Help with Smart Money article on Debt

[Kenbensinger]

Hi. I'm a reporter for Smart Money magazine and I've been lurking around Bankruptcy Forum for awhile doing research on debt for an article I'm writing. The story is focusing on America's consumer debt crisis and how millions of Americans are burdened with at times unmanageable debt.

For the article, I'm hoping to get in touch with a few brave individuals willing to share their stories so that others can be a bit more informed about what it means to take on debt in a credit-crazed society. Ideally these would be people who have incurred big amounts of credit card debt, mortgages that have reset and make it impossible to keep up, student loans that loom impossibly over their heads, medical debts that couldn't be avoided, etc. I'm looking for people who have thought about filing for bankruptcy, have filed for bankruptcy or, as I hear sometimes happens, have filed for bankruptcy twice.

What I hope to do is to tell the readers of the magazine about this problem and to do so in human terms they can understand -- explain how a simple college credit card or an auto loan can be the domino setting off problems that can last far beyond the day that the last penny of principal is paid off, in the form of bad credit scores, high priced loans and even in other ways (some employers are looking up FICO scores lately!).

The story is tentatively entitled "Living with Debt" and that's the theme I'm working with: how many Americans now face a life filled with indebtedness.

If anyone reading and posting on Credit Boards would be willing to tell me their stories, I'd be extremely appreciative. Please write me back or call me, or tell friends and contacts and see if they'd be willing to chat. I think this story needs telling.

Thanks!

[Granny]

What I hope to do is to tell the readers of the magazine about this problem and to do so in human terms they can understand -- explain how a simple college credit card

Three of the cards I included were issued to me when I was in college. As the credit industry started changing their terms, such as the increased late fees, increased over the limit fees, and my personal favorite the term that allowed them to increase your interest rate if you were late on a payment to another creditor, I started canceling my cards, one by one, with the exception of American Express. I canceled those cars around 1999-2000 and the balances were less than 1000 when I had to file in 2006. The monthly payments on all the cards were enough to make my monthly mortgage payment. If I hadn't paid the credit cards each month, I could have paid the mortgage and wouldn't have needed to file bankruptcy (I live in Texas, so it's easy to just walk away from the credit card debt.)

After graduation, I was gainfully employed, but raising kids. I planned to pay off the cards after graduation and then after the kids were grown, and almost succeeded, but something always got in the way, like unemployment while taking care of an ailing mother and then finally, raising the grandkids.

My spending was never extravagant, but the cards were used for things that we should have either done with out, or paid cash for. I might add, that during the years that most of the charges were incurred, I was supposed to be receiving child support, but it didn't come and when the last child was grown, my credit card debt was within a few hundred dollars of the total child support that I was owed.

It doesn't take but one ill fated catostrophe to set one into a tailspin that can only be ended with filing bankruptcy.

[demismom]

Our story is one of trying to be noble and it biting us in the azz!

We'd been trying to get pregnant for 12 years, with the help of a Dr. we finally were able to (and the help of our credit cards). Well, 7 weeks into the pregnancy I was put on bedrest for the REST of the pregnancy. No more work for me, but we'd already planned on me staying home anyway, it just happened sooner than expected.

Then the opportunity to buy the perfect house came up, so we bought it on Land Contract without having first sold our other house (which we'd refinanced for more than it was worth, unbeknownst to us at the time). So, now we're stuck with $40,000 in credit card debt AND a mortgage that we can't afford.

So we're filing Chapter 7, our Petition was mailed Monday, so I hope to have it soon for review. I HATE credit card companys and predatory Mortgage Lenders, they can all kiss my butt!