Dealing with the stress of...not paying?

[Goteki45]

I can relate to all of you. I had a 730 FICO score and always paid on time. I lost my job, but I thought I could just make it on my unemployment and by using my credit cards to bridge the gap. Well the balances started going up and up and up. I found another job, but it pays nowhere near what I need to make to cover my cc payments. The lesson, I learned is that it doesn't pay to take from peter to pay paul so to speak. I'm not a dead beat. I just got trapped in a bad situation. I realize that the debt collectors are just doing their jobs, and my creditors only know me by info in an account in their computer networks. So to me, it's just a business decision to file bankruptcy. Hell, I received a letter today from HSBC demanding payment on a bill with the words written in big letters "CREDIT IS IMPORTANT". I had to laugh when I read that. If the credit card companies would have turned me down originally, I wouldn't be here. Credit can be re established and built back up, so I am not emotionally hung up on that. CCSJOE, it may feel weird, but you will get use to it.

[pikaroth]

pikaroth,

Stop looking back at your cc's and start looking forward--at what is fiscally best for you. Remove ethics, morals and such from the equation. Make it a cold, hard economic analysis--that's what the banks and cc companies do. And be done with it.

What you said there is dead on, and believe it or not, it made me feel better. I know I'll be nervous until the day this is all over, but it is getting better after only a few days, but this sinking feeling just randomly hits me in the gut. But yes, I have stopped paying on my credit cards, and am only paying on my car and, obviously, apartment rent along with electric, water, cable, and cell phone, and finally renters and auto insurance. My entire debt, my entire bankruptcy, is strictly based on five credit cards. ANYWAY, I've said that enough, so I'll stop now. I tend to go on and on, but that, oddly, makes me feel better, so this forum itself is a place for me to 'vent' and get things off my chest.

So, again, thank you all.

[researchnerd]

This is the first time in well over a decade that I have had honest-to-God money. It's surreal.

I can totally relate. I notice it most when my teenager asks for something, and normally I'd have had to say no.
$20 for gas? Here you go.
New clothes for school? Let's go shopping (at the outlet mall).
Car registration? No problem.
A pizza date, just the two of us? Awesome.

It's wonderful to have a life again.

[wipetheslate]

pikaroth,

I think most of us were like you. I know I was circling the drain for years. Even took money out of a retirement account which ended up creating a tax issue for me when I moved mid-year to a state with a huge personal income tax. Dumb move all the way around. But I thought I should keep paying my bills. I was just getting deeper in. I'd have been better off declaring bankruptcy 5 years ago--before it had even entered my mind--and if I'd been paying what I paid towards credit card minimum payments towards extra payments on my student loans I'd have had those paid off already.

But no, I kept paying my cc bills, ruled by the tyranny of my FICO score, which was in the low-mid 700s.

If you know you're going to file, stop making payments on your cc's and start spending cash. The only card I kept paying was one at my credit union, where I had an auto loan. Paid the auto loan off on Tuesday and got my title back and I'll be filing next week.

Stop looking back at your cc's and start looking forward--at what is fiscally best for you. Remove ethics, morals and such from the equation. Make it a cold, hard economic analysis--that's what the banks and cc companies do. And be done with it.

[ccsjoe]

Glad to hear that, ccsjoe! I'm sure it felt absolutely amazing. I really, REALLY don't know what to do with having some income to spend. I think I may actually buy more than just the absolute minimum groceries necessary that I normally do. Anyway, it is a very strange feeling, and to think that over time I will actually have even more may even allow me to visit my sister by next year overseas, something I never thought I'd be able to do.

See, remember in your previous thread I told you it does get better....well, it just did, didn't it? Hehehe

[pikaroth]

Glad to hear that, ccsjoe! I'm sure it felt absolutely amazing. I really, REALLY don't know what to do with having some income to spend. I think I may actually buy more than just the absolute minimum groceries necessary that I normally do. Anyway, it is a very strange feeling, and to think that over time I will actually have even more may even allow me to visit my sister by next year overseas, something I never thought I'd be able to do.

[ccsjoe]

Welcome to my world pikaroth. Feels good to finally have some money left over. We just experienced it last weekend, when we actually went to a wedding AND stayed at a hotel AND gave a nice wedding gift AND still weren't short on funds...tight yes, but not short.

