Hi there, new here 
We are seriously considering filing Chapter 7. My husband and I have about $35,000 in credit card debt and $150,000+ in student loans. We rent and have two older vehicles paid in full, worth about $10,000 together. I understand that nothing can be done about the student loans, but the payments on them is what caused us to begin our descent into credit card debt. We have also made poor financial choices and take full responsibility for our situation. We have come to the realization that we will likely never get out of our credit card debt as each month we are charging for living expenses. Our gross annual income is right around $70,000, so as I understand it this should easily qualify us for a Chapter 7.
As of today, we have never missed a payment or paid a bill late. However, we are rapidly running out of options and can’t see making it much longer doing what we are doing. We would like to file as soon as possible, but have some questions. We are planning on meeting with an attorney next week for an initial consultation, but in the mean time, my mind is running a million miles a second. Hopefully you all can help me out
Question 1: From my research, I understand that you should not use your credit cards in the 90 days prior to filing. How hard and fast of a rule is this? We have used our cards for mostly small purchases, gas, household expenses, food etc. just in the last week and we will have a rental car charge tomorrow ($191). How do these charges affect filing? FWIW, the option of bankruptcy just came up and have not been committing fraud.
Question 2: Last Christmas, I bought our family a cruise as a gift and college graduation gift for my husband and paid for most of it using extra money I’d earned at second job. The cruise is in November of this year and we still owe $280 before August 18. We have the cash available to make this final payment. Unfortunately the ticket is non-refundable so not going is really not an option. Yes, I realize this was a poor choice...please don’t judge me.
Question 3: As I said, we have not missed a payment. Advice I’ve read here is just to stop paying on the credit cards you will file on. This is going to be hard for me. I am a teacher and I cannot have creditors calling me at work. Any advice on how to deal with calling creditors?
Ideally, I would love to file by the end of the month. If I’m correct, this would put our 531 meeting about 30 days out around the end of September. Is our pre-planned travel going to interfere terribly with the timing of this?
Waiting would be okay, expect for the creditors calling. We’d likely have to wait until December – February, and then we run into the tax return problem. We would likely receive a refund of approximately $4-5,000, which we would likely use to pay for my daughter's cheerleading program for the year and likely a down payment on braces for myself.
Any advice you can give would be appreciated, as I literally cannot sleep at night worrying about all of this. Thank you!
We are seriously considering filing Chapter 7. My husband and I have about $35,000 in credit card debt and $150,000+ in student loans. We rent and have two older vehicles paid in full, worth about $10,000 together. I understand that nothing can be done about the student loans, but the payments on them is what caused us to begin our descent into credit card debt. We have also made poor financial choices and take full responsibility for our situation. We have come to the realization that we will likely never get out of our credit card debt as each month we are charging for living expenses. Our gross annual income is right around $70,000, so as I understand it this should easily qualify us for a Chapter 7.
As of today, we have never missed a payment or paid a bill late. However, we are rapidly running out of options and can’t see making it much longer doing what we are doing. We would like to file as soon as possible, but have some questions. We are planning on meeting with an attorney next week for an initial consultation, but in the mean time, my mind is running a million miles a second. Hopefully you all can help me out
Question 1: From my research, I understand that you should not use your credit cards in the 90 days prior to filing. How hard and fast of a rule is this? We have used our cards for mostly small purchases, gas, household expenses, food etc. just in the last week and we will have a rental car charge tomorrow ($191). How do these charges affect filing? FWIW, the option of bankruptcy just came up and have not been committing fraud.
Question 2: Last Christmas, I bought our family a cruise as a gift and college graduation gift for my husband and paid for most of it using extra money I’d earned at second job. The cruise is in November of this year and we still owe $280 before August 18. We have the cash available to make this final payment. Unfortunately the ticket is non-refundable so not going is really not an option. Yes, I realize this was a poor choice...please don’t judge me.
Question 3: As I said, we have not missed a payment. Advice I’ve read here is just to stop paying on the credit cards you will file on. This is going to be hard for me. I am a teacher and I cannot have creditors calling me at work. Any advice on how to deal with calling creditors?
Ideally, I would love to file by the end of the month. If I’m correct, this would put our 531 meeting about 30 days out around the end of September. Is our pre-planned travel going to interfere terribly with the timing of this?
Waiting would be okay, expect for the creditors calling. We’d likely have to wait until December – February, and then we run into the tax return problem. We would likely receive a refund of approximately $4-5,000, which we would likely use to pay for my daughter's cheerleading program for the year and likely a down payment on braces for myself.
Any advice you can give would be appreciated, as I literally cannot sleep at night worrying about all of this. Thank you!
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