Category Archives: Bankruptcy
Keeping Your Car in a Bankruptcy Case
Filing for bankruptcy can simplify your life by making your eligible debts disappear quickly, as in a chapter 7 case, or by combining them into one monthly payment, as in a chapter 13 bankruptcy filing. It can also make life more complicated, and not only because it stays on your credit report for a… Read More »
Should You File for Bankruptcy With or Without a Lawyer?
Most New Year’s resolutions fall apart quickly, especially those where you resolve to make permanent changes to which you can recommit on a daily basis or those where the outcome is largely outside your control. For example, most of the people who resolve to never eat junk food again do not make it past… Read More »
Are Appraisals to Blame for Your Mortgage Woes?
It is so difficult to qualify for a home mortgage these days that, if you complain about how expensive your mortgage payment is, almost everyone you know will accuse you of humblebragging. It isn’t only the people who are trying to apply for mortgages, and facing bigger and bigger obstacles, who are struggling. The… Read More »
Think Twice Before Assuming Someone Else’s Mortgage
Journalists have been saying for at least a year that the only way you can afford to be a first-time homebuyer is if your parents give you money for a down payment, co-sign with you on the mortgage loan, or both. Where does that leave the rest of us who do not have wealthy… Read More »
How Do the Holidays Affect Your Bankruptcy Plans?
It is no fun to listen to teens yap about how their stress will skyrocket to unbearable levels if you take away their devices even for a short time, but the fact that people are more open about their emotions now than they were a generation ago takes away one of the many stressors… Read More »
Credit Card Debt After Retirement
The list of outdated personal finance axioms keeps growing. For example, by now everyone knows that going without your morning coffee shop run will not make much of a dent in your debts, and when was the last time you saw someone who could afford to pay their credit card down to zero every… Read More »
3 Exit Ramps From the Road to Bankruptcy
Filing for bankruptcy protection can bring fast and significant relief from unaffordable debts, and everyone has the right to file for bankruptcy, but if it were as easy as it sounds, then everyone would do it. Even though the bankruptcy court accepts almost all filings and eventually discharges the applicants’ eligible debts, filing for… Read More »
Retirement Accounts and Your Bankruptcy Case
In one of life’s many injustices, you can be too poor to file for bankruptcy, but you cannot be too rich. Even though Tax Day is still nearly half a year away, numerous people are anticipating the arrival of their income tax refunds so they can spend them on a chapter 7 or chapter… Read More »
Inside the Underwater Car Loan Epidemic
This month, the CNBC website published more bad news about American consumers and their car loans. We already knew that vehicle prices are beyond almost everyone’s budgets, but good luck getting to work in Florida without a car. Likewise, we already knew that, even when we work around the clock, and our job and… Read More »
The Ugly Truth About Filing for Bankruptcy Before Age 30
By now you have heard all the gloom and doom about how the current generation of young adults have had debt hanging over their heads since the minute they entered the workforce, if not earlier, and it will continue to follow them around for the rest of their lives, even if they live to… Read More »