How long before you filed and why?

[wipetheslate]

wipetheslate, I feel for you. It's really upsetting that so many people in this country have the double-whammy of life-threatening illness and financial stress that makes it harder to get care or to take care of oneself at the most critical time. I had the experience of acting as a lay representative to the IRS for someone who had a terminal diagnosis a few years back and was grateful that I was able to secure "non-collectible" status for them during their final year of life -- I know that this person would not have handled it, had not handled it in the past, alone. It really does sound like you're keeping all of this in hand though. I wish you the best.

Thanks, empowered. Thankfully I have good health insurance and was able to get treatment at a top hospital, where I also had close family I could stay with.

Since I was away from home for months receiving treatment, I got to skip a lot of the creditor phone calls! I'm thankful I had already decided on bankruptcy even before I was diagnosed, so I was able to be pretty tranquilo about my financial situation. Only the timeline was altered. My work has been great about the whole situation, which has been enormously helpful as well.

[tobee43]

Sadly, I do not see Congress making any changes.

The reality is that our government is being run by 10 Big Banks who have bought off Congress and the White House (no matter who the President is.)

yeah gman...but i bet you it got Obama another 4 years with the banks now in his pocket....ahhhhhhhh ....i don't want to interupt my fage and honey lunch... with bank throw-up talk!! LOl!

wipetheslate...glad to hear you are doing better. don't let this stress get to you...think happy thoughts if you can...like there is a rainbow at the end of this storm..

[2bdebtfree]

I just got back from a consult with my first attorney. Before I get on with the results I would like to say thankyou for sharing your stories. It has been an immense help with my thought process and I feel for everyone here.

Wipetheslate - I feel for you also. At least with your debt gone, you won't have to worry about those snakes calling for money. I hope you are feeling well today and I'm glad you replied.



Nomore - I was in panic mode and probably stilll am. I understand. I have the same here with my husband's medical issues. Appealling SSDI's denial. My 2 teenagers. Everything. It's alot to deal with. Hang in there. As people are telling me, it will get better.

So I had my first appt. with an attorney today. I put everything on the table. How I happened upon the cash advance, got into so much debt, what I did with the money. He suggested Chapter 7.

Would have to use the state exemptions because I have $70,000 equity in my house. (Don't want to refinance because I don't want to put unsecured debt into secured like I have previously done). I am keeping my house as rents would be more than my mortgage is.

Using the states exemptions, each car has a $700 exemption. My car (2002 impala with 140,000 miles, good condition) is worth $3800 in KBB and my husbands truck (1996 Dodge Ram, 170,000 miles, poor condition) is worth $1500 in KBB. The trustee can take the equity in both vehicles. The attorney says to go to a used car dealer and have them write on their stationary how much they could sell each car for. I know I wouldn't pay $3800 for my car so if the dealer says it is worth $2000, the attorney said he can usually work with the trustee not have us pay the money to the trustee. The truck would not be able to sell at the used car lot so that one will be easy to exempt. He, also suggested that I trade my car in and buy a new one and then there will not be an equity issue. I'm not sure I can afford a car payment so he is going to make up a budget for me. If I decide not to buy a new car, then we will just work with getting the values down on my car.

My equity in my house is exempt. So that's good.

About the cash advance. I told him the circumstances and I will tell you how it got to be $9000. I got a letter in the mail from Citi. You know the ones about the 0% balance transfer for a year. Well, I called up and just wanted to take $2000 out. Just to cover my back electric bill (my electric got turned off for a back balance) and pay my cc's until my husband's disability got approved. Dumb, I know. Should have known 1st time you apply you get denied. As I was talking to the guy at Citi I said I wanted $2000. He said how about $3000? You have 12 months to pay with 0% interest blah, blah, blah. I would say yes then he would go up another $1000. This happened a few times. So it ended up being $9000. I ended up saying no to $10,000. He was very savvy, I guess you could say. So anyhow, I ended up with $9000 in my bank account. I took some money out and got the kids clothes for school, had to go to Canada for a week for a family emergency, food shopping, did a few things that needed to be done on the house, etc. No luxuries. I still have approx $3000 in the bank. Attorney said that waiting just 90 days and then file bk would be no problem. He stated that the cc companies have a sales pitch thing that they do to get you to take out more money than you wanted to. I forget what he called it. I'll have to email him to ask him. As i have no pattern in my cc history of luxuries or any fraud if the Trustee did bring it up then he would respond out the sales pitch thing. I told the attorney I would like to wait a little longer for it to age and he said 90 days would be enough. He said there should not be a problem.

