What do you mean when you say: "I know that my debt is supposed to disappear after five years from my credit report . . . . " ??

As long as you are making payments on a debt - even tiny payments - your state's statute of limitations doesn't apply to the debt. BUT, if you stop making any payments whatsoever and completely ignore the debt, then, after however many number of years your state's law designates in their statute of limitations on consumer debt goes by, the debt becomes "legally unenforcible" - meaning you can't be sued over it. At that point the original creditor will "forgive" the debt, if it hasn't been already taken off their asset sheet, as an "uncollectible account receivable." So, by making payments over the past 4 years, you have kept the cell phone and cable bills alive, so that they are not even near being "charged off."

PM me, if you like.

After four years, since you started this thread, have you made any progress in beating down those bills - the cable, cell phone and gasoline? If not, seriously consider doing the following: You can simply default on them. How young are you?

Cable and cell companies usually make you pay in advance, so how could you get deep in debt to them, in the first place?

Now, if you default on a debt, that business will report your default to the credit bureaus. So your credit rating goes down. So what? You're not looking to borrow anything now anyway. Once the statute of limitations runs out (4 years in my state,) that same company will lend to you again.

Sometimes defaulting actually impacts your future borrowing ability less severely than bankruptcy. Creditors and bill collectors will call, but that can be dealt with in ways that will minimize the calls. Nobody calls you, after the statute of limitations runs out.

I'm not advising you to take a cavalier attitude toward your debts. But I have seen people spend decades servicing debt that they could never beat down, when they could have made it all disappear by applying the strategy if default, when that would have been appropriate.

"Default" is a legal option. Our laws permit it. Sometimes it is superior to bankruptcy as a financial strategy. (Depends, partly, on whether creditors will find it worth suing you, which often they won't.)

Donald Trump has defaulted all over the place. Has it hurt him? Big businesses don't always pay their bills. When they are in a squeeze, they typically look at all their legal options and choose the one that will be in their own long term interest. They don't, usually, ask which option is morally better, but which option will hurt them the least. When it comes to money you owe big businesses, start thinking that way. That's how the capitalist system you live in is designed to work. I suspect you've been punishing yourself excessively.

Do change your bad habits. You sound young, so you have time to change and rebuild your financial reputation. That gas card, as you found out, is a bad idea. Gas is not a necessity the way food is. Yes, gas to get to work is just as necessary as food, but not the gas you use to do some other things. Get yourself a good bicycle. (I'm not kidding. I did that when I was young.) Have an envelope in the back of your underwear drawyer with an emergency couple of twenty doallar bills. That takes care of gas to get to work during a month that something unexpected happens.

Join Sam's Club, or some other wearhouse store. Buy all your toilet paper there. You may have to get 30 rolls at a time. Don't say, "I can't afford to do that." You can't afford not to do that. Anything you can buy cheaper per item by buying in bulk you must buy in bulk. I live on a very small income, and I don't feel I go without much at all. I even eat out once in a while. But my apartment is stocked with all kinds of stuff I bought in bulk. I happen to love canned baked beans. So I got a supply of bushes baked beans in one cupboard. A bowl of nice baked beans with some hot buttered crescent rolls (I get them in bulk, too.) and a big glass of milk is a meal I enjoy now and then. The makings are always in the kitchen. I'll never spend a day hungry. There's an art to living pretty good on a low income. I see people buying little necessities, like toilet paper and paper towels, at the dollar stores or at Walgreen's, and I want to scream at them: "Are you crazy? Do the math?"

Building your credit score, despite bankruptcy and default, is easier than most people have any idea of. Not that getting back where you can borrow should be your goal, but someday you may need to buy a vehicle.

A friend of mine defaulted on over $7000 back in $2011 - on my advice. He now has a credit score that is above average and two credit cards with quite nice interest rates. Even I was surprised at how well that turned out for him. (In his case, he defaulted on some large balance cards, but religiously paid on some small balance cards. That wasn't my recommendation, but it worked out well. Plus, the cards he defaulted on now want to loan to him again!)

Alas, the there's no remedy for student debt. That stays with you till the grave.