What have you done to see to it that this never happens again?

[Never_Again]

If anything, I think that a Chapter 7 bankruptcy has been a good breaking point in my life. I am determined to make a true fresh start, and to do everything the way that I always should have been.

What is truly embarrassing to me is that I knew all of the rules! I KNEW how to do this right! But I didn't. Some through my own fault, and some through no fault of my own. Seems funny to see myself write that, as I have always been the champion of personal responsibility, but sometimes things happen that you have no control over.

I have written a pretty intense financial planning spreadsheet. I have used Quicken in the past. It does a good job of keeping a checkbook register, tracking where money goes, and reporting this. However, it is not proactive, and doesn't have the flexibility that I really need.

My spreadsheet tracks money to each of several accounts (buckets, envelopes). It tracks what goes in, and what comes out. I have control of every dollar. I check the online balance with the credit union a couple of times a week just to make certain that nothing strange is happening, but otherwise, the balance of each sub-account is what governs my spending.

This also allows me to plan for the next quarter, year, and longer. The whole process is very freeing, and it is nice to know right where I stand, the bills are going to be paid, and where I am heading to in the future.

I would love to hear anyone's stories about this as well...

[fltoo]

Good for you. It is frustrating to see people on here looking to replace their repossessed vehicle with yet another expensive one.

Although my debt is due to a failed business, I still consider myself stupid to have let it happen. Looking back, I should have known better.

I plan to start another business, but not until I have saved enough cash to do it.

[filingin08]

Sounds silly, but my husband and I are talking about money. Something we've never done since we met over 5 years ago. I buy emotionally and make sure the emotional needs are met such as birthdays, Christmas, etc. This to the detriment of our house which fell 4 months behind on the mortgage and is in desparate need of a new roof. My husband would skip all holidays. We're very much polar opposites that way, but now we talk. We each get a weekly allowance to cover gas and lunch but the checking account isn't touched unless we both agree. Now we discuss how to save for taxes and that new roof. It's a team effort. For us, I have accountability and he has knowledge (he didn't know we were 4 months behind until we filed).

[chloe0724]

My Husband and I also have begun talking about money. It's amazing how hard that is. We have started the envelope system and have set rules on purchases over $100. We each have given us a little spending money for ourselves each month, so we can save for gifts and things we want without having to explain the purchases.

[Flamingo]

The main thing about all this is that you have to know that no one is immune from bankruptcy - it can happen to anyone. Once it happens and the shock goes away after discharge, is remember that and take steps to prevent anything from putting you back in the same spot that got you to file. Debt is the cause of filing bankruptcy. In our situation, we had great jobs and high income and never in a million years thought we would ever come near having to file. All it took was the job loss of a six figure income, high debt and a year of job hunting where the only job available for my husband after that time was less than 1/4 of what he was making before. Now, if that ever happened to us again, we do not have the debt in place that would make us file if a job was lost, either mine or his. The debt is what our problem was, not the job loss, at that time. If we did not have that high debt, we would not have had to file. No excuses about it.

I agree with Fltoo above in his stating that it is frustrating to see folks come on here looking to dump debt and just want get more after dumping.

As the OP has done with budgeting and along with keeping debt down to affordable levels after filing is the key to never getting into a position to file BK again. You have to learn how to control money and not let it control you.

[WoodSprite]

Didn't want to let this great thread get old...

Okay, after the first two or three, this gets pretty rustic, so if you live in a townhouse with four TVs, your mileage may vary. But you may be surprised:

1. Envelopes for regular but not monthly expenses. Car insurance, property taxes, oil changes, etc, as well as unexpected expenses and the occasional treat - a movie in an actual theater on an unbearably hot, humid summer day. This is certainly not an original idea, but it really has worked for me. It's so good not to have anxiety as the due date for the car insurance approaches.

2. As filing08 and others have said, talking honestly about how much money there isn't, rather than feeling that I have to take care of everything. It's wonderful...there are no arguments or recriminations, just problem-solving. "We'll make it work" is our new mantra. And we mostly do.

3. Coming to terms with the truth that money is extremely unlikely to begin falling from the sky, and getting in the habit of chipping away at the little things instead of wishing-waiting for the big windfall. We used to live in the wilderness near a town of 800 souls - the pathetic remnants of a gold rush town. The gold was gone, and sawmills had long since closed, and there was pretty much nobody left, since there was no work. I learned a lot from the people who WERE there, though.

