Almost Ready To File BK

As with life, there's always a trade off. When we rented before, both of us working & no kids, the IRS always bent us over no matter we did. Get a house and you can write off the interest. The key here will be finding a balance in our federal withholding and minimizing our potential tax bill. We've put ten years into this house. It was going to be our retirement or at least our home fully paid for when we retire. My wife has come to terms with that after the discharge we will short sell it & rent for a while. I cannot argue the monthly savings and the extra money we will be able to put away by doing this. I keep telling myself that home is wherever she is. We can move closeer to her work so she doesnt have to drive an hour to get there and wake up at dark thirty to beat traffic. I too, am slowly realizing this is what needs to be done. I still shake my fist towards the sky once in a while though.

GUyver30: Nothing wrong with renting for a while - Not the same, of course, as "owning" but what does that really mean? You make a payment to a mortgage co. - You don't "own" squat until you've paid it off. I am really pessimistic about home values, though. Here in the DC area, the "experts" say it will be another 5 -10 yrs before values get back to where they were and, on top of that, home values might drop another 10% in 2011. Good luck with the court date, too.

Good luck mrmarkinva. My only concern now is the aftermath. If we short sale our house, I'm told we cannot apply for another home loan for at least two years. On a foreclosure, it's five years. I am seeking full time employment because this independent contractor gig is not working out like I wanted. I'm hoping my future new employer does not run a credit check. Part of the trade off with dumping your credit cards I guess. Court date is in two weeks.

I agree with jscotty467. I have no regrets. The only regret I have is not doing it sooner. I would rather have extra cash in my pocket than have a really good credit score and live on bread and water. Now I can atleast save up.

Filing Chap 7 tomorrow. Been almost a year since I first consulted with a lawyer. Hope your journeys through this process in CA and FL have worked well to date. VA is a much more conservative state and the trustees are accordingly aggressive. Wish me luck - I'm gonna need it!

Thanks for the feedback jscotty467. We are still waiting for our 341 date. Before we did all this we turned in the one leased vehicle we had for a newer purchase to own car for my wife. Our lawyer said to make sure our cars were in good shape to last over the next five years because it would be difficult to lease or purchase a new one with the BK on our record. We are filing BK because we decided to keep our house and not move for a cheaper payment thus freeing up money to pay the credit cards. We've learned for almost a year now to survive without credit cards and primarily use cash or the bank debit card. If I land this new job soon, they will give me a corporate credit card which will make my business travels a lot easier to deal with. Unfortunately, I had to tell my parents of the pending BK because I was on their checking account with a bank we had a large credit balance owed. They are retired and on a fixed income and we couldn't take the chance the bank would seize their funds to pay our balance. Of course, I swore them to secrecy and that lasted about five months until they visited my brother and sister over Christmas. I just received a letter from my brother, who is a good guy and means well but loosely translated it said, “hey bro, I hear your filing BK? Call me if you wanna talk.” Now my wife is pissed at the folks and wants me to read them the riot act but what’s done is done. I’m sure this is the norm in a long line of embarrassments coming my way.

We filed a Ch 7 in FL. The 341 was roughly 5-8 minutes in duration, there were no problems for us. Original filing was in February 2010, 341 in March, discharge paperwork in hand in May.



Credit re-establishment is slow. Given the nature of the times I am anticipating that our recovery or re-establishment will be slow, anyone that tells you otherwise is probably not well informed. Understand that you will pay ridiculous interest rates for any kind of credit, you may see increases in some insurance premiums (auto) if they use credit ratings as part of their calculations. Be very careful if you pick up a credit card, there are some real scams out there, read the fine print. We have not gotten a credit card as of yet but that has been by choice, there have been offers. We were able to secure an auto loan in October to replace a wrecked vehicle, again interest seems like loan shark percentages but we have resolved ourselves to this as being the penalty for our misdeeds (trying to keep a sense of humor). I am hopeful that in 3-5 years we will be able to consider a mortgage but I do not know that anyone out there really knows the answer to that one. There are many unanswered questions but life is much nicer without the never ending collection calls/mailings. I can breathe again.

jscotty467, was the court meeting by-the-numbers? Nothing out of the ordinary that could throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings? How was the process of re-establishing your credit after the discharge?

As a 'survivor' of the BK machinery I would say that in the end it will all be worth it. I too had to wait to file so that our income would allow us to file a ch 7. The delays were agonizing but now that it is all over I can honestly say I have no regrets. The biggest difference is that recovery is slow, a one day after another type process. Impulsive decision making has no place at the table, something that is truly a challenge for a generation that is accustomed to instant gratification. You are right, there are no dumb questions and I hope that there are no surprises as your case works it way through the system.

I'm going through the same thing. The means test makes waiting for months to file tough but it's the law. Bankruptcy is a path to a "Fresh Start" I look forward to not depending on credit cards and being able to have a savings account again. Thinking about what good things will come in the future helps deal with the present stress. You will get through this.