The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Just like anything else in life, filing for bankruptcy has it’s the positives, the negatives, and the oh crap!

If you have ever been in the situation where you can not pay all your bills, you have lived with the fear of answering your own phone.  You have experienced the stress of going through your mail.  And heaven forbid… the knock at the door.  A huge positive with filing for bankruptcy is that once your petition is filed by the court, a “stay” goes into effect, which stops all of the annoying credit collection attempts previously mentioned.  Another positive includes getting a fresh start financially.  There are times when the bills are just too unmanageable and starting new feels good.

Negatives include the obvious black mark to your credit report, but chances are if you are in this kind of financial trouble, your credit report has already been damaged.  There is also a feeling of guilt that you have bailed on paying back your debts.  And then the stigma the general population has toward people who file for bankruptcy, to which my standard reply is the cliché “Never judge until you’ve walked a mile in that person’s shoes” and even then, “Never judge.”

And I personally, and very recently, just came across the ugly of filing bankruptcy in Utah.  Yes, there was a time, many, many years ago, where I had to file for bankruptcy.  I won’t go into why, but suffice it to say, that the debt was out of my hands.  The bankruptcy is not on my credit report.  It has been that long.  I have learned from the experience and now maintain an excellent credit score, but no matter.  I applied for a credit card, and despite my credit report with no negatives, I was turned down.  The reason?  I had once long ago, held a credit card with this institution which was included… you guessed it… in my bankruptcy.  This is the ugly.  I will never be a good risk in the eyes of this particular establishment.

So when considering bankruptcy, please take all of this into consideration.  All of it.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I am participating in a blogger campaign by Bucks2Blog and was
compensated. However, the views and opinions are my own.