Nobody had A JOB, but everybody worked all the time, and much of the local commerce involved no money: the guy who owned the laundromat also did tire repair and collected scrap metal, which he accepted in payment for fixing a flat. The best logger in town was a licensed masseuse and a fine carpenter. The Harley-riding chick who worked 9-5 in the only hardware store in 100 miles made her mortgage payments by making fabulous jewelry and selling it at shows and online. We lived rent-free by caretaking a log cabin in the wilderness, while I made web sites, hubby published music editions, and we performed and sold our CDs. We learned to think "butter & eggs", rather than "windfall". This applies to any lifestyle: sell your used CDs on Amazon, barter babysitting for car repair...whatever it takes to add beans to your rice. It all adds up.

3. Stockpiling food. Despite our extremely rustic lifestyle, we're not the stereotypical survivalists, squatting out here cleaning our guns and waiting for the starving yuppies to come raid our vegetable garden. However, those grizzled folks have a lot of great ideas about stockpiling and preserving food, and I'm happy to pick up tips from anybody with an idea worth stealing. Since there's scarcely room in the cabin for us, our books, and a box of spaghetti, we've dug a cold cellar, and we've learned a lot about how to store and preserve things like lentils, beans, rice, and of course canned goods.

4. Growing and preserving our own food as much as possible. I've always been a big - you might say obsessive - gardener, but I've never grown anything useful! I'm learning, and I'm learning to see beauty in potatoes as well as in roses. Whenever I see the price of a can of tomatoes or spaghetti sauce, I think of my cold cellar full of unquestionably organic goods and smile. You don't have to live in the country to do this! We have a nice little chunk of land, but it's mostly woods. Sunny space is so limited that this garden isn't any bigger than my old garden behind the aluminum bungalow in the city. I want to try espaliering fruit trees next...

5. Okay, this one is definitely a rural-only solution, but I'm proud of it, nevertheless. We have no heating bill. None. We live in the woods, the frost line is four FEET deep and winter lasts from October to May. Trees and huge limbs come down with some regularity, especially during the inevitable late-spring ice storms. Most often, it seems, they come down across the road, which is unpaved and not maintained by the county in the winter, so it's simply not an option to ignore them. When we lose a tree, or a large limb, we buck it up into woodstove-size chunks and stack them all very near the driveway.

One of those envelopes in #1 above is labeled "wood-splitter". Twice a year, Memorial Day and Labor Day, we rent a wood-splitter and split everything in that stack. It's really, really rewarding, and it's not horrible work, since it's all THERE already, and and we don't have to exhaust ourselves hauling it from all over our extremely rough terrain. We don't do anything those weekends but split - just tossing the firewood in a huge mountain.

After the big splitting extravaganza, it takes a LONG time to relocate and neatly stack all of that wood - months, sometimes. But it's not nearly as hard on our middle-aged bodies as splitting it all by hand used to be. Since we started this routine before there was even a cabin on the land, we've had an ample supply of seasoned firewood as long as we've been here, and have never bought a stick from the yahoos out selling green wood for $250 a pickup load. And as I'm stacking, stacking, stacking, I'm telling myself..."this is what I do instead of working a job to pay the gas company" and "other people pay huge sums of money to get this kind of exercise"...

Sorry if this is too "homestead-y" for most of you. I spent my first 40-some years living in a very big city, with a regular job, so I've been there, too, and believe me, there's a lot of "country wisdom" that applies to whatever situation you're in. Just google "urban homesteading" and see how this notion is taking off right now...

[laurannm]

I noticed that a couple of you have mentioned using envelopes....are you literally taking cash for each budgeted expense and placing it an envelope? I've thought about doing this myself but was never sure if it worked well

Thanks!

[WoodSprite]

I noticed that a couple of you have mentioned using envelopes....are you literally taking cash for each budgeted expense and placing it an envelope? I've thought about doing this myself but was never sure if it worked well

Thanks!

Yep...exactly. It works perfectly for me, but I do seem to remember someone once posting that this didn't work for her because her kids and spouse kept raiding the envelopes for lunch money. I don't have anybody else in the house but hubby and a very honorable sock monkey.

After the anxiety of the last year or so, I find that the satisfaction of having a system and of KNOWING there will be enough to pay the bills more than outweighs any temptation to pilfer from myself.

