Kirsten Gonzalez knows all about making an urgent phone call in a crisis. She’s a longtime 911 dispatcher in Indiana.
Her financial crisis started in 2014, when her father died. “My mother was financially unstable at the time, so we helped her,” Kirsten says.
But while she was supporting her mother, her husband had to leave the country for two months.
“My husband is from Mexico. Per the immigration lawyers, he had to go back to do an interview process with the consulate down there, so he could legally enter the United States again when he was done.”
The couple had two toddlers, and the loss of her husband’s income as a home remodeler broke her budget.
“I had to get credit cards to help pay bills,” she says. “Then my mother passed away. She had canceled her life insurance because she couldn’t afford it, so I had to pay for the funeral.”
By then, she had nearly $25,000 in credit card debt.
“I had car payments, house payments, feeding and clothing for my children, and doctor’s appointments with them,” Kirsten says. “It was just constantly one after another. It just got to the point where I was unable to stay with payments.”
Making the call
Kirsten’s job as a 911 dispatcher actually led her to Consolidated Credit.
I have an Employee Assistance Program through my job,” she says. I contacted them, and we got a financial advisor through my EAP who said there was a company he knew that could help. It was Consolidated Credit.”
She made the call and enrolled in a Debt Management Program that same day. Here’ how she describes that call…
It just was very overwhelming to realize how much debt I really was in. It was very stressful. I was crying on the phone with the counselor. I kept asking him, “Are you sure this is real? I can really pay my debts?’ He reassured me. Now I’m actually saving $600 a month! I can actually afford things nowadays!
In the beginning of her program, Kirsten occasionally doubted it would work.
“Yeah, I was a little freaked out. I kept checking online portal to see my debt and make sure the
payments were sent,” she says. “I was terrified that this wasn’t going to happen.”
Her fear lasted weeks.
“It was probably after the second month when I was like, ‘These guys really do have my back and they’re more than willing to help me,’” Kirsten says. “I just stopped worrying. I put my full trust into Consolidated Credit.”
What happens next
Her children are now 13 and 16. She hopes neither will ever need to call Consolidated Credit.
“I read through all the information Consolidated Credit offers, and I’m hoping I can pass that education onto my kids – because I don’t want them to suffer the debt that I went through when they’re older,” she says.
Currently, Kirsten is building up an emergency savings fund. Then she’s going to take a family vacation.
“We haven’t had one in eight years,” she says. “My kids want to go to Universal Studios and Disneyland, and they want to go see their aunts in Mexico and go to the beach. There’s just so many places we want to go. And now we can.”
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