Have you ever declared bankruptcy?

Dwight Schrute

Dwight Schrute

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Dec 7, 2009
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A buddy of mine lost his ass financially and asked me for advice as to whether or not he should declare bankruptcy. He's racked up over $80k in credit card bills and gets harassed every day since he can't pay for shit.

I have a financial planning background, and as a friend, I'm advising him to rearrange his finances, get off his ass, make more money, and settle the debts instead of fucking his credit for 10 years.

I'm curious as to whether any of you emerged from a BK, and if in hindsight you'd have gone down that path or not.
 


I did it before getting into affiliate marketing.

This was way before all the laws got changed. In hindsight i prob didnt really have enough to file for bankruptcy, but my wife was pregnant with twins and I had just lost my job at the time.

No money, no insurance, 2 more people coming into the world, and no family to fall back on for either one of us. We barely made the rent and car payments.

For me, I wouldnt change anything and glad I did it. Learned my lessons and will never go back to that. That was 7 years ago and I have all kinds of fucking credit at my disposal ( but I never use it ).

Didnt hurt me in a negative way at all afterwards. Still got a house, multiple cars, boats, etc...
 
Also to add, my wifes ex-husband just did it a few months ago. The fucker got to rip off half of the county on their home construction bids leaving tons of people having to get 2nd mortgages on new homes from him defaulting.

He got to keep both of his houses, his new truck, didnt get his paycheck garnished, and went afterward and bought a new Mercedes off the lot. Im pretty sure he filed to the tune of close to 700k. His current wife also filed on her business as well.

I almost feel like filing bankruptcy doesn't hurt anyone anymore.
 
Bankruptcy is subject to the legal system and usually does not help you as much as it does your lawyer. I'd never go that route, especially when you can just make some different planning choices that can even make a bigger difference for you than a bankruptcy would.

Here's what I did instead of filing bankruptcy, when I was in a hole about 8 years back: (Credit still took a hit, but not as bad)

1. Put the phone number for all bills on one cell phone that I never, ever even charged up. -Today you could use a Google phone # for free.

2. Got rid of other old phone #s.

3. Threw out all envelopes for years that even slightly looked like a bill collection. (Shredded, of course, but never viewed. They can't hurt you if you don't read it. Really!)

4. Used CCCS (now called Apprisen) to reduce all unsecured bills into a monthly payment, and this is the only debt I ever paid. If each CC company is getting a few bucks each month, they can't trash your credit that bad.

5. Sold any possible secured debt, such as houses, cars, jewelry and boats. Try to go minimalist, but of course you need somewhere to live.

6. Used any money from step 5 to live better than you would without. If your income is now too low to make your mortgage/rent payment each month, and you can't move elsewhere, then you must sell something and budget that cash to make up for this area until you can.
 
I know two people who had no choices but to file bankruptcy, but with 80 k in debt, its hard to get out, unless he makes radical choices
 
Oh yeah, I guess I could have mentioned that I was $90k in debt at the time I went in to CCCS above. They said they see people in as much as $150k unsecured debt all the time.

PS... I soon thereafter discovered teh secretz to making monies online and have been debt free for over a year.
 
lukep said:
Bankruptcy is subject to the legal system and usually does not help you as much as it does your lawyer. I'd never go that route, especially when you can just make some different planning choices that can even make a bigger difference for you than a bankruptcy would.

Here's what I did instead of filing bankruptcy, when I was in a hole about 8 years back: (Credit still took a hit, but not as bad)

1. Put the phone number for all bills on one cell phone that I never, ever even charged up. -Today you could use a Google phone # for free.

2. Got rid of other old phone #s.

3. Threw out all envelopes for years that even slightly looked like a bill collection. (Shredded, of course, but never viewed. They can't hurt you if you don't read it. Really!)

4. Used CCCS (now called Apprisen) to reduce all unsecured bills into a monthly payment, and this is the only debt I ever paid. If each CC company is getting a few bucks each month, they can't trash your credit that bad.

5. Sold any possible secured debt, such as houses, cars, jewelry and boats. Try to go minimalist, but of course you need somewhere to live.

6. Used any money from step 5 to live better than you would without. If your income is now too low to make your mortgage/rent payment each month, and you can't move elsewhere, then you must sell something and budget that cash to make up for this area until you can.
Click to expand...

The only flaw to this system that some people get in, that you were lucky enough to have were:

1. House, cars, boats, jewelry to sell.

For someone that is renting or cant sell their house, is upside down on car, doesnt have a boat, and only their high school ring to their name.. then they wouldnt be able to follow in the same steps.

I do know people that the only furniture in their house is a blow up mattress and a kitchen table with a few chairs.
 
eliquid said:
The only flaw to this system that some people get in, that you were lucky enough to have were:

1. House, cars, boats, jewelry to sell.

For someone that is renting or cant sell their house, is upside down on car, doesnt have a boat, and only their high school ring to their name.. then they wouldnt be able to follow in the same steps.

