Dan

I had a private student loan, which due to a misunderstanding (on my part) ended up becoming delinquent.  At the time I tried to work out a plan with them to pay back the amount.  I was just getting into my career and was not in a good place financially, but i was willing to pay something.  They were unwilling to work with me, they even went as far as telling me to have my parents cash in their 401k for me.  I reached out to a few experts on credit and they had told me to not contact them and let the Debt be charged off and wait 7 years until it was removed from my credit report.  It has been about 9 years since this happened, and I am trying to get a preapproval for a mortgage, but I cant get one with a reasonable rate/limit because that is still on my report.

Should I challenge that item on my credit report to see if it can be removed?  Do i need to pay the amount in full to get it removed (wouldnt that reset my 7 year clock)?  Is there another way to get it removed?

Thanks for your help!

A sidenote, I already paid the taxes on the full amount when it was written off.

I have 4 student loans, 2 with the same (private) lender, and the other 2 with different government lending companies. When I first got a job I made a mistake with my payments. What happened is that I started making one payment to the private lender (assuming they would split between the 2 accounts). Well that was a foolish mistake by me, and since I wasnt paying much attention to things, I ended up defaulting on one of the private loans.

At the time I explained what happened and asked if I could just go back into monthly payments since it was a mistake. At that time they only wanted the full amount of the loan. I couldn't come up with that money, so I accepted the consequences and lived with my mistake.

It's now 5 years later and I have enough money set aside that I could easily come up with an amount to settle the debt at an amount less than original loan. Typically, I believe that this type of thing would be removed from my credit report after about 7.5 years.

However, I was wondering if it would be worth settling the debt, even though this may reset the 7 years for removing from my credit report, could it look better that I did try to pay it off?

I know this is a sticky situation, and most people will tell me to take the new job. Real quick background, the potential new company would be a big conglomerate employing multiple thousands of people and my current company has about 200.

When I went to give my notice to my current company, they countered with not only a greater salary than with the new company, but also by accelerating their plans for the future growth of my position.

I wanted to make sure I had a good reason to turn down the counter offer and to compare the jobs, so I reviewed the notes I took during the interviews. I saw a discrepancy between what the interviewers were telling me that the job consisted of versus what the actual job description is. This worries me because it is a new position and a new department (I would be first hire) and if the job was what was stated in the interview it is not a job that I would like.

However, another thing to note is that I verbally told them and signed an offer letter (from what I read, it is not legally binding).

My question is, is it too late to go back to the new company and ask for clarification, should I just accept the new job, or should I accept the counter offer?

A little background... Due to a little confusion on my part, I ended up defaulting one of my private student loans. Once i realized that it was in collections, i called the bank and explained what happened and that i would get current and start making monthly payments. They refused this offer, and then charged-off the loan. Since this was my biggest student loan, it has significantly decreased my credit score. Due to the size of the loan, there is no way i can make the payment in full (or what they offer for a settlement) at the moment. Because of this, I cant get a loan for a car, house, credit card (except for the secured ones), and i have even been denied rentals.

This default happened almost 4 years ago. I am wondering will this default fall off my credit report after the 7.5 years? Or is this something that i will have forever and just have to live with that fact?

Also, what can i do to help the credit report? Since then, i have not missed any other payments. Should i settle, pay in full, ignore them, or try something else?

Thank you!

I recently was contacted by a different company for an interview and they extended an offer for a new job. This job has decent benefits, but its with a smaller company than i am with at the moment. The offer would give me a pretty big raise from what I am at right now. There has been talk that the new company has a possibility of closing or being bought out in the near future.

The reasons I have entertained this offer is for two reasons, one being what I am being paid now and the feeling that I can earn more. Two, there is currently a disruptive co-worker who works beside me and has made the job feel stressful every day I come in.

After I discussed that I have an offer from a different company, obviously my current company decided to make me a counter offer. Their counter, will give me a higher pay than what I would get at the new company and more vacation time than what I would get at the new company. On top of that, there have been multiple HR complaints about this one employee and they are correcting the situation by moving her to a different area in the office away from people. On top of that my current company has told me the plan for moving me into a manager type role in the near future.

Ultimately, I plan on leaving the field I currently am in, in about 2 years. So would taking the offer be worth it especially if I get management experience along with it? Or should I take the offer from the new company and start from the bottom?

Alright so my car is about 14 years old and close to 200k miles. It has served me well. However, as time keeps rolling the car needs more and more repairs. Right now the car needs a minimum of $800 of repairs if not more to keep it running and able to pass inspection. I went to check what dealers would give me for my car at that mileage and they are saying about $500 (which is a ripoff).

My question is should I fork out the $800 or more to fix my current car. I would be trading this in for a new car in about 4 years. Or should I just spring for a used car (fully loaded) with far less mileage and it would fit into my current lifestyle better? This would cost me more over time, but there would hopefully be less repairs needed.

What would you do?

My car right now is about to die :/ It has served me well, but now i need to move on to something new. I am looking at a $20k brand new car, and a $15k used car. The used would only be 2-4 years old with 50k - 70k miles on it.

I know the approximate cost of the payments for each and the increase of my insurance premium.

The big argument that everyone is going to have is that the depreciation of the car drops a butt load once you drive the new off the lot. The next car I get is going to be driven until it cant run anymore. So if thats 200k miles then I would get more use out of the new one than the old one.

What are the positives and negatives of both, and is one the better choice than the other?

I built my computer a few years ago and I orinially had a small Crucial 64gb drive. It went bad recently and I am looking to replace this with a new SSD. I am looking at both the Samsung 840 pro 256gb and the Sandisk Extreme II 250gb drives. I don't know which one I should consider buying. I have windows 8 and play games often, so I am looking for a fast and reliable drive. I don't need too much space.

Can you please let me know which one would be better, or if you have another option?