Kenny Golde - The do-it-yourself bailout: how I eliminated $222,000 of credit-card debt in eighteen months and saved nearly $150,000

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Hey Ken, I bought your book almost a year ago, followed it step by step and settled on one incoming phone call, two credit cards totaling $55,000 for $10,000. I refer you to all my friends in need. It really works!! Thanks A Million$Sam X. Torrance, Calif.

I had $235,000 in credit card debt. I was one week away from filing Chapter 7 bankruptcy when I ordered The Do-It-Yourself Bailout . This book inspired me and gave me the guidance to negotiate these balances down to close to $40,000, about 15% of what I originally owed. Thanks Kenny.Steve, Roundhill, Va.

Thanks to the encouragement and information in your book Ive recently settled $54,000 of debt for $15,000.Mark D., Los Angeles, Calif.

I bought your book and have been following it to the letter (!) with two credit cards that Im unable to pay due to a 40% pay cut. The first one just settled with me today for $8,700 on a $21,000 debt. Whew. Thank you so much for that.S. B. New York

I really found your book helpful! I am now in a very empowered state most of the time with everything, but I was super-stressed out for a long time!Chuck B., Phoenix, Ariz.

I just wanted to thank you for your useful information in this book. I will recommend it to a lot of friends.Marc D., Los Angeles, Calif.

My income has drastically reduced in the past two years, and my debt has gone through the roof. I have started reading your book, It is exactly what I have been searching for.Mark E.

All testimonials are excerpts from emails received from actual readers. While there are many readers I have not heard from, and Im sure many who have not achieved this type of outcome, if any, the results indicated in these testimonials were achieved by average people (the Federal Trade Commissions term, not mine, I consider all my readers to be exceptional) who reduced their debt on his own after reading The Do-It-Yourself Bailout . No one received any compensation in cash or trade for their testimonial. Kenny Golde

Published by Barricade Books Inc.
2037 Lemoine Ave.
Suite 362
Fort Lee, NJ 07024
www.barricadebooks.com

Copyright 2012 by Kenny Golde
All Rights Reserved

Earlier editions 2010, 2008 by Kenny Golde

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Golde, Kenny.

The do-it-yourself bailout : how I eliminated $222,000 of credit-card debt in eighteen months and saved nearly $150,000 / Kenny Golde.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-56980-473-5

1. Credit cards. 2. Consumer credit. 3. Debt. 4. Finance, Personal. I. Title.

HG3755.G65 2013

332.7'65--dc23

2012037328

ISBN: 978-1-56980-473-5

Manufactured in the United States of America

This book would not have been clear, concise, or grammatically correct without the patient assistance of my mother, Judy. I want to thank all the friends who took me to lunch and patiently listened to my story without bludgeoning me. I want to thank everyone who contributed to my going into debt, for the journey has been valuable. I want to thank the two men who very directly made this journey possible, Lawrence Gabriel and Mark Gabriel. And I want to thank everyone who contributed to the process of my understanding of how to take the journey: Mark Safran, Bob Golde, Sandy Stotzer, Jim Crawford, Alon Ben-Nun, Dan Smith, Mark Elkins, Shane Curtis, Robert Goodman, Bry Sanders, Larry Ecoff, Jonathan Aluzas, Steve Bryson, Gary Weiss, John Somerville, Pedro Tapia, John Donaldson, David Crawford, Fred Cei, Scott Coady and the Institute for Embodied Wisdown, Peggy Biocini, Mark Bass, Matt Tapie, Gary Schein, O.T. Vickers, Andy Reich, Jeff Hare, Jodi Davis, Jodi Womack, Steve and Suzanne Roy, David Golde, Gabriella Zielinksi, Jonathan Klein, Zen de Brucke, Kathleen Coady, Lindsey Welch, Giselle Fernandez, Napoloeon Hill, Landmark Education, Blood Soldiers, C.J., and my love, Marshell.

I am not an attorney, and nothing in this book is meant to be advice, legal or otherwise. This book represents only my experiences and my interpretation of information that I have gained through those experiences. Every situation is different, and laws vary from state to state. I make no recommendation that you should proceed with debt settlement negotiations in a manner similar to or based on my experiences as related herein, nor do I make any warranty, express or implied, that you will have experiences or results similar to or even related to mine. Please visit an attorney and an accountant with expertise in the area of debt settlement and/ or bankruptcy to discuss your personal situation and how anything you read in this book may, or may not, apply to it.

My name is Kenny Golde. I am a real person.

In 2005, I had just bought my first home, a duplex in Los Angeles, near Hollywood. I had less than $10,000 in credit-card debt, more than $100,000 in unused lines of credit, a FICO score of more than 800, and about $100,000 in savings even after the down payment on my home. At thirty-eight-years old, I felt that I had taken a great step into my future and was looking forward to finding a soul mate and starting a family as my career progressed. I even adopted a dog.

Over the next two years, I would see my financial situation be entirely reversed. Even before the financial crisis of 2008 had hit the world, a few unexpected turns in my business would cause my savings to fall to less than $50,000 and my credit-card debt to swell to more than $200,000. My monthly minimum payments on credit cards alone totaled nearly $3,600. By late 2007, I estimated that I had five months to go before being completely destitute, losing my home and going bankrupt.

Not where I expected to be at forty. Not by a million dollars.

After I had accumulated my debt, I began to research my options. I found many books and websites on debt reduction. An Amazon search for debt reduction brought up more than two dozen books. A Google search for debt reduction issued pages and pages of websites for books, calculators, programs, consolidators, and opinions on how to reduce debt. Beyond an array of financial-planning tools intended to help people live debt free, or at least debt manageable, as a lifestyle practice, I found that one of the common tools mentioned by many of these debt books, websites, and service resources was the idea that I could call my credit-card companies and negotiate with them to settle my debt for less than I owed.

What I did not find in the books and websites I reviewed was anything more than the simple advice that settling debt was possible. I did not find any book or website that actually took me through the process of approaching my creditors, what to say to them, what to expect them to say to me, how long the process might take, the pitfalls to avoid, or what success I might have. Perhaps something of this nature existed. I did not find it.

Now I have gone through the process. As of this writing, I have reduced my credit-card debt from its cumulative peak of $222,000 to zero. That is correct. I am 100-percent credit-card debt free. I have done this legally, at a fraction of the cost of the debt itself, and I saved just less than $150,000 that was written off entirely! The journey took me about a year and a half. I dealt with six major U.S. banks and acquired a vast, new knowledge of how the process of settling credit-card debt actually worksfrom the inside.