Why Are/Have You Filed BK?

[peanut514]

For us it was nothing more than bad money management. Lived way above our means for way too long, always thinking that eventually we'll get ahead and turning a blind eye to our financial problems. Eventually it all came to a crashing halt as the harsh reality of being $1700 in the hole every month finally caught up to us. But none the less, we are looking forward to whatever Ch we end up with knowing that there is finally a way out that will help us provide a better future for our kids and a life-long lesson in financial responsibility.

That is also us too! We lived on equity and tax returns for the past year!

[sick of debt]

Peanut Sounds like our situation. . We met with our att. we are filing 6/27. feel s sooooooooooo good

[Frogge]

The American Dream, with a twist..

Basically, we always wanted to have the dream. A few years ago we were in a tight spot to begin with (CC debt to have nice things, took out 2nd to consolidate, more CC debt, new cars.. ) So, when DH lost 60% of his salary in a buy-out, we moved our family of 5-- twice in 2 years, across the country both times, to figure out where we should be. We carried big time CC debt all over the place with us. Bought one house on top of another, and then again.

Funny thing is-- we have our ideal situation now. Great house, DH has his dream job, great neighborhood, schools, friends, everything we hoped we would obtain, but there's a BIG black cloud over us now and the rain is ready to let loose. I don't think we should have not expected it, but it sure does hit hard when reality sets in. I always knew that ONE day, it would catch up. And it sure has, with a vengeance.

[momof5]

My husband lost his job in February, that is what set us on this path.

We already had way to much debt compared to our income. Like 3 times the yearly amount. But somehow I managed to pay the minimum every single month. I would then use the credit cards to pay the monthly bills like phone,internet, gas & electric, food, car insurance, cell phone.

To be 100% honest though. I really had no idea how much debt we had. I had no idea how we were not really making it every month but were just digging deeper into debt. I know that I was stressing for a long time before he lost his job. I had to keep a notebook because there were so many different creditors and I could have very easily lost track.

The credit offers kept coming in. We definately had no self control.

I had thought that if we had no credit bills we would have so much more money but in reality we are just about the same but no longer in debt.

[Frogge]

My husband lost his job in February, that is what set us on this path.

We already had way to much debt compared to our income. Like 3 times the yearly amount. But somehow I managed to pay the minimum every single month. I would then use the credit cards to pay the monthly bills like phone,internet, gas & electric, food, car insurance, cell phone.

To be 100% honest though. I really had no idea how much debt we had. I had no idea how we were not really making it every month but were just digging deeper into debt. I know that I was stressing for a long time before he lost his job. I had to keep a notebook because there were so many different creditors and I could have very easily lost track.

The credit offers kept coming in. We definately had no self control.

I had thought that if we had no credit bills we would have so much more money but in reality we are just about the same but no longer in debt.

Wow, Momof5, that sounds SO much like us. I had no idea how deep in debt we were until I started unraveling everything to present to the atty. I have so many regular everyday things being charged to a credit card, it's ridiculous. I have a spreadsheet to keep track of who and when we owe.

[vanzskater]

Credit cards.
I was going to school full-time in '05-'06, my father was paying for tuition and my living expense's. He told in May of '06 I needed to find a job, he couldn't pay for school anymore. Finally in October I got a job (where I made less compared to in August of '05, ) from a temp agency; got hired on full-time with the job, my car broke down, because of my excellent credit I got a new truck (got put into a loan I should have never been put in, and found out later the salesman had fudged my income so I could get approved for the loan ), I was getting harassed at my job by a lady who found out I was gay, and I had to quit (that was May '06) I was unemployed for almost 2 months, meanwhile, I was paying my rent, bills, food, EVERYTHING on credit cards.

Got a job, but it wasn't what I was making before, so I was supplementing my income with the credit cards. I still had a gas card that my father was paying (back when I was in college my dad had given it to me), and that helped me out a LOT I was finally getting back on my feet when... he took that from me and now I had to find an extra $200 a month for gas (my new job is 20 min outside of town). So yeah.....

poor choices, credit cards always looming there, and me not being strong enough to avoid them. I've always been poor in managing my money (even as a teen and a child) have never learned to save and I think finally it took all of this to happen to make me see I have a spending problem.

I'm excited though of the future and how I can finally start saving money, and not relying on credit cards, nor falling for the temptation for buying things (which is a HUGE temptation for me).

