Well...I've filed

[juliusrosen]

Here we go, not totally thrilled here but I wasn't into rolling the dice with a Ch. 7 and hoping I could keep what I needed to, including the house. It's actually a reasonable payment but I didn't owe all that much and shouldn't have waited so long & tried to work out a payment plan with the creditors before I got to this point.

Anyway, thanks for all the help. Great forum here.

[angel7821]

Best of luck to you and I hope you have smooth sailing thru your plan.

[AngelinaCat]

Congratulations on that big step! I hope all goes smoothly for you!

[juliusrosen]

Thanks you two, your posts have been very helpful.

[dmc-2008]

R u in a 3 or 5 year plan? Good luck!

[sophieanne]

You have taken the first step to financial freedom (like the rest of us)..and I think we all felt the same.why did we wait so long to do it.
Look forward to seeing you on the site...

[kornellred]

If there were such a thing as an easy time negotiating with unsecured creditors to accept either a lower total amount or a drastically lower APR, there would be far fewer bankruptcies. In most cases, debt settlement requirements include immediate payment of the settlement amount, and the creditor issues the appropriate form transforming the forgiven portion of the debt into income for the debtor, and you will have to pay taxes on the forgiven amount. It happens, but not often.

Chapter 13 is a far superior method of resolving debt issues. It's one day at a time from now on.

[AngelinaCat]

We tried negotiating with the larger of our two credit cards. They would not budge--either all or nothing.

[LadyInTheRed]

juliusrosen, congratulations on seeing the light on the futility of negotiating with creditors and taking a huge step towards becoming debt free!

We tried negotiating with the larger of our two credit cards. They would not budge--either all or nothing.

I would never have considered BK if my one largest credit card would have agreed to lower the interest rate so I could afford the monthly payments. They wouldn't budge. They did me a favor.

[angel7821]

If the credit card companies are unwilling to work with a debtor in order to afford the payment then I think they deserve to have BK filed on them. I never tried to negotiate my debt just decided to find myself a good lawyer and get my life back on track. Life is good again. OP you may not be thrilled right now about your decision but I think down the road you will be glad you filed.

[juliusrosen]

Hi, thanks y'all. It's a three year plan & I was pretty close with making a Ch.7 work(possibly) - housing market coming back, that's good and all that except for then there's more equity in your house(all good also but) etc etc and all that is involved with keeping your payments down & keeping certain non exemp posessions etc etc … you all know! I really was thinking man, just go 7, are they really going to send somebody in here & start checking out what I own?

Anyway I slept better, knowing it's filed - just have to deal with it now & see if it gets confirmed.

[juliusrosen]

Well, went to court last week for the Trustee/Creditors thing. The guy seems decent, fair enough but definitely a no nonsense guy so I'm thinking he wouldn't think twice about dismissing if he had a reason. It felt like I was being lectured by a school teacher when he first got us together to talk to us before the proceeding started.

Anyway, still pissed at getting myself into this situation to begin with but appreciate the help I've found here.

[dmc-2008]

Good luck!