I found your post, it is very old, hopefully you still get this email through this, I have a tip for cancer treatment - it is called kombucha - a herbal tea - have you heard of it?  Just google kombucha + cancer , if you are interested search on google there are heaps of places to buy the starter kit, you make your own tea from there!

I do know what you mean there, have the same setup myself and have forgotten and missed payments before and then they take you off the plan (all automatic by computer I am told), send you a bill for the total amount and all the warnings.  I forgot a few times and in teh end got an automatic payment setup from my parenting pension, so it comes out before I see my money now.

It does feel that the big companies tend to follow the motto "kick you while you are down", like um this person has not been able to manage paying even the small amount so lets hit them with the full bill and disconnection notices.

1. Have you tried ringing and offering them something you can afford and negotiating?

2. If number 1 has been done and failed make a payment anyway, ring them and tell them you have done so, give them a receipt number.  Believe me if they cut you off after you doing your best and paying them what you can they are possible targets for bad publicity.  Find out what is in your area to help you complain, is diferent in every country.

How much is the bill you have to pay to stop getting cut off?  Can you ring them and ask them can you give them whatever you can towards the bill and make an arrangemnt to pay slowly and them in return not cut you off?

Are you in a situation where you could refinance your mortgage?  Would the payments work out less than what you are paying on the personal loan?

I am a single mum with 2 daughters, I receive parenting pension and also run my own business from home doing web development but still we always seem to end up struggling with the bills and debts. 

We have 10 weeks until we leave Australia for a family holiday in Ireland to see family who we haven't seen in 10 years.  I have paid for a lot already, all the return flights to Ireland are covered, half of a week in Spain, a deposit on some accomodation, but hell we still have a long, long way to go.

I have worked out with the money that I have saved and by the time we leave which is in about 10 weeks we will have very little left to cover a holiday where we are going to be away for 2 months. 

I have worked out that we need to raise $10,000 extra in 10 weeks.

So here I am, on the start of what is going to have to be a very accelerated journey on how to raise money fast.  And yes, like all the people here I am  also struggling with debt, $15,000 over 3 credit cards, the payments are killing me with the interest and any penalties.  So I guess not only do we need to save but also square up some debts to more maneagable proportions so we can go away knowing we have at least left our debts in a manageable state.

I will post more tomorrow but would love to hear from anyone able to help.  I will also post any useful tips for others here that I happen to find on my journey.  I have purchased a domain name tonight, my first step, www.backtoderry.com , am yet to set it up so I have some hard work ahead of me!

p.s. my mother is in hospital long term so doesn't have a house at the minute so we have to cover accommodation while there which is turning out to be very expensive especially converting the aussie dollar to the UK pound or euro!

I cannot seem to post a paypal link here so here it is on my eblog! -

http://backtoderry.blogspot.com