Bankruptcy questions

Letter to “Ask Leon”

My husband and I have considerable (well, in our opinion) debt. We have about $20k in credit card debt, and I think $11k in student loans for my husband, plus repossession that he had I think 8 years ago (before I met him) for $7k and a few smaller debts also. In February of this year we started a debt consolidation program for the credit card debt, but the payment was overwhelming and we couldn’t make last month’s payment and we won’t be able to make it this month either. The only things we spend money on is rent, food, electricity, gas, auto/life/renter’s insurance (not even health insurance!), phone (which is two months behind), and gas for our vehicles (neither have loans/liens, one we only paid $300 for)…so its not like we are spending extravagantly. We incurred the credit card debt from (mostly) doing balance transfers from one credit card to pay the other (neither one of us realized how bad that was nor thought it would only be temporary thing, but it was like a black hole!). I stay home with our two young children and my husband works. I’ve heard that they can make the non-working spouse get a job, is that true? We just know nothing about this and don’t know where to start researching. We have nothing to sell that could even come close to paying off our debt (we rent). Thank you!

Leon Says…

I’m very sorry that you are going thru all that, but it sounds like you can probably get out of it with bankruptcy, (except the student loans). The law will not make the non-working spouse get a job. Go see a good local BK attorney for a consult, and if the lawyer says “yes” then get it over with. If the lawyer says there is any kind of a problem, then write me again.