[SteveC]

New Here

Hello everyone,

I am new here and I live in the Pensacola, FL area. I have not declared yet. The reason I am where I am is because my wife had to have over 18 surgeries over a 6 year period. We had health insurance but it was not the greatest. We really are very conservative with money. We have mostly bought things with cash. The problem was the medical bills. The copays and deductibles were huge. I was complaining to a friend of mine who told met that if the medical bills got too large to pay, I could not bankrupt them. My friend happened to be a lawyer. He told me the only way to get out from behind what we call "the big 8 ball" was to get a nonsecured loan from a bank or if worst came to worst, put it on a credit card. I had to go the credit card route, at the time, with my wife having surgeries seemingly about 3 times per year, we did not know when or if it would end so the credit route seemed to be the best...and quite frankly, looking back, I honestly cannot say I would not have done it any differently. Anyway, fast foreward to January/February of this year. We were making the payments ok. I am self employed and I ended up catching a very bad case of the flu and was on my back for around 2 and a half weeks. I got behind on one of the cards and they raised the interest rates on all my cards. It was so bad, I could not make the payments. I talked to all 3 cards I had the old debt on and only 1 would work with me so I am working with them. The other 2 would not so I quit paying them. I went back and added up the payments made over the years and I have paid almost twice what I owed. It pissed me off. Since they would not work with me and the payments were so freaking high, I decided not to pay them. Since I live in FL, the laws here and our income and property rights here, they could not take our home, cars, or bank accounts of any kind. They cannot even garnish any wages. I have a plan, I am going to go along letting their collectors call us and not do much. After a year or so, I am going to offer a much lower settlement telling them either they take the lower ammount or I will bankrupt. What can they do? NOTHING. I have had it with the banks who issue most of the credit cards and I am going to war with them. I have the collectors afraid to call me as I have studied the laws from bankruptcy and credit and collections in my state of Florida. I am fully prepared to bankrupt but I will give them a chance to settle.

[Jason]

Well, I'm new to the forum and it took us a long time to realize that we lived above our means. Some bad investments broke our neck and we thought that we could make it but it didn't work out. So after filing for bk we are of to a new start but this time we'll make things right. At least we are hoping to do so.

[Pinkie86]

How I Got Here...

My situation all started when my fiance and high school sweetheart of 5 years, injured his back inconjuction with working a factory job that left him suseptible to back injury. At that time we were financially stable, we had never missed a credit card payment, always kept low balances. My credit rating was in the 700's. Just before his injury, his mother had to move in with us. She lost her home because she became physically disabled due to an accident. We began supporting a 56 year old woman, us, and our two dogs.

He had Short Term/Long Term Disability benefits through work up until October 2007, but they were FAR from coming in a timely or consistent manner, so I used my pay and our credit cards to keep us afloat. I graduated from College in May 2007, and started having to pay back my student loans in November. The month of October his job let him go because the doctor would not release him back to work; still won't as a matter of fact.

Since then we've been living off credit cards and I was making a little over the minimums, keeping us afloat, often times with only $15-50 left in the account until my next pay day. September 2007, his mother moved out, and gave us some of her social security money to take care of us. We paid off some debts, dropped $2,000 on the Jeep, and kept $1000 for our wedding planned for 2008. In March 2008, the anniversary of his injury, I finally had to use our savings for our October 24, 2008 wedding, and we officially in trouble. My tax return to went to creditors, and my stimulus went to fixing the car in my fiance's name, which I had to keep payments up on because it's our only vehicle.

At the end of April I missed my FIRST payments to my two American Express accounts. I'm still disgusted that I missed one payment on each card and they did this to me. I continued to pay what I could, but could not make the minimums. Last week they sent my accounts to Debt Collection agencies, and one debt collector made me feel like I was the scum of the Earth. Before calling me, he called my step father and told me I had defaulted on a credit card. Then the collector called me. He actually made me cry, and nearly guilted me into taking out a loan to pay them back. After I told them I would get back with them later, they called me TWO HOURS later to hound me and find out if I applied for any loans. My credit score is now around 657, they say I could still get more credit. At the present time, I am $31000 in debt, NOT counting my Dept. of. Education Student Loans at $10,000, and I'm going back for my Bachelor's Degree this Fall, and have $7,500 in loans coming to me then.

After that phone call I realized how bad it truly was; I'm only 21, but I'm smart enough to realize that a loan is not going to make my situation better, it's only going to make it worse. Before that call I had honestly thought that things would be tight, but if my fiance could get back to work, things would get better, and I could pay it all off in a couple of years. I realized that time was running out, and I needed to keep myself from drowning. I opened up my local phone book and contacted a lawyer I had heard good things about.

I went to see him Friday and he says I qualify for Chapter 7, as I do not have my own home, vehicle or any assets worth taking. I go back to see him next week and turn in the necessary documents next week.

