I just saved hundreds, all because of my clumsy fingers!  

I've done 10-key also and I'm pretty good at it, which is why I was so mad at myself!

It can't hurt to call the people you owe and ask them to settle for a lump sum. Since this was a hospital, they weren't charging me interest and your credit card company is making a mint off you! But still, the economy isn't getting much better and they might figure they'd be better off taking a lump sum than taking the chance that you'll default as so many people are doing right now. Try it!

I wish I could! If you have any extra--I know, ha ha fat chance!--add ten or twenty dollars to your payment to be applied to the principle. That will have it paid off much faster and you won't pay as much interest. I'm so blessed that my car got paid off as part of the divorce. I'll probably not buy another, either, as I hate having car payments and I don't drive more than 150 miles a month anyway.

I know I used to work in a bank. Though with our budget doing things like that aren't always the easiest to do. But I do try to put $5 extra on the mortgage, wich I know isn't much BUT over 30 yrs time yeah $5 will save you alot in the end.

I don't drive much either. Most everything is within a 3 mile radius except the Dr & family of course. I'm looking fwd to putting the amt of miles you put on Starting in Sept when my kids take the bus to school!

I didn't even have to ask, I had no idea that they would do that! I guess a lot of people are defaulting and they take what they can get while they can get it. It certainly made this a good week--and I still have 5 days to go till the week is done!

Wow, how ridiculous! But the IRS sent two agents to California last summer to collect 4 cents. Of course, with all the penalties and interest it was about $4,000! Talk about usury....

It's not easy to drop a big sum like that all at once but if I spend a couple months cutting back it won't be so bad. It was a wonderful mistake! If I have to sacrifice to make it work, that's okay. It's such a shame when something like this can impact a person or family so much--not the debt write-off but the pinching pennies that comes after.

I don't think there are many "for profit" hospitals left! I guess the write-off is more lucrative than the payment plan--they saved about 19 months of payments and the cost of processing them. They actually pay someone to process their accounts receivable! There's a big chunk right there.

You must have been paying that debt off for a long time!! I hope you got some good out of it. When I was young and stupid I had a student loan but the school turned out to be unaccredited and I dropped out--they kept the money so I had to pay it back! We are so dumb when we're young. I'm glad you're rid of your loan!

Well, dragon - we all make mistakes when we are young, and sometimes when we are older too..
Anyway, I guess it would not be possible to get a study loan if the school would not be accepted by the loan givers. I used the loans to study languages - Finnish, my first language, English and Spanish.
It has been useful to be able to talk with people with these languages.
Maybe it helped to get jobs as teacher even without formal education.
I am still learning a lot English here in myLot, and I think this is a good place to learn to express our thoughts in written form..

I called the hospital directly after seeing the charge on my credit card bill. I had thought about disputing the charge and explaining my mistake but thought I'd make more headway with the hospital. I was right! I think they are taking what they can get at this point instead of taking the chance that people will default. There's a lot of defaulting going on these days!

It took a long time for the infection to go away and I had no help at home as I live by myself so I had to do all the cleaning, medicating and bandaging. But I got through it, as I do everything! Now, a year later, I can hardly tell it ever happened except for the icky scar. And now I got a discount on it!! Thanks for asking!

I was very thankful that I had insurance, otherwise I'd be paying for years!! I know people who put medical expenses on credit cards but I would never do that because of the ridiculous interest rates. That's why I have a savings account and squirrel away every cent I can!

I'm sorry to hear about your rupture. My sister in law had that happen--the doc kept telling her she had the flu--and she had to have two surgeries and netting in there to hold her insides together. She's fine now, thank God.

Medical bills are hard to deal with, they are nearly always unexpected. I'm glad you've paid yours off! Now I only have $115 left to the surgeon and I'm done!!