He said that I could have up to $1200 in the bank to file. I would have to spend down what I have in the bank. I asked if I could use the money in the bank to pay him and he said yes. There would be no problem. I just have to spend it down on necessities.

I have a 1985? 19ft boat in the yard with a broken motor. Haven't used it in three years since getting towed out of the ocean. I don't car about that so if the Trustee wants it he can have it. We will take pics of it to show if brought up.

He told me if I retain him and file in November than I should stop paying the cc's now. Since I'm current on all cc's once (if) I retain him then I shouldn't really get any phone calls since he will have sent a letter I am filing to all creditors.

He also said to not play the blame game which I was told on here to do the same. It makes sense not to. Me and my husband are both a part of it. It was just easier for me to accept where we are financially by blaming him. Stupid, huh??

Since I already have a small tax refund that should not be a problem either. I already have the least taxes taken out of my check so I can't change it to take even less out as I would have to pay next year. I usually get less than $2000 federal back each year.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know what happened at my first attorney meeting. I have to still check a couple more out. I feel pretty comfortable with him. I asked a lot of questions and he answered each and everyone of them. I was in his office for about 2 1/2 hours. I think that was a lot of time for a free consult. There was no pressure to sign the contract.

Before I even sign the contract he is going to have a budget set up for me. All utilites, food, gas, entertainment, etc. Then I can get a good financial picture to see if I could possibly buy a car. What I have money for.

In my mind, I'm so caught up in the cc payments and keeping the utilities on that I don't have a really good concept of how much money I actually have for things. I think someone else looking at it might be a good thing for me where my mind is still in panic mode and not really thinking clearly. Soon I hope.

I think this is long enough. Thank you all for your posts. I've been reading and will continue to read. It has been very helpful to me. I hope that maybe my thread will ease someone's mind to bk. Thank you again and good luck to all!!

[ssmdem]

I think you will be ok b/c if even you do receive a summons it usually takes a few months before trial. If you do receive a summons make sure you answer the summons (according to your court procedures) and file a request of documents (you can research examples online). That usually stalls them for 60 days.

Good Luck!

Same advice I was given by my attorney. Last payment on both of our cards was in May. We have one with Citi, one with Chase - both balances of about $25K each. Since we're at the 90 day mark with both, the calls are starting to get more frequent. Up until now, not alot and not very aggressive. The last few calls have been though --- very pushy, "will have to escalate to next level", etc. They have both offered a hardship program with 0% for a year -- we're pretending to act interested to try to stall. But they're both now mentioning possibility of upcoming suit. I can't file until December so trying to play their game as long as possible. My attorney did say that if we do get a summons, the first thing to do would be to request verification of the debt -- which will buy us enough time that we won't have to worry about a judgment before we file.

I will say, even though in my head I know we're okay time-wise. Doesn't stop me from worrying and stressing. And I'm sick to death of the phone calls. Wish I could pull that bankruptcy trigger right now. I do think I'm going to go ahead and pay the attorney retainer fee now though so that when it does look like they're going for the suit, I'm telling them I'm filing and give them the attorney information. Hoping that will make them think twice and not do it so I won't have that additional headache. I figure that's going to be in 1-2 months from the way they are talking, but yes, I know, they could just be threatening too. Both do know that we have talked to an attorney though and have noted it in their records.

[ccsjoe]

Congrats 2bdebt and thanks for sharing!!! Hang in there, you're going down the right path now as that first meeting is always one of the hardest things to accomplish...a lot of realizations at that time.

[Fallonedward]

Our situation is that we had double job loss within days of each other and only I was able to find another job but at a fraction of what I used to make. Hubby has been looking for 5 months and lots of interviews but no offers.

As we started blowing thru our savings our family attorney stated that we should consider BK because of all the medical bills we have racked up thru the years for our diabetic child...

So it will be 6 months from the point we first started thinking about this till we file...and I'm still nervous as can be each and every day about doing this

[Fallonedward]

you got that right...i know a chapter 13 may work for a few...those that are talked into it...when they should go 7 is what really gets me....i hate to repeat this over and over again...but chapter 13 new laws were designed by the banks and the atty's that line their pockets with the payments these poor people make...

we went to atty's that insisted we go 13....and walked right out...if they couldn't figure out how to get us into a 7 they were not the atty for us...but remember we lost our jobs...had little or no chance of ever being able to recoup at our age..so it is different for everyone...maybe a chapter 13 is good for 25 year old with a great future?

