It doesn't really sound like you own those items you listed off, if I understand you correctly, it sounds more like you financed everything on credit. At this point in time your credit rating should be the least of your concerns. Securing income again needs to trump that.

So the value of your toys like boats and seadoos will probably equal (or even less then) what you owe on the items so it’s a wash there. Don't know enough about the cabin to even comment about what to do with that.

Do you own your primary residence? You can refinance and use that money to pay the bills if you have any equity, look into that option too.

Debt settlement won’t be an option for you for a couple of reasons. Fist, you need steady income and second, you live in NL; Total Debt Freedom Inc. is the only company licensed/bonded in Canada that I know of that offers 12-48 month debt settlement plans and we haven’t licensed in your province yet so unless you have the know how and time to do it yourself you should consider other options.

1) If you can find work in your town that will service your lifestyle, and have money in your "rainy day" to carry you overt then fix things that way.

2) If it’s worse then that, and you have no home to refinance or anything else to sell, talk to a trustee about bankruptcy if you have nothing to lose.

Either way, sorry about your loss of work but it’s an excellent example of 1) why you shouldn't over extend yourself with too many “toys” bought on credit and 2) always have about 6 months worth of income stashed away for just such hic – ups in life.

hey buddy1000,
sorry to hear that.. that's pretty hard on the system.
I agree with what Millie says.

As far as your credit hitting the "dumper", if you've stopped making payments you've got 30 days before you go from R1 to R2 and so on. After about 6 months you would probably go to R9 status, which is bad

If you can sell things, as Millie suggested, I would take that money and then keep some of it to make your payments. While it's good to pay off lump sums of credit, you still need to make your regular payments as agreed. Using up all of your cash is bad, for that reason.

Debt settlement is a last resort. It will put all of your credit to R9, which will kill your credit score....

My recommendation is to do what ever possible to make your monthly payments.

I'm thinking that your situation is not uncommon in this economy..

I've been through similar situation and can empathize quite a bit.

Let us know how it goes... good luck

Sell the boat, cabin and Seadoos. Get as much as you can and pay off the debt.

If you have any equity in your home get a HELOC or second mortgage and pay off the credit cards. Secured credit will have a considerably lower interest rate.

Sell anything else you have and don't need.

My wife and I were just laid off. we had been working for the same company for 20+ years. Solid and stable income. All of a sudden they downsized because of the economy. I guess it wasn't all at once. we knew for a while.

We becamse so used to making the same money every month. We knew exactly what we could borrow, and what payments we could make.

We have a boat, cabin, seadoos,etc on credit. All in all we owe around $85000 in debt not including cars and mortgages! This was okay before. We've always made our payments on time. We have some savings, but probably enough to cover us for 2-3 months.

Yes up until now we've lived the good life. We haven't denied ourselves very much.

The obvious problem is this: how long do we have before our credit goes in the dumper? Why do I need to do?

I've been deadly worried for a few weeks now since we got laid off.. I'm kind of exhausted with the whole thing.

What is this debt settlement thing all aobut? Do we want to do this. Our credit is pretty good right now and I'm afraid that it's going to get worse.

Help please.. I really appreciate this canadian money advisor forum so far!!