[chloe0724]

We too use actual envelopes. When it's gone it's gone. I fill them twice a month. We figured out a monthly dollar amount for everything, and then I split it in half. That way we can't spend it all before the months out. The only thin we don't have an envelope for is gas.

[Never_Again]

I don't use the actual envelopes. I use an Excel spreadsheet that balances my income, and I can allocate it to different accounts. I then use a ledger to enter each and every transaction! All transactions use the debit card.

It is amazing how liberating that it is to make purchases knowing that the money is already allocated! No more stress! It also adds accountability to me knowing that every transaction needs to be entered. I also have a source to track the spending in each category and with each merchant.

I have always found that cash just disappears too quickly, and it is easy to not know what it was spent on or where it went.

I tried different programs (I used to use Quicken, and used it for years), but there are only a couple that model it after sub-accounts or envelopes. And many of them just do not give the function that I want. Yes, I have to enter my transactions manually, but I find doing so gives me maximum control, and maximum accountability.

But then again, maybe I am more of a nerd than most!

[WoodSprite]

I don't use the actual envelopes. I use an Excel spreadsheet that balances my income...

It is amazing how liberating that it is to make purchases knowing that the money is already allocated! No more stress!

But then again, maybe I am more of a nerd than most!

I'm all for whatever works for you. I'll bet that liberating feeling is exactly the same, whether you achieved it with high- or low-tech means.

Did you design the spreadsheet yourself, or was it a template?

[BROKENN]

I use Quickbooks for accounting (accountability!), Excel for budgeting and recently have envelopes It actually felt good to see money. I know that sounds weird, but I have been looking at ones and zeros a long time. Would have a few yuppie coupons (twenties) in my wallet, years went by working hard and never SAW the money we were making! It gives me a different perspective as I too am changing our lives drastically.

WS, my DH would be out there with you in a heart beat! Sounds beautiful!

[AngelinaCatHub]

Woodsprite have you ever seen the old movie “Wilderness Family”? It sounds like you. Yes you are a survivalist but don’t realize it. Very good one too.

My best break is we are out of checks and I’m not ordering a new box. I have not bounced a check in 45 years. This year, it has cost me a fortune on NSF charges as you cannot beat the check to the bank with tomorrow’s deposit. Float time is gone in our electronic age. We use a debit card only and if there is no money, the ATM stubbornly refuses to spit out money.

I once sent my Trustee a personal check for my payout monthly amount. We sweated bullets about that check. It did clear and we vowed, 0.45 cents for a money order is a very good investment, and peace of mind. ‘Hub

[WoodSprite]

It actually felt good to see money. I know that sounds weird...

Doesn't sound weird at all! It sounds like someone who's clever enough to avoid repeating mistakes, and determined to make a better life.

We'd really need to build a cushion, and we're trying to make that happen (musicians make more money at Christmas time!), but in the mean time there is so much satisfaction in simply having ENOUGH.

WS, my DH would be out there with you in a heart beat! Sounds beautiful!

Plenty of room, as long as you're quiet! Bring your own tools. We've got a 20-foot ridge pole we're going to need help raising in the spring.

Well, we're surviving, anyway! Thanks, Hub. We'll have to look that up. I'll bet it's at the library.

I hear that. The rules of life seem to have changed completely, haven't they?

I know we're bucking the system, but it's fun to see our weirdness begin to spread. I've turned a couple of hopeless shopahaulics I know into Freecycle junkies. It didn't address the root of the problem, but it certainly keeps them out of the mall!

And this is really nice...our former landlady, who owns the nearest shack on our road, is returning to her old hippie roots. (The whole hundred acres surrounding our place was a commune in the 70's, and she was one of the original members) Anyway, she's become completely infatuated with the notion that we don't notice when the power goes out until somebody in town tells us it happened. She knows we're struggling, and although she's no Rockefeller herself, she keeps looking for creative little ways to help us out. So she wants to pay us to install a grid-tied solar system and a hand pump like ours over at her place. Everybody wins.

[b_girl]

We've learned the hard way that we can no longer count on my income (we had to file because of my medical problems and inability to work) so we're basing our expenditures strictly on his current and projected income. That way, if I am able to work in the future, it will always be extra.

While we are applying for credit cards (in order to repair our credit scores), we will not be using them unless we can pay the amount charged within a month. And most importantly, we're not buying items if we're able to do without.

We're finally tending to our retirement by investing in the stock market using Sharebuilder, which allows us to buy a set amount of stocks twice monthly.