Accepting BK. Thank you for this forum

[MidlifeReno]

Hi! I am such an anxious person by nature, recently moved to a new state with my little family, no extended family or friend community to lean on or ask for advice (plus no desire to share any of this journey with them anyway, honestly). We have an appt with an attorney on Wednesday for our free consultation. Any advice on that is welcomed but I will be reading more posts/searches over the weekend as well.

The unknown is my mortal enemy and my misguided searching online has only led me to scummy tactic predatory marketing results. Then I remembered Reddit can have a very large supportive community and reached out there, which led me here. Thank you to this ENTIRE community for being open to share their experiences and guidance in a safe environment. This afternoon, after realizing BK was the final option, I felt like my world had shattered and I let my family down. it was really hard even though everything up to this point trying to make it work is just as hard. I feel much more at ease reading the posts I have so far here. I know each journey is unique but feel much better and less hopeless already.

Thank you for that.

[Carmella]

I totally understand the emotional aspect of BK and making that decisi0n. You are right to see an attorney and probably should see more than one attorney. Don't be afraid to say no to an attorney if you gut tells you he/she is not the one. If you can find an attorney that is experienced in your district. Do you know if it will be BK7 or BK13. My husband and I went through nearly 5 yrs of BK13. It is over a year since we were discharged.

You are not letting your family down, you are doing what you have to do to make things better. Trust me I understand the feeling BTDT. We are not failures we have either made mistakes or have had unfortunate life events or probably some of each. BK is not fun by any means, but it can help you get out of debt and give you a new start. I won't say it's easy, but I will say for me and my husband it was the best decision. I only wish we decided earlier, but it was taboo and something we really never considered until it was the final option.

We had BK 13 and it was a struggle. But the stress was different/less once we filed. We did not have any emergency savings that made it tougher. And we were still helping to support our daughter who just graduated college and wasn't financially independent at that time, but she was before the end our of active BK.

Once you make it through you need to understand how you got into debt and to the point of BK so you don't do it again. And if it's mostly beyond your control you need to think of how it could have been handled differently. For example, when my income changed, I should have really changed my spending habits, but I did not get as frugal as I should have which led to more debt or bad choices that I made with "same as cash" deals if paid off on time and then life happened, and it couldn't be paid off before the interest hit! Some of those little things that we can change.
Obviously, my income dropping was out of my control, but I could have been more proactive. I am not dwelling on the past, but thinking about it since I recently lost my new job and I have 1 or maybe 2 other job options, but in the meanwhile, it will be a good month or longer until I have a full paycheck and we still have little savings. But you can bet I am buckling down and not making the same mistake of charging too much and instead spending very little for the next month or so and counting every penny!

I am kinda of going off on a tangent there. But the bottom line is that BK can help you. Find the best attorney you can. You don't have to tell anyone you don't want to about your BK. I only told a close friend who had also gone through BK. No one else knew about it. I would tell people we were on a very tight budget paying off debt. People can get nosey even coworkers and it's none of their business. People questioned why at one point my husband and I shared a car or why I had two jobs. People relate to paying off debt especially when I said my husband is older than me and we want the debt paid off before he retires.

One piece of advice if you considering chapter 13 try to have reliable cars before you file. You can ask questions about that if you need to because there are rules about what and how you spend money before you file. I don't have that info, but I know it's good to have a reliable car.

The best advice once you decided BK is your option is to find a good attorney.