Greetings everyone,
I found this forum through a google search a few nights back. I finally decided to take the plunge to join and introduce myself. I'm a recent college graduate in my 20's and earlier this month I filed for bankruptcy. I was very careful to build up my credit straight out of high school and through college. I always paid off my balances at the end of the month and kept balances to a minimum. In my last year of college, however, I became careless. I started to run up balances I knew I couldn't comfortably pay back. In addition poor cash flow and nonexistent budgeting led to taking out unsecured loans and then taking out more unsecured loans to cover previous loans.
My finances were out of control. In autumn last year I let myself be swayed by the marketing campaign of a debt settlement company and I stopped paying my creditors. Within a few months my Credit Karma score of 750 had been mangled into a low score of 480. During this time I also made the very stupid decision to purchase a new car. Things came to a head in April of this year when one of creditors filed suit against me. It was at this point that I finally decided to deploy the nuclear option of filing bankruptcy.
My Chapter 7 petition was filed earlier this month and my court date has been set for next month. All of my debts are set to be discharged in late August. After discharge the only debts I will have left will be my reaffirmed car loan and my student loans totaling about $3000. For a long time I tortured myself internally for being so foolish and I couldn't stand the thought of filing for bankruptcy and admitting to myself that was a failure. Now I see that bad decision making happens to the best of us and that bankruptcy is going to allow me the opportunity to start over.
My bankruptcy journey has only started and I have a long way to go to rebuild my tarnished finances. I look forward to getting to know all of you and I hope that you will be willing to provide support and advice as I begin this journey towards a better financial future.
