Follow my bankruptcy

We met with our attorney for what will be the last time before the big date. This time it wasn’t in his office, it was in the conference room with a woman that worked for him, a huge stack of papers and two pens. This was it. When we’re done in here we’re only a few weeks away from completing this bankruptcy. It was almost as bad as closing on our house. We signed and signed and signed… It becomes monotonous after awhile. If you’re anything like me, you’ll probably try a joke or two to alleviate the situation, let me tell you that is not a good idea. If you miss something in these papers it could cost you thousands of dollars in fixing it. Pay close attention, bring sugar, drink caffeine, do what you need to do to stay awake, focused and constantly asking questions.

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Can I keep my Car after bankruptcy?

Can I keep my house after bankruptcy?

It’s a simple question and one that everyone in this boat has on their mind. What can I keep after I file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. We declared that we wanted to keep our home and car. Because the declared value of our jewelry (i.e. wedding ring) was what the court would consider low, it’s not even a concern. Regarding furniture, televisions and computers (like those I bought with the Dell credit card) are not a problem. They were purchased between 2-3 years prior to us filing for bankruptcy and depreciation has made their resale value very low. Read the rest

As a follow up, I spoke the next day (Saturday) with the attorney and boy was this a mess. I was exactly 34 days late on my mortgage (the prior month and 4 days into the current month). The bank took that as I wanted to include the loan in my bankruptcy. After many frantic phone calls to my attorney’s voice mail he finally called me back. Read the rest

So there is a change of events. I came home from work today in a fairly chipper mood. Someone at work gave me baseball tickets for this weekend and I’m one week away from getting my first paycheck at my new job. I’m greeted by a fairly thick envelope in the mail, that is from an attorneys office. I open it to find this attorney represents the bank that holds my mortgage and is looking to foreclose on our house. It states Read the rest

We received the letters yesterday. Two letters arrived at our house, each addressed to either my wife or myself. Both are for the same time, place and judge at the New York State Bankruptcy court. It’s kind of a weird feeling to know that this time next month it will be over. I won’t (or at least I can hope) receive any more calls at work, at home, to the neighbors or disjointed family across the country giving me messages from creditors. Read the rest

So we’re still alive and yes I have neglected the idea of posting to this blog. I initially thought it would be easy to share with you all of the experiences we were/are going through, but I’ll be honest Blogging is time consuming. My apologies to the people who signed up to my feeds, I have let you down. So here is my update for you. Read the rest

The calls to my job and home have increased. They’re getting cleverer on how they try to reach me. One company called the operator and asked them to walk to my desk and get me. All that got them was a no and it got me spoken to by my boss. The letters are becoming more demanding and honestly scaring my wife.

Neither of us ever wanted this to happen. We’re devastated by the fact that we’re about to go through this. We’re embarrassed Read the rest

Last night, my wife turned to me and mentioned she has noticed I’ve been calm and not so “cranky” (as she put it). I have to admit, I’ve even caught myself smiling over the last few weeks. It’s certainly not from the feeling of getting by and able to make my minimum payments. God knows I’ve we’ve tried. Nor do I attribute this new crescent like feature on my face to the debt collectors no longer calling. As a matter of fact, it’s worse now since we didn’t pay our last payment to the consumer credit counseling service.

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In the eight years of marriage, this has certainly been a rough one on my wife and I. As I mentioned in the last post, we would have loved to have bought the kids all the toys they wanted. Fortunately, our families did buy the kids a lot of toys. Tomorrow is the last day of 2007. I/we have some big hurdles ahead of us, but I feel 2008 will be a new start for us.

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This Christmas was rough on my wife and I. Normally, we exchange presents with each other and shower the children with everything they asked Santa for. This year we cut out any presents for “us” and set a very small limit on what we spent on the kids. It was sad, I have to admit. I would give my life for these kids, but this year, we just couldn’t give them what we normally would. Our 5 year old noticed. The 2 year Read the rest