Tobee, we feel the same way, since we both lost our jobs and are in our late 40's, erly 50's we don't have time on our side. Plus most companies are not eager to hire older workers and because of that we would probably have to convert to a 7 if they tried to put us in a 13...getting a good lawyer is so important

[tay666]

Nomore - I was in panic mode and probably stilll am. I understand. I have the same here with my husband's medical issues. Appealling SSDI's denial. My 2 teenagers. Everything. It's alot to deal with. Hang in there. As people are telling me, it will get better.

I can totally feel where you are coming from.
That was me for a long time.
I was basically handling everything on my own.
My wife was diagnosed as bipolar the summer of 06.
By fall, things spun completely out of control. She quit taking her meds and totally lost it. Hospitalized for a couple weeks and new meds.
Things would be sort of ok for a month or two, then the cycle would repeat.
This lasted well over a year.
She couldn't handle the stress of even talking about the finances.
So, I dealt with all collections calls, letters, research.
While working both my 3rd shift factory job, and a few hours construction in the mornings. Just to pay the house, utilities, co-pays for all the wife's scripts and Dr visits and put food on the table.
Our youngest was in high school, and our oldest was still living at home. He was working but only making enough to pay his car payment and insurance. Occasionally he could spare $20 or so that I could use to put gas in my car.

Those were the darkest days.
Too broke to do anything. Let alone think of filing BK.
Always worried about what may happen with my wife at any given moment.
Trying to hold everything together so the kids could have some kind of 'normal' home life. They new of our financial situation and some of my wife's problems (didn't tell them the worst of it)
And trying to figure out how to make more money to start digging my way out of it all.
I was (and still am) basically trapped in the job that I have.
First, because there aren't a whole lot of options around here, and still don't have dependable enough transportation for heavy commuting.
But mainly because there is no way we could afford the minimum of 3 months with no insurance coverage. Not with 12 different medications and a minimum of 4 doctors visits a month. My shop might not pay well, but we have free family medical coverage. I don't pay one cent towards my insuarance at all.

But things have finally turned around.
Time and patients have taken care of most of our problems.
My wife's condition is pretty much under control now.
She got approved for SSD on the first try (that's how bad things are, pretty much got instant approval, just had to wait the 6 months from the last time she tried working again)
So now we have a second income.
Our son is out on his own, and holding his own.
Our daughter is now in college well on her way to becoming an engineer.
Our BK should be done by the end of October.
And our house will be completely paid off by the summer of 2013.

The only thing left is to upgrade our vehicles, and repair the house.
(since I was sure we were going to loose it until Ohio increased the exemption, I didn't put any money into repairs. Not that I had much that I could have used, but when I did, I didn't see much point in throwing money into something that wouldn't be mine in the near future)

The point to this big long sob story?
As long as you keep your head, you can work your way through just about anything. Just take things one step at a time, and don't ever give up hope.

[Exployer1234]

It took about 2 years before I filed. I understand about feeling stressed all the time. It took me getting judgement to say it was time to file BK. I tried everything prior to filing, but nothing seemed to work. Hang in there it will be worth it after you decide if you are going to file. It is like a weight lifted off your shoulders.

[2bdebtfree]

Thank you.

Tay - Good for you guys your wife got approved the first time. That must be a some weight lifted off your shoulders. SSDI for my husband was just waiting on one test's results and they test that was given to him wasn't a complete test. SSDI got only partial results and denied him. He went to have a full test 2 more times and failed it. It was a Pulminary Test. If they got those results I bet they would have approved him. Anyhow, we retained a lawyer for the appeal and just have to wait it out. It will be helpful to be approved but until then i can't rely on it and have to make do on my salary.
You sound like its much better now.

I remember when I first had my kids. I didn't have credit cards. I always had cash at the end of the month. My mortgage and salary have gone up since then but I think in comparison it's pretty much the same amount so I think now I would have cash left over at the end of the month. I'm actually looking forward to it.

Maybe tonight I can sleep better than I have been since I see some light now at the end of the tunnel.

This forum has been a lifesaver for me. It's been a great help to me.

