Hey folks
We've been considering bankruptcy lately. We always ran the edge of being financially OK, I normally had about 5-7k in CC debt and other bills. We got married (and rang up a bunch of debt to do it) by going to Las Vegas...debt climbed to about 10k at this point (about 700 credit rating). Paid down some debt, got a mortgage, things were good. Then my wife got pregnant.
At the time we had no health insurance as it would have cost about $100 a week when I was making about $400 a week. There were tons of complications (Vasia Previa amongst other things).
Luckily I hired into the company I was temping at and got benefits before the birth. Still, we had about 12k in medical bills prior to getting insurance.
My wife ended up going back to school for her M.A. I'm still in school working on my B.S. We tried to juggle baby, my fulltime work, my halftime school, her fulltime school, her part time job. It was too much. We had her quit her job last fall. She went back over the summer part-time. We had our 2nd child just a month ago. So we've got a 22mo old and a 1mo old.
Our debt load doubled to about 20k in the last year since she stopped working (she used to account for 15k/yr or so). It doesn't make sense to have her make $9/hr and have someone babysit our children for pretty much close to that. I make about 40k/yr with my bonus included.
I find the budget is beginning to collapse under the weight of 2 kids. I think this will be the first month I don't see how to pay all the bills. We've got a total of about 20k in various CC debt, including 0% CCs used to buy furniture, lawnmower (hard to mow over an acre with a pushmower!), etc. The medical bills are about 10-12k and one of them already filed suit against us.
I've been reading the forum here and absorbing details. I plan on calling a BK lawyer in the next few days to see where to go.
The only assets we really have:
Car worth about 4k with about 4k in debt on it. Ditto on the wife's car. House has about 9k in equity in it. Some video game systems and a couple of (not state of the art) computers. About $2k in home theater/HDTV/etc accumulated over the years.
The monthly budget - I make about 2k after taxes/benefits/etc. $825 to the mortgage, $330 + $150 + $150 insurance for cars, that's $1550 of it right there. Then we have about $600 in CCs and other debt, plus utilities (2 cellphones instead of landline, cable, electric, etc). I don't see how I can possibly make it work much longer.
The only asset I was worried about was my wife's DVD collection. My wife has a lot of DVDs. About 800 or so she bought over the years, she's a movie freak. I saw references to collections mentioned as problematic.
I guess I'm just looking for a little comments and guidance. And what about a big DVD collection, is that at risk? I don't see that it could be worth that much really but it's the only big ticket item (compiled together) that is.
I could maybe have dug us out of the CC debt without the added medical bills suing us. That was just the proverbial straw.
We've been considering bankruptcy lately. We always ran the edge of being financially OK, I normally had about 5-7k in CC debt and other bills. We got married (and rang up a bunch of debt to do it) by going to Las Vegas...debt climbed to about 10k at this point (about 700 credit rating). Paid down some debt, got a mortgage, things were good. Then my wife got pregnant.
At the time we had no health insurance as it would have cost about $100 a week when I was making about $400 a week. There were tons of complications (Vasia Previa amongst other things).
Luckily I hired into the company I was temping at and got benefits before the birth. Still, we had about 12k in medical bills prior to getting insurance.
My wife ended up going back to school for her M.A. I'm still in school working on my B.S. We tried to juggle baby, my fulltime work, my halftime school, her fulltime school, her part time job. It was too much. We had her quit her job last fall. She went back over the summer part-time. We had our 2nd child just a month ago. So we've got a 22mo old and a 1mo old.
Our debt load doubled to about 20k in the last year since she stopped working (she used to account for 15k/yr or so). It doesn't make sense to have her make $9/hr and have someone babysit our children for pretty much close to that. I make about 40k/yr with my bonus included.
I find the budget is beginning to collapse under the weight of 2 kids. I think this will be the first month I don't see how to pay all the bills. We've got a total of about 20k in various CC debt, including 0% CCs used to buy furniture, lawnmower (hard to mow over an acre with a pushmower!), etc. The medical bills are about 10-12k and one of them already filed suit against us.
I've been reading the forum here and absorbing details. I plan on calling a BK lawyer in the next few days to see where to go.
The only assets we really have:
Car worth about 4k with about 4k in debt on it. Ditto on the wife's car. House has about 9k in equity in it. Some video game systems and a couple of (not state of the art) computers. About $2k in home theater/HDTV/etc accumulated over the years.
The monthly budget - I make about 2k after taxes/benefits/etc. $825 to the mortgage, $330 + $150 + $150 insurance for cars, that's $1550 of it right there. Then we have about $600 in CCs and other debt, plus utilities (2 cellphones instead of landline, cable, electric, etc). I don't see how I can possibly make it work much longer.
The only asset I was worried about was my wife's DVD collection. My wife has a lot of DVDs. About 800 or so she bought over the years, she's a movie freak. I saw references to collections mentioned as problematic.
I guess I'm just looking for a little comments and guidance. And what about a big DVD collection, is that at risk? I don't see that it could be worth that much really but it's the only big ticket item (compiled together) that is.
I could maybe have dug us out of the CC debt without the added medical bills suing us. That was just the proverbial straw.
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