Financial Crossroads - need advice, bankruptcy or other options

[financialresearch22]

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@FireMedic1 wrote:

Many of the RN's left the ER where I work PT for 5000 to 7500 a week contract jobs. NICU/ICU mostly around the country. $200+ an hr most places. 6 month contracts. If she could get in the right place. Money! Here Trauma RN's at the trauma center work thier day off with shortages. $1000 for the 12 hr shift bonus. Its out there. Just have to find the right place. 275k debt. The 10-15k 401k thing wont go far. JMO. DW can bring home 10g's a month or more. That will change things. Have a campfire out in the back yard and make some Smores. Nice family time. Then. Burn your cards while your at it. Doesnt cost anything. Talk to a lawyer about a 13. Weigh your options. Good Luck!

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Yeah, that's the strategy we took last year around this time, and it was working very well. Things were looking up. Until suddenly out of work due to reasons beyond our control. Now she's back to it, unfortunately some of those rates, while still good, are coming back down. Not sure what the future will hold as more people join that market, but concerned it will go down more. And yeah family time is a lot more at home now which can still be very good. Part of me wants to go down 13 to force a budget, but I do have some of those questions, around just how restrictive it would be, and if another option might be better (although painful I'm sure no matter what).

[financialresearch22]

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@SlideOrInsert wrote:

I really don't like the snowball method, with the amount of debt OP has I really don't like it in favor of avalanche.

blending the aprs and applying it to just the credit cards and loans, OP is hemorrhaging money in interest alone. I suspect it is probably closer to 20% than it is 10%.

blended apr %	balance (k)	monthly int $
20	275	4583
19	275	4354
18	275	4125
17	275	3896
16	275	3667
15	275	3438
14	275	3208
13	275	2979
12	275	2750
11	275	2521
10	275	2292

I would be really interested to see a spreadsheet with the debts excluding mortgage, just to see an accurate scale of it. something in the form of this might allow for some more specific suggestions:

	limit	balance	apr	min pmt
auto loan 1		45000	??	750
auto loan 2		55000	??	1000
auto loan 3		20000	??	--
loan 1		??	??	??
loan N		??	??	??
credit card 1		??	??	??
credit card N		??	??	??

even if OP yields 120k after raiding the 401k, clearly that's only approximately 1/4 of the debt excluding mortgage and student loans.

I am unfamiliar with the details of bk 7 vs 13, but if ever there was a argument for total discharge, this might be it if OP chooses to go that route.

whether the journey to this point was overspending or "no fault" of their own, there is likely a lifestyle change coming for OP.

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I agree, I prefer the avalanche method as well, especially given some of the cards that are now closed and 0%.

As far as spreadsheets with those breakdowns, and the analysis of interest, etc. I like your thoughts, that's actually exactly what I try to do as well and have that breakdown. I of course don't want to share it all here, but your conclusions that a ton of money is going to interest is definitely correct (although maybe slightly less than before due to the ones I negotiated to close at 0%).

As for the ch 7 vs 13, in 7 it wipes out everything but you have to qualify based on income and family size. While I believe they do give a reasonable amount of deductions I don't believe it'd be enough to qualify for 7. But even if it was, the big downfall is they can sell assets which I really don't want to lose my house.

Chapter 13 can be used for those who don't qualify for ch7 or for keeping assets. You pay off an amount calculated based on some ch13 forms which include rates for living expenses based on location and family size. They factor in up to 2 vehicle expenses and various other items, then attempts to calculate disposable income. I can and probably will try to calculate this myself, but there are some big unknowns in how to fill out some details that could change the payment by thousands of dollars per month (especially around the per diem stipend). I've talked to one bk lawyer but it was just a free consult so didn't get into all of the details, but before I continue just thought I'd reach out to see what other info I can gather.

[FireMedic1]

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@financialresearch22 wrote:

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@FireMedic1 wrote:

Many of the RN's left the ER where I work PT for 5000 to 7500 a week contract jobs. NICU/ICU mostly around the country. $200+ an hr most places. 6 month contracts. If she could get in the right place. Money! Here Trauma RN's at the trauma center work thier day off with shortages. $1000 for the 12 hr shift bonus. Its out there. Just have to find the right place. 275k debt. The 10-15k 401k thing wont go far. JMO. DW can bring home 10g's a month or more. That will change things. Have a campfire out in the back yard and make some Smores. Nice family time. Then. Burn your cards while your at it. Doesnt cost anything. Talk to a lawyer about a 13. Weigh your options. Good Luck!

---

Yeah, that's the strategy we took last year around this time, and it was working very well. Things were looking up. Until suddenly out of work due to reasons beyond our control. Now she's back to it, unfortunately some of those rates, while still good, are coming back down. Not sure what the future will hold as more people join that market, but concerned it will go down more. And yeah family time is a lot more at home now which can still be very good. Part of me wants to go down 13 to force a budget, but I do have some of those questions, around just how restrictive it would be, and if another option might be better (although painful I'm sure no matter what).

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Cool. I have never said file to anyone. Thats their choice. Free consultation and see what would happen. What it would cost a month. Ect ect. Get an idea. Might just be forget it and pay it down. Or we might be better off. One way or the other wont be easy. But its doable.