So my wife and I have been married for about 6 years and have five childen together. (5, 3, and 2 year old triplets). When we first met, I had good credit and she had, let's be nice and call it bad credit. She'd get credit cards, run them up, and then just throw away the statements without even opening them. We weren't married, so I had no idea until she got certified mail at my house because she was being sued by Capital One. I did convince her to respond to the suit, but then she didn't go to court and got a default judgment. What started as a $700 bill turned into somewhere in the neighborhood of $3500 and she just decided to ignore it. No job, no income, we weren't married at the time, so whatever. She also had several other credit cards that were maxed out and charged off.
Her grandma co-signed on a car loan for her and I think she made the first payment. After that, her gma did some, I did some, and eventually, we agreed that she would trade it in and I'd lease a new car for her. (We were married by point). Long, drawn out story just to paint the picture that her credit sucks.
After we had our triplets, I was introduced to things like deductibles, out of network, and exceeds maximum benefit. Hospitals are expensive, and when there are three births, they're more expensive. Add a NICU stay and its just gets stupid. My credit score allowed me to get credit cards to pay regular bills while using my income to send payments to the hospital. When that wasn't enough, I emptied our savings account to settle some of the bills. When that wasn't enough, I stupidly raided my 401k. About a year after the triplets were born, I was maxed out, broke, and still had an ungodly amount of money owed to the hospital ,so we decided that bankruptcy was the only real option.
We filed, and included everything. Medical bills, upside down car loan/lease for our vehicles, and the credit cards. Since my score was already good, my score tanked, but it still dropped to the mid 500s. Hers went to the low 400s.
My goal became to immediately get started on rebuilding my good name so that we can get a house in two years. It was a bad moment in my life, but I don't regret filing, and it does make me feel better that I am able to contribute to savings and 401k again. I've got one credit card I got from USAA. Should I add my wife as an AU to the account since she's got a clean slate now? We have two older cars now that are paid for, an 05 Toyota Sienna and an 00 Honda Odyssey. I'm fine with driving he Odyssey for the foreseeable future, but she's already talking about wanting to get a new Sienna or a new Odysey. I'm enjoying the savings of no car payments and liability only insurance. I can't imagine the terms would be favorable right after a bankruptcy that included two cars. The odyssey has almost 200k miles on it and the Sienna has just under 80k. The fact that shes wanting a $40k car this soon after bk concerns me. Financially, I can afford it since I don't have medical bills anymore, but I don't ever want to get into that position again. I want to concerntrate on maxing out my savings, not spending to keep up with appearances, if that makes sense.
I wouldn't add her as an AU. Too many risks with no signs of improvement. If she makes mistakes and brings down your situation, it will only make things worse. I would, however, work with her on getting better and showing her how much it is worth it.
