my wife and I ran a graphic design business for several years. Unfortunately, the recession thoroughly kicked our asses and, to cut a long story short, we ran up a shit load of debt trying to keep ourselves and our daughter housed and fed, as well as keeping our business going.
Now we’ve downsized to a small rented room, we’ve given up the expensive office and laid off all the staff. We can pay our living expenses but the pile of accumulated debt is too huge to tackle right now.
Most of our debt is in credit cards, lines of credit and an unsecured loan. We shut off all the accounts and we’re banking with another bank to prevent our old bank from either getting their hands on what little money we have or even seeing what we make.
We get phone calls from creditors 3-4 times a day which I happily ignore. We’ve retained the services of a bankrupsy lawyer should things come to that and got some good advice. Basically the advice is to do nothing for the time being.
We have no 401K, no savings or investments. We own no property, no car and have no real valuable assets. Our net worth, if we ever bothered to work it out, would probably be less than $10,000. This puts us in a very good position, as they bank have nothing to forclose on, no savings to raid and no real leverage on us. Neither of us have a full-time job, we work freelance for several clients which would make an attachment of earnings order practically impossible.
So, after taking considerable financial advice, the plan for the immediate future is to do nothing. Our creditors are full appraised of our situation and don’t seem to know what to do with us. We don’t need to file chapter 7 bankrupsy yet, but it is an option and it’s also a very effective ‘stick’ to threaten the bank with to force a good settlement. We’re in no hurry right now.
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