I'm terrified, but I am SO THANKFUL I came across this forum. I'm the type of person who stews and worries and this forum has helped me feel better this weekend, and I'm sure I'll come back for comfort in the future.

[Lajazz947]

Reason for BK

Sheer stupidity on my part and not listening to my wife.

I made great money, still make great money.

Invested $300,000 with a former childhood friend of 38 years and remodeled house and borrowed based on his promise to return the money to me.

He stole the money, I lost a significant portion of my income and borrowed $200,000 to keep remodeling all the while embarrassed to tell my wife and disappoint her.

Now she knows, has forgiven me but i have learned my lesson.

Just started to fill out questionaire so we will see how it goes.

At least my three boys are healthy, my wife is great and I have a great future.

[ldsmedia]

Well, I think the credit card companies got what they deserved. They extended way to much debt to too many people who couldn't afford the minimums if they maxed out their cards. Not to mention the way they view your using that credit limit.

[bk4sky]

38k in unsecured debt....

reasons for deciding to file...i lost a great job,
was unemployed for 6 months wich i had to use credit cards just to survive
got a new job...worked my way back up to a good paying job, and thought oh this is cool now i have enough to make the min payments and still have left over for normal living expenses.....that job decided to close due to the economy. had to take a crappy 10.00 and hr job and it was too stresful, i was making just enough to pay the min payments then had to charge for food and gas and had to depend on fam and BF to help me out. it was just too much, it was starting to consume me. so i seen a lawyer and he said im def a chapter 7. so i started making payments to him. i still feel horrible and ashamed i had to do this. i was always the one who had the most money out of al my friends and always going on really nice vacations, now i make enough to eat and put gas in my car. owell....this too shall pass.

[bk4sky]

Well, I think the credit card companies got what they deserved. They extended way to much debt to too many people who couldn't afford the minimums if they maxed out their cards. Not to mention the way they view your using that credit limit.

yeah i totally agree, i kinda blame the CC companies too....they kept sending me more and more and giving me more credit. they should really change the laws on what those credit card companies can do

[greeatscott]

you mean aside the fact that this is a recession and interest rates are being pirated up along with no protections for a U.S. citizen from the banks/credit cards companies' raze and burn for profit tactics other than bankruptcy?

I moved to hell (south carolina), where business owners take advantage of a populace that is from one of the poorest states in the country and severely under-educated. So I had to take a massive paycut to survive. Along with health problems taken care of on a reactionary basis(as opposed to a preventative); Bank of America (affectionately referred to as Bank of Mexico in these parts for obvious reasons) playing games because they have the lobbyists to do so - wanting payments twice in one month, changing due dates; and just about everybody raising percentage rates and minimum payments for no good reason.

Sorry , couldn't hold out any longer

[tomato]

3 years ago, I started my own business, and financed it solely on personal credit cards. At the time, I had great credit and no debt--credit was plentiful and easily available, and had interest rates lower than any loan I could qualify for.

I never managed to turn a profit, but I kept holding on, thinking things would get better. I wanted my dream so badly--being my own boss, working on projects I cared about, doing what I loved--that I turned a blind eye to the fact I was bleeding money away. When I finally realized I'd dug myself in too deep, I had a total mental breakdown. Couldn't bring myself to answer the phone or check the mail, and spent my days shut up at home crying. My husband did his best to be supportive, but he didn't know any better than I did what would help. At my lowest point, I was seriously thinking about just ending it all. I couldn't see a way to fix things.

A few months ago I finally started making some positive changes in my life. I started with little things, like cleaning the house, and slowly moved up to bigger things like actually counting up how much debt I'd racked up (close to $80k now). I still wasn't sure what I'd do about it, but I figured I'd struggle along somehow, and kept making baby steps towards functioning again.

Then a couple weeks ago, I found out I'm pregnant with our first child. Starting a family was something hubby and I were so excited about before the debt, but with $80k in looming bills, it was terrifying news. I started thinking, what kind of life will this baby have if we're struggling just to pay the bills? We already live simply--how many extra hours will I have to work, how many corners will we have to cut, just to have money left over for basic necessities?

I'd never considered bankruptcy before, as a matter of pride. I'd always gotten by on my own, without help from others. But I'm willing to admit I screwed up and sacrifice my pride so that this family can start on solid ground. I'm hoping to file Chapter 7 on my own, without involving my husband, but since we live in a community property state, he might be pulled in, too. I'm meeting with a lawyer in a couple of days to find out what our options are, and in the meantime, I'm educating myself about the process as much as I can.