The Stigma Of Bankruptcy

Everyone knows what bankruptcy is but most try to avoid bringing it up or even thinking about it. Just the thought of bankruptcy sends shivers down the spine and puts us in fear of the possible outcome. Bankruptcy has a stigma of being the ultimate destroyer of a person’s finances. According to Dave Ramsey, bankruptcy is one of the top life negative life changing events a person can ever go through with some of the others being death in the family, divorce, and severe illnesses. Bankruptcies in the U. S are on the rise with over 1.4 million filing either Chapter 7, 11, 12 or 13 last year. Even though the reasons for this high number varies due to every situation being different filing for bankruptcy should be your last option after all else …show more content…
This clearly wouldn’t be the first option for anyone so you could see why getting with your creditors and coming up with a plan that works for the both of you would be a better option. Debt consolidation is an agreement between both parties involved to pay off what you owe without losing any of your assets, with this happens a single loan payment is agreed upon with a little interest. This could also waive your current payments by agreeing to make small payments now but larger ones down the road to pay off the debt. Either way this is a much better option than filing for bankruptcy. You could also sell your property, this should be common sense to most but simply get rid of some or all of the things that have your in this financial bind for starters, this can be done long before bankruptcy is even a thought. Anything that you can live without you should consider selling, which should be pretty much everything since all we really need to survive is food and shelter. So things like second homes, others cars, collections and anything valuable you should sale. It may seem like these efforts are not raising the amounts that you need be anything is better than nothing and paying the minimum payments is always better than filing bankruptcy. Borrowing money from family and friends may be one of the hardest this someone to bring themselves …show more content…
By doing this you can arrange a new mortgage payment which may allow you to save more money you can use to help pay off debt and stay away from bankruptcy and possibly having your home foreclosed on. Lastly there the option of plain old common sense, most of the time you can see financial issues coming and can do certain things in order to avoid the worse. You can start to spend money more responsibly, get rid of unnecessary things and cut back on the luxuries. Eating out every day for lunch and having the latest fashions are not really important when talks of bankruptcy are one the table, but with all the information and assistance out there to avoid this from happening it still up the individual to be responsible and make smart decisions for their