Will filing bankruptcy hurt my credit? Probably. Should that hit to your credit keep from filing bankruptcy? Not by a long shot. Incredibly, I encounter people drowning in debt who think their credit report is more important than their financial health. Their thinking seems to be that credit, once damaged, is never the same. It’s not […]
Rising From The Ashes Of Financial Disaster
Life doesn’t end with bankruptcy. Bankruptcy doesn’t mean that the good times are all in the past. There’s the future, too. Both the individual and society reap benefits from bankruptcy in ways that you may have missed. So, in my view, Jay Fleichman’s analysis of the bankruptcy of Halsey Minor, the founder of CNET and once […]
Why File Bankruptcy? It’s Your Life Expectancy
Old debt has a way of sucking the air out of today’s budget. You can’t make repairs to your car or see to needed health care or accumulate an emergency cushion because you’re still paying for stuff you bought long ago. Worse, old debt blights your old age. Few of us have sufficient income to […]
Surefire Steps To Avoid Bankruptcy
Most people would rather parade naked down Main Street than file bankruptcy. Bankruptcy makes them feel exposed, defeated, ashamed. If you don’t want to go there, you can order your life so you don’t ever need bankruptcy relief from debts you can’t pay. I’ve figured out the formula that assures that you’ll never met me in […]
California Garnishment Now Provides Greater Protection Of Wages
Workers making close to the California minimum wage got additional protection from wage garnishments under a change in the law effective in 2013. With the annual increases in the state minimum wage, in 2019 California law now protects an employee’s weekly net wages up to 40 times the state minimum wage, currently $11 to $12 per […]
Is Your Choice Of Bankruptcy Chapters Really Dictated By Your Stuff?
Through my Twitter feed came a link to the pro’s and con’s of filing bankruptcy from the business section of the Chicago Tribune. Good chance to see how non lawyers see my world, I thought. Bankruptcy was all about protecting “stuff”, said the writer, and the choice of chapters is driven by the kind of […]
Does Bankruptcy Discharge A Judgment In California?
Nothing gets a person into a bankruptcy lawyer’s office quicker than being served with a lawsuit. The prospect of losing a lawsuit and having a judgment entered against them terrifies. Callers are frantic to see if they can file bankruptcy before judgment is entered. They worry that once a judgment is entered, their options in bankruptcy […]
Do California Seniors Need to File Bankruptcy?
California, it turns out, is a great place to retire. Not because of the cost of living, certainly. In spite of the cost of living. Because California exemptions are very generous to those of retirement age. Those exemptions effectively make many indebted seniors collection-proof. How exemptions protect seniors Exemption laws come from the idea that, […]
Means Test As Three Dimensional Chess
Means test issues in bankruptcy extend far beyond how much income you have. The allowable expense deductions for your life after filing bankruptcy count, too. After an hour long initial consultation with a client, these complexities became clear when the client tagged the means test with incredible clarity. It’s like playing three dimensional chess Pretty […]
Debt Actually Makes You Stupid
It’s easy to tell ourselves that getting into debt was stupid. Maybe, maybe not. Lots of debt happens without making bad decisions. Think of medical bills. Natural disasters. Divorce. But regardless of how you got in debt, there’s more bad news. Just being in debt makes you stupid. Stupid, as in, your IQ goes down […]
