Federal Perkins Student Loan

[SecondChanceGal]

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[lrprn]

I know I'm rambling, but I just needed to talk some. Thanks for all the advice. I know you've all been thru this too and I appreciate all your comments on how you all went thru it. How you all handled it. I think if my divorce hadn't been so hard and so financially devastating I'd have more strength. I just feel the rug has been ripped out right under me. Anyway, thanks all. I appreciate it.

Come vent here anytime, SCG. All of us have had our moments - it's so wonderful to be able to come here where others really do understand the intense struggle it is just to get through every day.

The time before filing is the worst - the most debt, the highest level of harassment by creditors, learning to live with the decision - all take their toll. Throw a divorce into the mix - it's truly overwhelming. The good part is that once you file, the harassment stops and you can take a breath again. Hang in there - sunnier times are ahead, I promise!

[SecondChanceGal]

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[CityGirl]

There is no way I'd do it without a lawyer. There are too many risks with filing pro se. The money that you're NOT paying creditors with, you can save for an attorney. It shouldnt take but a few months to save this money. With the new laws, it is so scary that you'd miss something. Not only that, but there is a much bigger chance your case will be denied and the trustee will have questions you don't know how to answer. Unless your case is pretty cut and dry, would I try it alone. The attorney is worth every penny and I'd work 3 jobs if I had to .....to be able to pay them. Most take payment plans. I do a lot of mystery shopping and and I'm putting all that money towards the attorney.

Anyone here that has an attorney doesn't have them because they can AFFORD one. Nobody that is filing bankruptcy can afford one. You can't afford NOT to have one.

I'm glad payday loan companies are illegal in NY.
I took several out in the past and got them all deleted because my attorney got ahold of them and they knew they were breaking the law.

[freshstart06]

Trust me, I can relate to Secondchancegal, you just don't understand, if you can barely pay the necessary bills (which means you already stopped paying the CC bills) it will take longer then a few months to save. Some of us just don't have it like that. There are no real risk going pro se if you have no assets and under the means. heck, most of the post I read on here, people with lawyers are having a lot of problems. If she can barely feed her family she can't and should not pay for a lawyer unless a family member can give, not loan, but give her the money. No lawyer fee comes before my family, I refuse to pay his bills if I can barely eat, sorry!!! If I had assets and I had more to lose then what it cost to hire a lawyer then I would look into it. But for me personally, if my case don't work out because I could not afford a lawyer then it just was not meant to be but I did not go even more in the hole to find out.

[lrprn]

As other members have said repeatedly on many forum posts many times before, if I stop paying all my unsecured credit cards and loans plus put my student loans in forebearance, and I am STILL having trouble getting ends to meet (can't buy food, make the car payment, pay the rent, etc), then the reality is that I have more financial problems than bankruptcy can fix.

When this is the case, the bottom line is I don't make enough money to sustain my lifestyle and keep all the assets I have. I either have to find a way to make more money, reduce my lifestyle, or give up additional secured assets. There's no other way to step back from edge of the financial cliff. All it will take to tip me over into bankruptcy again is one car accident, one big illness, a job loss, a divorce....etc. etc.

I understand completely that this can be very hard to hear and even harder to accept. Bankruptcy is supposed to be the ultimate fix for all financial problems. It took me years of reading posts here and in other bk forums plus doing a lot of research to finally accept that sometimes even bankruptcy can't save everyone if the financial hole is just too deep.

We can put some of the blame on the sub-prime lenders who loaned far more money on assets than they were actually worth plus a downturn in the economy where houses and cars are dropping in value quickly and are essentially unsellable for what they were worth just a year ago in many markets. Everyone but the millionaires are in for a rough financial ride over the next few years in this country.