Below is a list that may help many of you determine if you are truly in need of a bankruptcy attorney.
- Your phone is constantly ringing all day long with calls from creditors.
- You are losing sleep at night over paying your bills.
- You have missed a mortgage payment in order to pay your credit card or medical bills.
- You took a loan out against your retirement account (an asset otherwise protected in a bankruptcy) and tried to pay bills or used it for living expenses and are still struggling. Don’t throw good money after bad!
- You are using one credit card to make payments on another and it’s become an endless cycle.
- You have sold all the items you own that have any value in order to stay current on your credit card payments and medical bills.
- Even though the credit cards have been closed and you haven’t used them in months or even years, you still feel like the payments you are making toward the debt are not making a “dent” and you will never get out of credit card debt.
- You’ve done your best to cut back on other expenses, i.e. have gotten rid of cable and internet, started eating out less, stopped contributing to your retirement account, or are withholding less from your paycheck, but you still feel like you are struggling every month.
- Your wages are being garnished or your bank accounts are being wiped out by a creditor.
- You’ve sought the help of “debt settlement” companies (and yes, I did mean to put that in quotes), but you are still getting calls, or have been served with a lawsuit by a creditor with whom the company is supposed to be “settling”.
So now you’re thinking to yourself, “Great, a checklist, and I can check off several of these that apply to me and my daily life. What do I do now?” There are options for people that are struggling with debt. Bankruptcy is certainly one of them, and at the risk of exposing my bias toward it, it is often the most effective one. There are also debt consolidation and debt settlement options. I intend to write a post on these two options in the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned.
There is hope and light at the end of this tunnel! Call Lamey Law Firm P.A. at (651) 309-8180 for your free consultation.
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