Question for bk survivors

[titanic]

I have a question for all those who have gone through bk.

knowing what you now know, would you go through it again if your situation was borderline?

Titanic

[keepmine]

How do you define borderline?

[CATCHMEIFYOUCAN]

If I had to and the option is there, why not?

Borderline eventually went OVERBOARD ! Sometimes I would think, "oh yeah, I'm catching up," (when I was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and Mary) eventually though if you look further down the road, try to calculate how long it would actually take to pay off you debt vs. filing for BK (and having you debt discharged within months and owe nothing (if filing for Ch7) or being able to payoff your debt in less time through Ch13. I know that it would of taken me almost the rest of my life to payoff my debt 30-40 years with interest rate racking up the way the creditors do you! BK is not a bad thing, it is refreshing to be able to get a fresh start and you can rebuild your credit in a matter of no time.

I did it in 1998 but my credit wasn't as bad than. Well it got bad this time around in 2006. So even though the new laws kinda of "scared," potential Bk filers. It ended up being alright .. just more paperwork to collect and a bit more money to file. You do what you have to do to survive!

Best of Luck, CMIYC

[wayne-o]

I dont know if anyone would do it if it was borderline. Im on month 34 of my 36 month chapter 13. I did not file till I was out of options. I spent probably the 3 years before filing being borderline. Its not been easy by any means. But I will come out and still have my home and with a fresh start. If my situation was the same as it was 3 years ago when I filed I would definetly file again

[manglicmot]

Not sure what you are asking, but my situation was borderline. It was on again, off again, on again. The main reason I filed was because of a loss of overtime from my job, which is not as bad as someone losing their job, but it cut my pay almost in half.

And yes, I would file if I had a borderline situation. I would reccomend anyone file if they are in a borderline situation because the creditors are the ones mostly at fault.

[BKTango]

Not only would I do it again, I wish I had done it at least year or two before I had. I would have saved myself alot of grief, stress, and money. If by borderline you mean, still getting by but barely, then we were living borderline for 5 years. After going through bankruptcy, I can honestly say, screw that. I will not live my life that way again.

[Minnymouth]

Even though filing caused me to loose my home, then have to buy it back to get it back...... I would file again....

Though totally against my principal and upbringing and after I struggled for 4 years on two jobs..... bankruptcy was the only thing that could bring relief back to my life.

My personal bills were not the problem, it was the absortion of my bills and taking on all the medical bills of an elderly parent for 4 years and the expense of taking care of them. I made the decision "I would worry about paying all the medical bills later as I could"..... taking care of Mom was more important at the time - then my own financial status....

Afterwards, the bills were overwhelming..... I worked two jobs, sending everyone money each month.... but they always wanted "more"....

After destroying my health working two jobs, I got tired of struggling..... it was time to make a change in my life..... and filing bankruptcy was THAT CHANGE. (no matter how I felt about it)...

Now when I look back at all I went thru, was it worth it..... YES.... would I do it again..... YES - BUT SOONER THAN I DID.... I should never have waited 4 years and struggled like I did...destroying my own health working 60-70 hours a week +.

Now I'm back to a my lifestyle I can afford, minus all the medical/funeral bills, stress, etc.

Do I feel bad about not paying those bills? Yeah, I took them on in good faith with intention of seeing that they got paid. Many of the medical bills were excessive ( a $2,000 bill for an ambulance ride one way - 1 mile to the hospital - is excessive). Leaving a funeral bill not completely paid doesn't set well with me, and never will.

I'm gratefull that our society DOES ALLOW me a "fresh start" in life.... no matter what the cost to me was....mentally, physically, or financially.

I survived it, I'm a better person for it - and hopefully I will never walk that path again.

But filing bankruptcy was one of the "best things I ever decided to do" in my lifetime....

Minny

[JollyGG]

We filed before things got bad. We were not maxed out on our cards even. However, we realized that we were getting more and more negative every month. My husband was looking for a better paying job, but he had been looking for a while.
Honestly we probably could have hung on for a while longer. My husband recently got a better job. But honestly, we haven't seen as much easing of our budget as we had hoped. We still live paycheck to paycheck even without our debt an even with the new job. But things are better.
I'm glad we made the decision to file before things got too bad and we got ourselves in a situation where we lost our home or our retirement accounts, or anything else.

