10,000 visits and counting!

Thanks to all for enjoying this blog.  We have had over ten thousand visits (yes, that's 10,000) in the past year.  It shows that with this economy, people are VERY interested in learning about the use of a bankruptcy filing to solve financial difficulties.

Bankruptcy can get rid of debt you cannot payoff.  Bankruptcy can help you save your home.  Bankruptcy can be a success story and not a failure by using it to get rid of debt and rebuilding your financial life.

Keep reading, keep learning!

Happy New Year!

Started less than a year ago, this blog has had over five thousand visitors to view its content and read the articles.  Thank you all for your support, and a happy and healthy new year to all!

Credit Cards and the Holidays: STOP!

It's that time of the year when you party, you enjoy, you give gifts, you celebrate and so much more.  You want to look nice at the office party, you want to give just the right gifts to the kids and relatives, and you want a night out on the town with that special someone - you deserve it, right?

All of this "festiving" costs money, and for many, it costs money they don't have.

When you don't have the money, you may be tempted to take out those charge cards, you use that overdraft protection on your checking account or you even borrow money.  The problem is that this time next year you are not even going to remember the outfit you charged or that special gift for mom, but you will remember that credit card bill that keeps coming and coming and coming each and every month with a huge interest rate a "upping" your balance.

So, if you want to give yourself a great gift this year, give yourself the gift of financial planning.  Take a breath, and articulate a goal.  Ask yourself for 2012, what do I want out of my finances?  The first answer should be, "get out of debt".  There are many, many professionals, such as myself, who provide an initial free consultation to address your financial problems.  Enjoy the holidays, but make an appointment for January 2012 with a professional to review how best you can get your finances in order.

Lesson Learned:  When my kids still believed in Santa (and that seems like too many years ago to count) I made a pact with my husband and friends and family:  I told them all that the only gifts I was going to give going forward were to my kids.  I wanted to focus on the holidays without worrying about a long list of gifts.  I came to this decision when I was fresh out of law school with two little kids and too few dollars and found that I was starting a Christmas lay-away (do they still have law-aways at stores? am I dating myself?) in July to make sure the kids and everyone in the family and circle of friends had a gift by December.  The first year or two after I made the decision to stop giving holiday gifts, I still had a few stragglers showing up with gifts, but I meant it.  After a while, the idea caught on and pretty much everyone in the group of friends and family enjoyed the fact that the pressure of gift giving was lifted.

Babies and Bankruptcy

You start with the analysis that your income must fall normally fall below the state median income to qualify to file a Chapter 7 Petition in bankruptcy. 

Here's the link to a chart that lists the state median incomes.

Click here: U.S. Trustee Program/Dept. of Justice . 

For example, in the state of New Hampshire, a one-person household would earn less than $51,500 annually to qualify for Chapter 7, a two-person household would earn less than $61,679 to qualify for Chapter 7, a three-person household would earn less than $79,349 to qualify and a four-person household would earn less than $91,750 to qualify to file a Chapter 7 petition in bankruptcy (and, add $7,500 for each additional person for households larger than four persons).

A while back, a very nice couple, Mr. and Mrs. X,  with one small child, sought the relief that a Chapter 7 petition in bankruptcy would afford them.  However, their income was a bit over the state median, and even with the application of the "means test" (this is the second level of analysis to apply if your income is above the state median, to determine if you may still qualify for a Chapter 7 case) the clients' combined family income still prevented them from filing Chapter 7.  When this was explained, Mrs. X grinned and said baby #2 was on the way, and the median income issue would shortly be resolved as they would soon be changing from a 3-person to 4-person household!

Bankruptcy could be the best thing that happened to you!

"I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. [...] Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did."

Steve Jobs.

So when you feel the pressure of having made the decision to take control of your fiances and file for bankruptcy to clean up your debts for a fresh start -  remember, the heaviness of all of that debt will be replaced by the lightness of the debt being discharged in bankruptcy, and your ability to start over.  Once you walk away from that debt and start over, there is nothing to hold you back.  There are no limits to the successes you can achieve in the future, no longer chained to the past.

It's worth repeating: You are not a failure if you file for bankruptcy.

Will people think poorly of me because I did so?  A question that often bubbles to the surface in client meetings, even if never asked, it is there.

Inflation, rising property taxes, trying to help the kids, well you know what's next - use the credit cards to make ends meet.  Then there are the school bills, kid's activities, medical bills, and you have run out of money.  Retirement is no longer the "golden years" because social security payments just don't cover the bills.

There are a lot of reasons people need protection under the bankruptcy code, one of the most important being people just do not want to lose their home and they don't have to, because bankruptcy gives them a way of staying in their home and catching up on past due mortgage payments, while ridding themselves of credit card debt.  Bankruptcy, because of the "exemptions", (please read my blog article on exemptions) allows you to keep a reasonable level of assets, which in most homeowner’s cases is all of the assets they have.

When you decide to address your difficult financial position, you succeed.  The solution may be a credit consolidation loan, or it may be a loan modification program with the lender who holds your home mortgage or a reverse mortgage or a Chapter 13 repayment plan. 

You may use Chapter 13 of the bankruptcy code to catch up on your overdue home loan payments or past-due car payments. 

In any event, when you face the problem and decide to find a solution, you are never a failure.  Sometimes, bankruptcy is simply the answer.

You have decided that you will control the outcome of a difficult situation, rather than letting it control you.

Life, not the Law

Lesson learned:  Kindness goes a long way. People will remember you for the way you made them feel, not for what you gave them or what you could do for them.  Every person you encounter probably has a burden equal or heavier than the one you carry, so please consider being  generous with your kindness and spare with sharp words.