I do know people that the only furniture in their house is a blow up mattress and a kitchen table with a few chairs.
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Well in those cases they simply need to start earlier; or if they insist on riding it out to the last moment, the place they will need to move to would be a homeless shelter.
 
About 8 years ago I had to go through it. I talked my bank into giving me about $250k loan (the ones that got the country into this mess) to build a restaurant. I was young and foolish and was given way to much cash for a 24 year old kid. I got fleeced all the way along from the place I leased to construction and so on. Place ran for about 2 years before I had to stop the bleeding and shut it down. This experience re-shaped my whole life. Going from having the world dicked ( i did really well before hand) and always having cash in my pocket to having nothing was a real eye opener. I was flat on my ass with nothing no money no income nothing. For anyone who has never experienced anything like it, its difficult to explain.

Now what happened next is the best thing that could have ever happened. After hitting rock bottom scrapping and hustling to get back, put this fire and drive to succeed in me that I had never know my whole life. I learned and I mean really learned how to live on cash and cash only. I got a fresh start w/ the bankruptcy. Got to reset the Balance sheet to zero. I started up another business got into the IM world and started dabbling around and began to start making things happen.

I will say this I have a whole new outlook on whats important (family first) and then providing for them. I am now making more money than I ever have in my life and also learned to give back and help out others. The one thing that really had an impact was relearning how to manage my finances and budgeting.

I really believe in order to succeed in anything in life you have to have something pushing you. Something burning in your guts. For me its never letting anyone take anything from me again and not having to worry about paying the light bill the gets me going.
 
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[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuGIgf-ICHM]YouTube - The Office - I declare bankruptcy! Michael Scott[/ame]


Look up homestead exemptions.
 
dmnEPC said:
About 8 years ago I had to go through it. I talked my bank into giving me about $250k loan (the ones that got the country into this mess) to build a restaurant. I was young and foolish and was given way to much cash for a 24 year old kid. I got fleeced all the way along from the place I leased to construction and so on. Place ran for about 2 years before I had to stop the bleeding and shut it down. This experience re-shaped my whole life. Going from having the world dicked ( i did really well before hand) and always having cash in my pocket to having nothing was a real eye opener. I was flat on my ass with nothing no money no income nothing. For anyone who has never experienced anything like it, its difficult to explain.

Now what happened next is the best thing that could have ever happened. After hitting rock bottom scrapping and hustling to get back, put this fire and drive to succeed in me that I had never know my whole life. I learned and I mean really learned how to live on cash and cash only. I got a fresh start w/ the bankruptcy. Got to reset the Balance sheet to zero. I started up another business got into the IM world and started dabbling around and began to start making things happen.

I will say this I have a whole new outlook on whats important (family first) and then providing for them. I am now making more money than I ever have in my life and also learned to give back and help out others. The one thing that really had an impact was relearning how to manage my finances and budgeting.

I really believe in order to succeed in anything in life you have to have something pushing you. Something burning in your guts. For me its never letting anyone take anything from me again and not having to worry about paying the light bill the gets me going.
Click to expand...

Damn good post and good advice. +rep

I've been in a few pretty bad spots myself, and you just have to keep pushing and have a goal. Not saying I'm ballin out or anything, far from it, but it's okay as long there's food on the table and priorities are in check.
 
It's not as bad as people make out. After 10 or so years it'll be scrubbed from your credit profile. Happened to Walt Disney and he has left behind a multi-billion pound empire. If he wouldn't have gone through it I doubt he would have got Disney to where it is today.
 
WTF? You guys are fuckin lucky as hell to be in America, the day my dad declared bankruptcy 10 years ago is the day he failed at life.

He's only allowed to have a maximum of USD 800 in a single bank account at any time.

I'm not sure how anybody can get out of bankruptcy here.
 
Never declared bankruptcy, but I declare war!

card_games5.jpg
 
eliquid said:
Also to add, my wifes ex-husband just did it a few months ago. The fucker got to rip off half of the county on their home construction bids leaving tons of people having to get 2nd mortgages on new homes from him defaulting.

He got to keep both of his houses, his new truck, didnt get his paycheck garnished, and went afterward and bought a new Mercedes off the lot. Im pretty sure he filed to the tune of close to 700k. His current wife also filed on her business as well.

I almost feel like filing bankruptcy doesn't hurt anyone anymore.
Click to expand...

I know a guy like that in Florida. Started a luxury vehicle financing company.

Pillaged his way to rack up massive amounts of debt, a huge house in Boynton Beach, a Dodge Viper, Hayabusa, Gofast boat, and he partied his ASS off.

Guy went broke, filed bankruptcy, kept the home (homestead), lost the car & boat, sold the bike, bought a truck, and traded it in to use as the down payment for a BMW M5.

He also convinced a few friends to invest in a start up of his where he just sat on his ass and lived off of the initial investment.

Last I heard of him he runs the finance department at Broward Motorsports where he can sit around getting ready to do it again...

It's amazing what some people get away with.
 
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