Alice Smith thought she would live comfortably and quietly in her Hyattsville retirement community. Instead she's fretfully dodging calls from her creditors.
She owes more than $10,000 to four credit card companies and more than $7,000 to a credit union — in part, she said, because of spending to help her family. She doesn't give exact figures because she is unsure of them: With late fees and higher interest rates, the amount she owes has grown. Her income has not. Through a pension and Social Security from her former job at a National Institutes of Health laboratory, she receives about $2,000 a month. Her rent is $955. She doesn't know how she can ever pay down her debts. So she thinks she just might not.