Two Questions.

[TheBajan]

Two questions... just out of curiosity.


1) What was the highest total amount of credit available to you before you filed?

2) How much of that credit did you use and include in your BK?

A recent post has brought this up. I didn't want to hijack the post so I'm starting a new thread. In our case, we had $156K available to us (Yikes!). We BK'd $127K. We didn't have any secured debt but we did have a second mortgage that we did a lien strip on of an additional $70K. We had stopped using the cards once we realized we would very likely have to file so they weren't all run up. It's actually difficult to put these numbers down in writing. It makes me feel very ashamed to see them and know that I let us dig a hole that deep for ourselves. Hopefully this post will help others realized you are not alone.

So please, if you can, tell us about yours.

[keepsmiling]

Hey Baj, don't beat yourself up too much. Remember how the banks were practically BEGGING us to take their money? Literally throwing it at you... very hard to resist.
They really need to be held partly responsible.

Also... it's not necessarily that we spent all that money... there was a lot of borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and all the interest that adds up.
As for me, I think I used about 75% of my available unsecured to somewhere around 85K, plus a Heloc of over 100 that I will never be able to strip.

[TheBajan]

Thanks KS,

I'm sorry you aren't able to strip your HELOC.

You are right about the banks throwing credit at us. We didn't ask for the our credit lines to be increased. They just kept doing it. I remember once when times were good I looked at all the available credit and laughed at how ridiculous it was. The same way I remember laughing when we (my husband and I) were dating (before I ever had credit) at the absurd notion of using a credit card to pay for a meal at a restaurant. Somehow, we have a way of becoming desensitized to folly and become who or what we are laughing at. "Sighs" Still, I have to take the responsibility for actually using the cards, for developing the bad financial habits that set us up for the perfect storm when things out of my control began to cause the ripple effect that brought us here.

Thank you so much for your constant smile and encouragement. I really appreciate you.

The Bajan

[sophieanne]

Hello Bajan,

There's some questions that hurt to answer, mostly because it's still hard to believe it happened (you know, you're paying your payments every month and not realizing how much the total debt actually is). We had $170,000 available prior to filing..we filed on $150,000 (unsecured) and a new $18,000 secured car debt. That is all we had to file on. We only have a 1st mortgage and we're paying that on our own (even though it's part of the bk)

I hope we never ever ever have credit again...we're doing very well without it.
The nice thing is that after our March trustee payment the car loan will be totally paid off.

Thanks for your question..it hurts to remember what happened but feels good knowing we're moving to getting rid of it. I hope you're doing well these days!

[LadyInTheRed]

I had about $200k in available credit. I used about $50k of it and almost all of it will all be discharged in BK. That doens't include the 88k second mortgage that will be stripped.

I was amazed at how much credit the banks extended to me. I joked to my husband that we could max out the cards with cash advances, cash out my 401K and go live quite comfortably in Central America.

[TheBajan]

Hello Bajan,

There's some questions that hurt to answer, mostly because it's still hard to believe it happened (you know, you're paying your payments every month and not realizing how much the total debt actually is). We had $170,000 available prior to filing..we filed on $150,000 (unsecured) and a new $18,000 secured car debt. That is all we had to file on. We only have a 1st mortgage and we're paying that on our own (even though it's part of the bk)

I hope we never ever ever have credit again...we're doing very well without it.
The nice thing is that after our March trustee payment the car loan will be totally paid off.

Thanks for your question..it hurts to remember what happened but feels good knowing we're moving to getting rid of it. I hope you're doing well these days!

I'm right there with you. I'll be finished before you are but I'm looking forward to your hamster dance as well as my own. Thanks for sharing.

I had about $200k in available credit. I used about $50k of it and almost all of it will all be discharged in BK. That doens't include the 88k second mortgage that will be stripped.

I was amazed at how much credit the banks extended to me. I joked to my husband that we could max out the cards with cash advances, cash out my 401K and go live quite comfortably in Central America.

Lady,

I know what you're saying. We laughed and made some jokes also. Being from Barbados, I have to say that the temptation to walk away and run to the island was more than just a joke. $156k of U.S. credit could have paid for a mansion on our own private beach. Ultimately though, a sense of responsibility won out for as long as we could manage.

[lillymarlene]

I'm horrified about the amount of debt that I had about $250K mostly unsecured, and about $50K more available. My father's former secretary used to try to convince me to take out a home equity loan. I decided not to, and far as I'm concerned it was one of the few things I did right, besides never taking out a student loan.

I used to joke about running away to Canada, have several relatives, but decided no, too cold. You people are lucky to have those nice warm places.

[Sammie]

Hi Baj!

We had upwards of $300,000 available Credit. Filed 13 with $32,000 CC debt, after taking out $42,000 early from 401k to pay other cc's big mistake. Could not strip our 2nd or 3rd Mtg. because our 1st is not under water. At our meeting, my husband asked if we should be worried about anything and his response was---"no, you don't owe enough & the Trustee wants to get home early to his new wife". At that time we kept wondering what he was talking about--we didn't owe enough?sammie

[keepsmiling]

We always assumed a job would have to come along eventually and we'd pay off the debts.
Then I figured I would raid the 401K. My accountant even advised this. Even tho my dh had filed bk's for others, we NEVER thought that would be US.

Thank goodness I found this forum before I stole my retirement.

[pamkev]

We had around 150,00 open to us and BK around 100,00 it makes me sick when I think about it paying Peter to pay Paul just trying to do the basics. LIke you BJ they kept upping our credit limit. Never again.

Pam

[AngelinaCat]

We had about 36K CC debt on one card and about 6K on a second. Part of our problem was dear 'Hub 'lending' the larger card to his brother--a crack-head at the time--to fix up a small cabin on our place, so he could dry himself out. Didn't work.

Then we gave aid to another ner-do-well, and he ran another few $$$$$ up on the card as well. This is the same creature that 'Hub foolishly cosigned a car loan for. That story has been often told here on this site.

Plus we had medical issues, and several serial frivolous lawsuit issues designed to break us financially. It did.

[bookworm]

Between two cards, I had a total of $13,900. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul, and around the $12,000 mark, I realized I was fighting a losing battle. I stopped making the payments, and began paying Paul directly, in cash. But Peter didn't stop charging interest, so by the time I was able to file, both cards were past their limits. My total discharged debt was $15,000.

[tobee43]

first before i answer this....TheBajan, can you rethink the island retreat...we can do a duplex!!!

are we sitting: we had approx. 1.2 m in credit availability (which included our line of credit) with approx 700k listed on bk. approx. 230k or so was medical bills 400k plus was our house the remainder was CCs.

CC totals avail was approx. 700k or more with the extended line that included a nice gold card!

[andy158]

Two of the cards we filed on had lines of credit over 25k. Total credit available was well over 300k. The eye opener was sitting down one day and finding we hit the 100k threshold of unsecured debt. No way on earth to pay down short of hitting the lottery.

Interest being charged on the balance we owed was about $1,200/mo. Cc's are a thing of the past now that we have lived 3.5 years with cash only. Nice feeling.

[TheBajan]

Thanks everyone for sharing. It really helps me and I have to believe it helps others here to.

Tobee, PM me in about 10 years and we'll talk