[pikaroth]

Great posts by everyone. Thank you all very much. It's odd but today I woke up feeling a little better. Not completely, not by a long shot, but much better than I did yesterday. The primary reason? I got paid, and, I really can't believe this, I have actual money in my account. When I say I was living paycheck to paycheck, I MEAN it. I was lucky to maybe, say, see a movie once or twice a month if I could save the money, maybe go out to eat randomly, and that was it. So to get paid, pay what I needed to pay (water, cable, etc.) and not the credit cards like I normally would - it left me with money. This is the first time in well over a decade that I have had honest-to-God money. It's surreal.

[Panacea]

Great post empowered! I stopped cc's, mortgage, and heloc. Missed the first in Sep. IT KILLED ME. I couldn't believe I actually did it and felt shame and guilt. Well now, almost 2 months later. I feel ANGER at the cc's and heloc. It doesn't bother me at all that I don't pay them. I was a long standing, GREAT credit consumer with them, and they could've cared less and slammed me against the wall, just when my life was doing that on its own.

I felt most awful about the mortgage, only because I don't want to go through the foreclosure. They certainly were'nt sympathetic either to my stuggles though. They can have the stinkin house and all the headaches with it. I'm not emotionally attached to it in anyway, just hate to uproot my kid.

I go through many emotions daily with this BK crap. Anger is one of my favorites lately, and I'll take it over the shame and guilt anytime.

[researchnerd]

empowered beat me to it...that was an excellent post. Getting angry was what allowed me to begin to not feel guilty any more. Creditors jacking up my interest rates for no reason, then refusing to make any adjustments to work with me...it wasn't pretty. It apparently means nothing that I've faithfully made payments on time for years; they fundamentally don't give a rat's a$$ about me or my situation.

I understand about feeling guilty. We've been taught all our lives to be responsible for our own actions, and most of us practice that faithfully. When you're thrown into a situation where you can't be, especially when it's no fault of your own, it's really shocking. Knowing intellectually that you shouldn't feel guilty is entirely different from feeling it emotionally, and it can take some time to adjust to that. Take good care of yourself and try to shake the guilt off as much as you can, because it doesn't serve you, make you a better person or help you to make better decisions.

[empowered]

Hi pikaroth.

I'm glad you posted but you'll get more responses if you post new threads instead of adding to others. This topic was, however, pretty targeted to a certain issue, so perhaps it was the right place. I'm sure it's always the right place, so long as you feel you can write.

And on that note let me say that I hear that you feel guilty, even though you've been told that you should not feel the way you do. I think that guilt is something that those of us who feel it have to work through and it's very important that we do that because you won't be a good advocate for yourself if you feel guilty, if you feel like you deserve this or like this is all your fault.

Let me go so far as saying that, if you feel guilty, you haven't gotten angry enough. Because you're obviously intelligent enough to know that there are many factors that have contributed to your current position. It's not, it cannot be, all because of you. After all, the rest of us are also here. In some thread, the observation was made that the feelings of guilt tend to diminish the first time you get nasty calls from collectors for whatever company you've paid faithfully for year after year, whatever company it is that won't give you a break when you need it, whatever company it is that sics completely unethical bill collectors on you or encourages them to shame you, to call your family, to illegally threaten you. This in combination with finding that whatever company you've faithfully paid month in and month out, refuses to give you any kind of payment plan. At least, this is a frequent scenario.

Try to begin to do for yourself whatever you do when stress makes you feel sick and unable to focus. Exercise, get out of the house, talk to a trusted friend, whatever works for you. Try to take care of yourself. It could be a long haul that you have to weather. But here, in this forum, there is a wealth of help and encouragement.

My best to you.

[pikaroth]

I know this thread is a few months old, but I was just pointed in this direction, and I read through the entire thing. Reading it makes me upset that others feel as I do (it's a sickening feeling), but I am 'glad,' so to speak, that I am not alone.

I posted a new thread basically introducing myself, so I don't want to go into detail here, but to say I am sick about this is an understatement. Rationally, looking at everything, I should have an extremely 'easy' case of Chapter 7, even according to my attorney (I make less than the state median (Florida), being a state government employee has given me absolutely no raises or cost of living increase in over five years and yet my interest rates on credit cards go up, and I continue to have to put stuff ON those cards).

I had to admit that I was done. It was about a month ago when it finally, clearly hit me when I had to take my car in for servicing and the total cost was approximately $600. Out came the credit card - no way I could afford it from anything else, and any type of progress I had made was instantly gone. Literally right there I was smacked in the face with not being able to handle this anymore. If I did not have the credit card debt, paying that would not have been an issue.

