What am I supposed to do once I am discharged?

[jingle47]

So I am sort of looking for a sticky or something on what you are supposed to do once you get that wonderful discharge letter in the mail.(I have not gotten mine yet, but I am Sooooo Ready!!)

I have some student loans, C.C.'s and Medical Bills and some Private Loans that may or may not be considered Student Loans. How can I tell which ones are discharged?
I am not interested in the whole "will my student loans be discharged?" discussion, I have read about that ad nauseum. I am more interested in the "were my debts discharged?" discussion. Student Loans, Private Loans or otherwise?
How can I tell?
I read about people sending letters to creditors, is that something that needs to be done automatically or only if after a few weeks my credit report has not been updated?
Sorry for the long question but I feel like this is such an important step in the BK process that I must simply be missing where this is layed out for me.

[MSbklawyer]

So I am sort of looking for a sticky or something on what you are supposed to do once you get that wonderful discharge letter in the mail..

I hope I never have to find out, but if it were me, I believe I would grab some of that cash I had stashed away since I'm no longer paying credit cards and head down to Cabo and be a beach bum for about 10 days. Do some fishing. Maybe practice up on my margarita drinking skills a little - or a lot. ---But that's just me.

Seriously, your discharge order doesn't distinguish between debts that are discharged and not discharged. Unless it's something obvious, like student loans or child support, creditors will usually bring an AP to determine dischargeability if there is room for doubt.

[Faust]

We are planning on saving our money to go to England.

We have a lot of saving to do!

[BKOnce]

What am I supposed to do once I am discharged?

Find a job!

[jingle47]

huh? So I baiscally have to wait for each creditor to "discharge" my debt and then report it to the three Agencies?
Sounds like the discharge letter is not really the end of it then.

[Strapped4Csh]

Well, what I did was to wait a month or so and pull my credit report. Look and make sure that everything that should be discharged is showing a $0 balance and included in bankruptcy. Dispute anything that isn't. I too had student loans, and made sure that those are still actively reporting after the filing date, since that will help out your credit score in the long run.

Once that was done, I applied for a credit card to help rebuild my credit. I have no interest in credit cards, but my wife and I want to get back into a home in a few years, so that will require some sort of positive credit history. We use the card to buy groceries and pay it off when we get home from the store, or the next day at the latest.

[meateater]

What I did was assume that my student loans were not going to be discharged and just kept paying them during and after my chapter 7. I assumed that the credit cards were discharged and never thought about them again. After about two years I got an offer for a pre-approved credit card, sent it in, and to my surprise received a credit card.

A few years after that I got my credit report, and noted that all the credit cards said "IIB", a few accounts were also listed as "charge-offs" when they had been current until I filed. I did nothing, after seven years all the bad stuff (except the public record of BK) fell off my credit report (in fact, a few accounts that I discharged are listed as being in good standing, not sure if this is contributing to my current score, but i don't think these accounts are actually open).

What are your goals? I did not want to get back into the credit market and had no immediate plans to buy a house, car or anything that required an extension of credit. If I had, I might have been proactive about my credit report, but there was no harm in doing nothing (my state does not allow credit score to be figured in auto insurance rates).

For the student loans, if I knew that certain ones were definitely not discharged, i'd get in touch with them and start repaying. For the private loans that might have been discharged, I'd look at the bankruptcy code and try to get a sense of which way its likely to go. If I thought there was any possibility that I still owed (and that the loans were accruing interest), I'd call the lender and ask them to send me a letter explaining their understanding about whether I still owed the money. Alternatively, you could send them a letter stating that the loans were discharged in bankruptcy, and wait for them to tell you thart you're wrong. But, I would figure out any non-discharged debt sooner rather than later as it will be accruing interst, possibly penalties, and they will probably eventually find you.

[jingle47]

Thank you all for your help!