction plan, I know I’ll get the harassing calls and I will answer each one and explain what we are doing.  As my dad always said, “you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip.”

Emboldened, my wife and I decided to attempt the same strategy. First up was American Express.  I have a $16,000 balance with AMEX so I called and tried the technique described by Ramsey in his book.  I told AMEX I could no longer afford to pay the credit card and that I would focus on paying them off in full by the end of June if they would write off half the loan.  They informed me that they were only offering a 10% settlement, I explained that it didn’t help and I would have to call the other credit card companies to see if they would give me a better deal.   The object being, the card that gives you the best deal gets all your money until it is paid off.  American Express then informed me that they had a “distressed”  program that would eliminate all interest and card fees for six months if I allowed them to autodraft $336 a month.  Since my minimum is $321 I agreed.  After 6 months the rate jumps to 7%, which is a 17% reduction from my current rate.  All in all American Express was helpful and sincere.  They were willing to work with me and I feel good about saving all that interest over the next year.

Bank of America and Chase were another story.  When my wife called Chase they were unwilling to do anything and basically said “call us when you are behind on your payments.”  She laughed and said, don’t expect any payments until the cards that are working with me are paid off, they asked her for an updated phone number and she said “I won’t have a phone in 30 days, good luck.”

I tried Bank of America and they seemed interested in helping but said my account was in good standing so there was nothing they could do, I explained that I was being pro-active and was starting to go under water so they referred me to a credit counseling service.  I think I will call to get advice as BOA said if I worked with the service it wouldn’t hurt my credit score.  I will call Monday to see how they can help.

Overall I was disappointed that the credit card companies weren’t even willing to cut the interest rates to help recover some of the principle on the balances.  I will call the remaining 2 cards on Monday and begin aggressively paying down the balances on the cards that were willing to help.  I won’t worry about the others getting paid, they can have their money when the ones willing to work with us are paid off.  I’ve also begun using my magic jack phone so the house phone will be disconnected before the bill collectors start calling.

Many of us do however see the signs of financial trouble before they hit, and either ignore or don’t recognize them, here are 8 signs that you may be in financial trouble.

1.  You can only pay the minimums on your credit cards.  I didn’t have this problem until the very end because I had money in the bank, currently I realized I needed to get a plant o repay the cards so I implemented the Dave Ramsey “Debt Snowball.”  So far, so good.

2. You are using credit cards to purchase everyday household items like groceries.  If this is happening, stop now and prioritize.  Groceries, Rent and utilities should be the first bills paid every month.  Everything else can wait.

3. You don’t have a budget. If you don’t have a plan, you don’t have any idea where you are going.  Create a family budget YESTERDAY.  I suggest pear budget, it is quick, easy and FREE!

4.  You’ve been turned down for a loan or a credit card.  If you were recently told you couldn’t get more credit, some of the issue may be the current credit crunch, but the bigger issue may be that you have too much credit or are using an inordinate amount of you current open credit lines.  Pay off the current cards you have and do not use your credit cards.

5.  You have no emergency fund.  Without an emergency fund you are playing roulette.  Try to save a portion of your monthly income until you have at least a 3 month cushion.

6.  You are hiding purchases and/or credit card statements from your spouse or significant other.  The obvious stress aside, this is just unhealthy and borderline unfair to your spouse and your family.  If you can’t face your spouse after a purchase, you need to stop now.

7.  You aren’t funding your retirement accounts.  A 401k plan is the best deal you are ever going to get, it is pre-tax dollars you are investing.  If you aren’t funding your 401k, you are missing a huge opportunity to save for your retirement.  Start today and don’t stop until you retire.

8.  Unhealthy use of credit.  If you can’t say no to yourself, your kids or your family, you may be tempted to use credit to satisfy an immediate “want” over a need.  Remember, nobody has ever been harmed by delayed gratification.  As a matter of fact, it is a healthy and good way to begin teaching youngsters about money and credit.