[titanic]

I suppose the word borderline in unique to each....

Here's whats happening.....We retained an attorney for ch 13. He gave the list of paperwork to get together needed to file.

We sat down, looked at everything from the credit report, but it wasn't until we did the pre-bankruptcy course that we saw our disposible income was quite high......

Our debts do not include credit cards. We are in debt from a student loan (4000), IRS (5000), unsecured loan in default (10000.00) and 2 judgements (total 7000)

We got into our situation from a previous job furlough...and have never caught up properly. Things are looking up soon. My husband will get a raise this month, and a bonus in Apr. that could take care of 1/3 of the debt.
We hope to move up north next year, and I'm worried about getting a mortgage.

I feel like I'm on a fence on what to do.

Thanks for advice.

Ps. Being forced to look our debts head on for the ch 13 paperwork, was very stressful......Pretty upsetting to see in black and white that you are worth more dead than alive

[keepmine]

Well, your SL's will survive BK. If the IRS debt does not qualify for a bk discharge, you should be able to work out some compromise.
The rest of it-I just wouldn't file over $17K. Bet you can settle the judgments and the defaulted loan at some percentage of the amount owed.
I think I'd hold out till bonus time and see what can be negoitated.

[desperation]

Borderline?

Like others I'm not sure what you mean by borderline...

I guess you could say I had been borderline for two years before I filed BK, and yes I did what I could to fight off going BK. I had a lot of friends and family counseling me to bite the bullet, and go chapter 7. This advice got even stronger before the new BK laws took effect. Still I had a great deal of pride, and I wanted to pay the debts I owed. For over two years I went without a raise,) and was told I was lucky I got to keep my job) , so I had to supplement my income with credit cards. I cut back on everything. From the cable bill to running the air conditioning, to running the heat, and working thru vacation time to make additional income. I cut a lot of corners, and still came up short every month. Finally my last option was to cash out my pension. It bought me a little time, but meanwhile creditors seemed to get even hungrier wanting more money on min payments, increasing my interest rates from 8% to 23% to finally 35%.

I tried every move I had available to me to pay them. Towards the last of it...I remember looking around the house saying to myself "what can I sell to pay this bill?", and upon looking at my possessions bought over the years on credit realized there was nothing that was worth anything.

I'm not quite done with my BK....I'm still in the holding pattern so to speak, waiting. This experience has taken a year off of my life with the stress.


I suppose in answer to your question....Well I really wished I had done this when I was just borderline, and had not spent the last three years driving myself crazy on how to get the credit card companies paid.

Hope this helps

[AMISLANDER]

I think most of us are boderline between one and five years before we file. I would have filed a year earlier and not payed off some of the credit cards and IRS bills if I had been better informed and had the access to this site earlier. But since things happen for a reason, I just have to go with the flow of now...

Postive things: I'm working, my bills are all current, I'm healthy, still have the $@*$% 4Runner....things are not so bad as they were two years ago, before I filed & I was a nervous wreck.

[Minnymouth]

Even though I struggled for 4 years before filing, I managed to keep everyone paid each month.......

Then when my health failed I saw "disaster coming my way".......

Before it got out of hand, before I started having late payments, penalties, etc I contacted my attorney.

Thankfully I filed just at the right time to protect my credit score some.......
By filing before I got behind on everything after filing BK my score only dropped to 623 I believe..... it was in the 800's before. By having lots of credit over the last 40 years, no penalities, very few late pays, and lots of accounts paid in full (cars, cc, another house), my credit score did not suffer a severe blow like most do....

I applied for a signature loan the other day to do some repairs around the house and credit union said "no problem", come in and get your check.......

So filing bankruptcy WAS the best thing for me to do and I DID IT at just the right time......

And yes I had lots of cc debt along with the medical bills when I filed......but even now 2 1/2 years after discharge I have cards again with 7 - 9% interest and some interest free for 1 year... (used very wisely)....emergency only....

So plan your bankruptcy, file at the right time, and that score won't suffer so bad as most do.....

[titanic]

Thank you for all your posts.

Although I have a good attorney that I trust, I feel more support and info from these forums. We'll be able to make an informed choice thanks to all of you.


Titanic