I do not own a home, just rent a one bedroom/one bathroom, and I fully intend to pay off my card in 14 months, so that will continue. Still, I have five credit cards coming in every month, and the total on all of them is a little over $47,000, and that is $10,000 more than I make in a year. Take into account my rent, car payment, insurance, electric, water, and phone, along with groceries and all that, and I was just hit with a beam of understanding. Looking back, I should have done this years ago, but I have had at least one credit card since I was 18 years old (I'll be 34 in December), and like others here, I have never, ever, *EVER* been late or mised a payment, ever.

The last few years I was holding on but the writing was on the wall. I was living with my sister, and she recently got an absolutely awesome job overseas teaching, and she had to accept it. Due to that, I now have my own place (smaller, obviously), but because I am alone I now pay everything on my own. The last three months my parents (yes, my parents) have been assisting me, and to say I feel ashamed is an understatement. I cannot convey how humiliated I am. I have made no big purchases (save for the car maintenance) in awhile, just going out to eat every so often, seeing a movie here and there, and normal groceries and the like. I finally sat down, admitted to myself that this is it. If I don't do this now, it will happen in the future. All I am doing is delaying what the future will be bringing me.

Parents assisted with my attorney fee, and I met with them yesterday. Things seemed to have gone well. They claim this will be 'easy,' and is really almost a non-issue. In all of the notes they were taking, they did write down " no asset" and gave me a lengthy packet to take home and fill out. I last used a credit card over a week ago, and I was told about the 90 days, so no more CCs at all. That puts me at January.

I then asked the question I already fully knew the answer to: when should I stop making my credit card payments. I was advised to do so immediately, and my heart sunk. It's now been over 24 hours, and I still feel sick. I mean it, I literally feel sick and cannot even focus.

Tomorrow is the first of my credit cards due for a payment, and.... I won't be paying. Another poster in my introduction thread stated that I should not feel guilty, and I agree with every word he said, yet I do feel guilty. A majority of my dept is from after college and through my late 20s (the big expenses were a few trips outside of the country, some other purchases like computers and TVs (years ago, NOTHING remotely recent)), and then it happened - I grew up, got older, and just didn't want as much. By then, though, it was too late. I can never pay this off, ever. I need to fully accept it and realize by doing this I am not breaking any laws, and, in fact, am following the law. I just have those visions of people knocking my door at 2am for not paying my bills and the like. Again, I know that is not true (don't worry!), but that 'feeling' is there.

I am more thankful for this forum than I can say, so I wnn't even try. This is a great thread, and I hope others will read this and continue to post in it. I am proof that new people are finding this place daily and need help or at least a place to feel less alone.

Thanks to everyone.

[ccsjoe]

Pandora, to send the cease and desist letter, did you just ask them for their address on of the times they called? Can you give an example of what your letter said? I would really like to go this route if it works. The first week the calls come in, I will just sent the letter out.

I have heard that it works from others as well. I just don't know why everyone doesn't go that route?

Thanks

Not sure if the C&D letter applies to original creditors attempting to find out status & collect or only to collection agencies (once accounts have been farmed out to them from the original creditors). Can someone please illuminate us on this one?

[rebuilt]

Pandora, to send the cease and desist letter, did you just ask them for their address on of the times they called? Can you give an example of what your letter said? I would really like to go this route if it works. The first week the calls come in, I will just sent the letter out.

I have heard that it works from others as well. I just don't know why everyone doesn't go that route?

Thanks

[Pandora]

I understand now. My first missed payments will be tomorrow. But...my wife and I need health insurance which we haven't had for 2 years, our IRS withholdings need to be adjusted upward so we don't have another huge tax bill, and our little one needs food, clothes, school, etc. Basic choices. Still feel guilty, but well over it. Bracing for the train wreck of calls to start, but encouraged that I'm meeting with and retaining our bk attorney on Friday.

Thank you all for sharing and for your encouragement.

That says it all right there (gentle hugs). You and your family come first - everything else is secondary.

Look at this as a business decision - and try to remove the emotion from it. We've been conditioned from a very very young age, and its worked, however if this were a business and it went under, it wouldn't be looked down upon would it? Nope. Look at Donald Trump! How many times has HE filed BK and he's still trekking along - not losing one bit of sleep over it - and still a multi-millionaire.

Family comes first....


As far as the phone calls that are going to come - set up a standard line and just repeat it every time a creditor calls "yes this is Mr/Mrs. XX - thank you for calling, have a nice day" and hang up the phone. Or simply turn off the ringer and dont answer it - most times CA dont leave msgs. If it becomes too much, then just do a C&D letter or a limited C&D stating they may only contact you via USPS mail. Thats what we did and the calls stopped.