Does it look bad to suddendly just stop paying everybody?

[stopthebleeding]

I have not officially stopped paying but plan to should I stop paying 1 at a time or have some good excuse to stop paying. I need 1000 $ to start my sons braces in june and need to start saving for it. I need to stop paying to be ready for the braces. I just don't want it to look bad for my case but how dumb is it to keep paying some creditors and not others?

[CATCHMEIFYOUCAN]

No, many have gone months not paying creditors and filing BK. Do what you have to do to take care of YOUR needs if you are planning on filing. There is such a thing as creditor preferences BUT its like $600 or more. The Trustee would go after those creditors and get the money back to be disbursed evenly among those creditors that filed a proof of claim in the end. GET YOUR SONS BRACES ! ! !

Best of Luck CMIYC

Just using my experience, I always made sure my car got paid and my insurance and my rent and utilities were paid FIRST, BEFORE my creditors!

[almostthere]

Curiously....I was asked by my attorney at filing if I had made any large payments to any of my creditors within the past 30 (I think it was 30 but not sure) days. I'm not sure why, but at the time, I remember it sounded like something I needed to avoid. Which makes me think it's better to stop payment at the same time rather than pay one over another........

Anyone?

[ilovemycaitybug]

From what I understand, you should not make payments of $600+ to any one creditor. I stopped paying everything all at once at the advice of my attorney. He said if I'm going to be filing, it won't do any good to pay any more!

[almostthere]

From what I understand, you should not make payments of $600+ to any one creditor. I stopped paying everything all at once at the advice of my attorney. He said if I'm going to be filing, it won't do any good to pay any more!

Yes, I think $600 was the amount my attorney mentioned as well....

[SinkingFast]

It's $600 or more in the aggregate (that's total) in the last 90 days.

That's Line of Credit by Line of Credit. $600 or more on each CC acct or other Unsecured acct.

You want to be sure to keep up with your Secureds and any Priority Debt payments you may have.

Kinda, in a way, the Creditors will think it's bad if you pay some and not the others. Once you're 90 days or so late, they're gonna start pulling your Credit to see if you're paying anyone else some thing. If you do some and not others, the others will be all over you.

[JRScott]

I'd stop paying all the non priority debt

I had stopped paying some folks a long time ago. I was still paying DELL because it was secured (by the computer) however that was probably a mistake and led to me being served papers, which led to me retaining a lawyer and preparing for Bankruptcy.

In my meeting today the lawyer said not to pay anymore of my credit card companies or DELL, we are planning to list DELL and say surrender. Given the age of the computer she said it is likely they will probably say something like give us so much and keep it or something. She said given the puters age they might not even ask for it back or ask for any money.

Prior to this I caught the DELL payment up just 2 weeks ago. I also paid off some miniscule, 3 dollar amount that was on the balance of another card, and a month ago before I decided on bankruptcy I settled another account for less than 300 dollars.

The red flag I think goes up when you pay 600 dollars or more to one creditor or another.

Anyway I would stop paying all the non priority creditors immediately. I mean still pay for the house, car, insurance, etc but I wouldn't worry about the credit card companies, it'll take em 6 months or longer to come after you but they'll start calling and annoying you.