More Lenders Are ‘Garnishing Wages’ To Get Paid Back

[bhikkhu]

51. Or, if you can't pay off loans, don't take out loans

I'm pretty much in agreement about paying off debt. I went through a pretty tough stretch of years before and after the recession, where I was making a decent check, but paying about every dime of it to keep up on bills, and scrimping to get by. I did keep up, enough to raise my credit score and re-fi my first and second mortgage and some of my student loans into one low-interest loan. Which saved me about $500 a month in payments. Now (with a better job to boot) everything is going just fine - money in the bank, money for extras and emergencies, and putting some away for retirement.

On the other hand, it wasn't without costs. My wife a few years ago was unemployed and had a credit card "problem", which I never knew the scope of since she hid the statements, and that sort of thing. One of the first things I did when she wasn't willing to talk about it or work out a plan, was to separate our finances, taking her off the house, and eventually getting an amicable divorce. I think she has something like 80k owed, though, again, she never wanted to talk about it.

I would be on the side of "pay it off", but I can't help but ask - what boneheaded bank would give a person with no job or assets $80,000, unsecured? I don't have a lot of sympathy with her (having other issues, of course), but I also have zero sympathy for the banks or the collectors in that kind of case.