Dear Kenny, Thank you for your book!  It was a huge turning point for me.  It gave me clear direction when I really needed it, when I was lost in a thick dark jungle of credit card debt. I had heard, mostly on the radio, that credit cards could be settled for far less than I owed, but just how?  When I called some of those companies that advertised on the radio, they wanted huge fees and were talking about "consolidating" and having me make payments for at l... Read Full Story

In "The Do-It-Yourself Bailout," I tell the story of how I settled five of my seven credit card accounts, reducing my debt from $212,000 to $30,000 in about six months and having $115,000 in debt written off entirely. At the time of writing, I still had two open accounts, "Yellow Bank" with a $17,500 balance and "White Bank" with a $12,500 balance.  With added interest during the months I was not making payments, the balances increased to $22,500 a... Read Full Story

Negotiating settlements on credit card debt is one of the fastest ways to reduced large portions of your credit card debt permanently. Although there are many companies advertising on radio and television to work for you in settling your credit card debt, it is possible to do it yourself without paying additional fees or a percentage of the amount you save to a third party. Here are five major points to keep in mind when settling your credit card debt. 1. It will be necessary to stop making ... Read Full Story

Kenny Golde is the author of “The Do-It-Yourself Bailout: How I Reduced My Credit Card Debt from $212,000 to $30,000 in Six Months and Saved Over $100,000.” http://www.SettleYourCreditCards.com Even wondered what the difference was between the Finance Charge and The Annual Percentage Rate (APR) as stated on your credit card statement? The following is from the Federal Reserve website (http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/consumerhdbk/cost.htm#apr), a good explanation of the differen... Read Full Story

Kenny Golde is the author of "The Do-It-Yourself Bailout: How I reduced my credit card debt from $212,000 to $30,000 in six months and saved over $100,000." Available at http://www.SettleYourCreditCards.comLet’s talk about credit scores for a minute.  I say, “What’s the big deal?”  We are taught to revere our credit scores.  Hurting a credit score is the unstated, endgame of many financial decisions when the decisi... Read Full Story

Who saw the Inauguration this morning? Amid a flurry of assessments from press and public, my personal favorite moment of the speech was when President Obama said we all have the right to pursue our own “full measure of happiness.” It struck me as more than the quote from the Declaration of Independence, not just the pursuit of happiness, but a full measure of it. Like a cold soda poured right to the brim, a double-helping at Thanksgiving, that end-of-the-movie smile that is so b... Read Full Story

I’ve had several readers of “The Do-It-Yourself Bailout” asking me offline about mortgage refinancing.  I don’t have much to say on the subject yet, as I am just going through the process myself right now. I’ll add updates to my blog as I learn anything. Just last night I met with a guy who was very cool.  Adam Rodman at Hope Financial.  (310) 570-3765  www.hopefinancialusa.com  adamrodman@ca.rr.com I was asking him questions like, Should... Read Full Story

http://www.settleyourcreditcards.comI am an independent film maker.  In April of 2007 I went into production on a small but warm film with only a $500,000 budget. I had a single investor and it was the culmination of a decade’s work to get the film made.  As we started shooting we went over budget, and at the same time my investor became ill and was hospitalized.  It was impossible to speak with him at the time about covering the over budget expenses and I was faced with ... Read Full Story