Spotlight on Success – Victor’s Story

A Difficult Adjustment

When Victor retired, he felt confident in his financial situation. He had been diligent about saving and planning for his future beyond, creating a budget that would allow him live comfortably on a fixed income. Unfortunately, when adjusting to certain lifestyle changes, it is hard to account for all aspects of those changes until they happen.

Once Victor retired, he lost his health insurance through his employer and getting his own proved to be much more expensive than he had originally budgeted for. As more of his monthly budget had to be reserved to cover the cost of his benefits, he began relying more heavily on credit cards to get by.

What began as a way to cover a few sporadic expenses became the only way that Victor was able to make ends meet. “I resorted to depending on my credit cards to survive,” said Victor. Soon he found himself in a situation that felt insurmountable. “With high interest rates and living on a fixed income, I couldn’t keep up with the monthly payments and felt I was never going to get out of that debt.”

Once Victor realized he was going to be unable to make even the minimum payments on his balances, he knew that he was going to need help. He started researching different types of debt relief to see which program may be right for him. Discouraged by what he found with other providers, Victor considered filing bankruptcy as a way to get out from under his financial burden. Luckily, he reached out to Century before he decided to do so.

We worked with Victor to create a program customized to his needs, one that would get him out of debt quickly but also allow him to stay within his fixed budget. With Century’s help, he was able to establish a manageable monthly deposit that fit well within his budget, but allowed us to work on his behalf to negotiate with his creditors and eliminate his balances. “Century presented a very positive program of repayment without the negativity of bankruptcy,” said Victor. Victor’s program ended a few months ago, wiping out all of his outstanding credit card debt and allowing him the relief he needed to restructure his budget and prevent him from relying on high interest credit cards in the future.