<p>Should my friend just stop paying on her credit cards…call up the companies and just tell them she can no longer afford to pay the monthly payments?</p>
<p>My 72 year old friend with a fixed income has managed to run up her credit cards–she is disorganized with a host of physical and emotional problems (another subject). She has no family to assist her and is deteriorating. </p>
<p>Her income is about $1250 mo. Her basic expenses now are $1330 mo. and $280 of that $1300 is credit card payments. I looked over all her expenses…not much to trim really. Because she is keeping up the payments on the cards she is having to defer essential services (dental for herself, veterinarian for her cat and dog, auto maintenance, she waits too long to buy eyeglass frames…by the time she can afford them her prescription is too weak). She’s starting to borrow from friends.<br>
I’m not a fan of irresponsibility but this situation seems rather hopeless. Should she ditch the credit card payments? Even if she got the payments reduced, it would not help much. She has no assets.</p>