I'm not sure what to say to my kids when I put my 'foot down' and say no we can't get that. They are 15. I don't think I'll tell them we are bankrupt, but I do want them to know I'm watching spending more closely now. I don't want to put our problems on them now. They don't need to worry about 'losing the house'. They should be concentrating on being a kid. What do you tell your kids as you are buckling down.

thank you

[tobee43]

Tobee, we feel the same way, since we both lost our jobs and are in our late 40's, erly 50's we don't have time on our side. Plus most companies are not eager to hire older workers and because of that we would probably have to convert to a 7 if they tried to put us in a 13...getting a good lawyer is so important

fallonedward...YOU are so right...and it is difficult for some to understand that when you over one side of the curb...it's impossible to make up what we have lost simply because of lack of time..not that i so much like to think about that, but it's just fact.

older people no one wants to hire...period...the younger ones in charge are intimidated by us...even though we mean no harm with what we have learned and just because we are as old as them moms and dads...LOL but not really funny...they view us as a threat. so what are we to do...no jobs...no way to recoup...what we have lost.

so we settle and are happy with less...we are...really and honestly more happy now than ever...

[2bdebtfree]

older people no one wants to hire...period...the younger ones in charge are intimidated by us...even though we mean no harm with what we have learned and just because we are as old as them moms and dads...LOL but not really funny...they view us as a threat. so what are we to do...no jobs...no way to recoup...what we have lost.

My husband is 48 and when he is able he is out looking for a job. He has gone out and I know the economy is really bad right now, but basically without coming out and saying it, he is too old for the type of work he does. He is not trained in anything else. He is construction worker. He went to school for plumbing a couple years ago and nobody wants to hire a 48 year old apprentice. Despite his health problems, he is going out an looking for work when he feels good.

As for me. I can retire from my job when I'm 46, next year, with a pension check every month. I will have to find a job as my children will be starting college in a few years. Who will hire me? I'm older. Not realling any training. I may just have to stay where I"m at. It's very difficult to find a job.

I'm scared for the kids we are raising. Years ago the kids used to out of the house at 18. Now they don't leave until close to 30. Poor kids. Hopefully, things will change for the better for all the kids.

[tobee43]

As for me. I can retire from my job when I'm 46, next year, with a pension check every month. I will have to find a job as my children will be starting college in a few years. Who will hire me? I'm older. Not realling any training. I may just have to stay where I"m at. It's very difficult to find a job.

I'm scared for the kids we are raising. Years ago the kids used to out of the house at 18. Now they don't leave until close to 30. Poor kids. Hopefully, things will change for the better for all the kids.

you might be best off staying at that job. i know what we had to do was wait until one of was able to collect pension and one ss....we had two in college....so i understand...and don't forget grad school!!

both mine went to grad school and paid themselves although we paid for books and computers etc.

the kids had to take loans and take responsibility for themselves which is what i taught them from day one....both were in college at 17 with their own checking accounts...we made them pay their own bills...they BOTH worked...now one is male and female...they are both the money makers in their family and funny enough BOTH married 1st grade teachers...i thought that a bit odd. but they are both good with money because they learned from the start.

[Fallonedward]

Same advice I was given by my attorney. Last payment on both of our cards was in May. We have one with Citi, one with Chase - both balances of about $25K each. Since we're at the 90 day mark with both, the calls are starting to get more frequent. Up until now, not alot and not very aggressive. The last few calls have been though --- very pushy, "will have to escalate to next level", etc. They have both offered a hardship program with 0% for a year -- we're pretending to act interested to try to stall. But they're both now mentioning possibility of upcoming suit. I can't file until December so trying to play their game as long as possible. My attorney did say that if we do get a summons, the first thing to do would be to request verification of the debt -- which will buy us enough time that we won't have to worry about a judgment before we file.

I will say, even though in my head I know we're okay time-wise. Doesn't stop me from worrying and stressing. And I'm sick to death of the phone calls. Wish I could pull that bankruptcy trigger right now. I do think I'm going to go ahead and pay the attorney retainer fee now though so that when it does look like they're going for the suit, I'm telling them I'm filing and give them the attorney information. Hoping that will make them think twice and not do it so I won't have that additional headache. I figure that's going to be in 1-2 months from the way they are talking, but yes, I know, they could just be threatening too. Both do know that we have talked to an attorney though and have noted it in their records.

ssmdem: I'm in the same boat, stopped paying in May and can not file till November. I hope I can sqeak by without a judgement but if it happens I will try and buy some time

[tobee43]

ssmdem: I'm in the same boat, stopped paying in May and can not file till November. I hope I can sqeak by without a judgement but if it happens I will try and buy some time

even if they do get a judgement after the chapter 7 is discharged, your atty will be able to have the judgements removed from the records...each will cost you to have removed, however, of course, well worth it.