In Hindsight...we should have...

[whoops08]

stopped paying our mortgage 6-9 months ago. Our BK 7 was discharged in October 2008 and we filed in July 08. We paid our mortgage until our filing date. We knew we were going to probably have to file in March/April. We wish that we had been able to admit to ourselves long before that BK was our only option. We knew that we were in deep and that BK was the best option for us. We were too ashamed to admit that BK was what we needed to do. We should have looked at it as a business decision early on and not let our emotions influence our decisions. Had we stopped paying our mortgage back then we would have quite a savings.

We are very thankful for this fresh start but wish we had faced the reality of our situation long ago and not been in denial.

I guess hindsight is 20/20.

Happy New Year to you all.

Best of Luck and Happiness in 2009!

[JayJay]

whoops, thank you for that. It's inspiring and hopefully I be free by the Summer. All of 2008 has been nothing but stress for me and I did feel shame at first..but now I'm not afraid to tell people about it.

[ansky0007]

Also realize that if you stopped paying your mortage 6-9 months ago the trustee would have went after the cash so in reality it would not have been much different.

[Never_Again]

Whoops, I think that many of us have gone through the fact that we should have done this long ago. Personally, I should have filed two years and one refinance of my house before I did. I wasn't ready to face the music at that time. I, too, would have been much further ahead, and, given the progress that I have made in the last three months, would have been well on my way.

But, perhaps, I would not have learned "my lesson" as well as I have now? Would I have gone through sufficient pain, that I still would be out there, getting credit cards, trying to re-build my credit, trying to start another business using excessive leverage, living my financial life without a written plan, or many of the other bad habits that I had picked up?

Maybe you learned lessons in that amount of time that you wouldn't have learned otherwise?