Originally posted by mike9302
1) You don't answer the question asked--why do you come to this board when you are not in BK or having financial issues? You are not coming from a position of experience or authority.
2) Look what people are doing to rebuild their credit and why they are doing it. Sooner or later, most will need a car and it is sometimes very difficult to save up and pay for it in full ahead of time. So they are preparing for their best options (i.e. lowest percentage rate which will only come with high FICO scores.) And you just are not getting how people are spending on their new credit and how good credit scores are built. Say, for example, you get a $500 credit card. The optimal way to build credit is only to charge 20-30% of the max. Thus, someone will charge 20% of 500, or $100 on necessary items. It would seem logical to pay it off in full every month, but that is not the way the dang FICO scores work, plus, some cc companies actually increase your interest rate if you never carry a balance so that they can get some money out of you when you finally do carry a balance. So, prior to the bill being due (we know late payments will kill us) you pay off $90 of that $100 balance. So you end up paying some measily little amount in interest on $10 a month. But next month you charge your $100, have a balance of $110 and payoff $100. By carrying that tiny $10 balance your credit score increases a lot faster.
3) No one is denying that anyones post-BK experiences will be any better than their pre-BK life if they don't adjust their lifestyle and/or increase their income to live within their means. However, for a lot of them, that just might not even be necessary since CC debt is not why they got into BK in the first place.
(a) I hope it never happens to you, but you can have decent medical insurance and still find yourself in BK. Imagine a serious medical condition, such as a heart attack, where first you are life-flighted to the nearest ER, have emergency surgery, spend days in ICU, and months in rehab. Or have a premature baby that spends weeks if not months in the hospital fighting for it's life and then spends years afterwards with special occupational and physical therapy needs to try to get to the level of other peers. Heaven forbid someone needs an organ transplant. Now, that wonderful medical policy doesn't seem as wonderful when you are stuck with 20% of the bill. That million dollar cap on your policy--you'll go over that really easily if you are a transplant recipient and need to take anti-rejection drugs the rest of your life. Try having cancer that none of the traditional treatments are working so the doctor tries other combinations of things but the insurance company considers this experimental and does not cover them. (I won't even get into the whole issue of how health insurance is dictating treatment instead of the doctors. Now who has the MD again?)
(b) Another leading cause of BK is divorce. If one person was financially irresponsible, the other couple could end up paying for it--especially if it was hidden from them. Hope you don't have to experience divorce, but besides being emotionally messy, it can be very financially messy.
(c) Now, where would you be right now if you lost your job, couldn't find another one for 6-12 or more months and then had to take a 40% paycut? Guess what, this is real life!!! Around here, the kids couldn't find summer jobs because professionals who couldn't find work were out there flipping burgers, doing paper routes, and working the rides at Six Flags to keep any money coming into their homes.
(d) Combine any of the above together and a below median income, and that leads to problems. Don't have time to look for the stats right now, but the average filer makes around $35K a year and has had one of the above situations happen to him/her.
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse saying this at times; however, I have not disrespected you in anyway and am just trying to educate you in the reality that you are missing.
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