Bankruptcy is not high on anyone’s “bucket list”! In fact, bankruptcy downright sucks, right?
Well, compared to sleepless nights, physical and emotional illness, or loss of a valued relationship, maybe not so much, eh? If you can’t bear to hear the phone ring, let alone to answer it, if you know the local process servers by sight if not by name, if you have a mountain of unopened bills that you know you can’t pay, maybe then bankruptcy sucks a bit less.
Fill a hole or build a castle? Let’s make a dubious assumption: You have enough income to pay off all of your debts and provide for your and your family’s needs for the next five years. (It’s a dubious assumption because if nothing else you will be dealing with the stress of fighting off your creditors and their collection agencies and attorneys.) Let’s further assume that you owe a total of $20,000.00 in unsecured debt, and that interest on that debt will be adding up at a rate of 10%. You’re going to pay an average of about $420.00 per month for each of the 60 months during that five years. At the end of the five years, you have filled that $20,000.00 hole, and all you have to show for it is a filled hole. Assuming, again, that you in fact have the $420.00 per month over and above your reasonable living expenses, what if you instead invested the money? Well, then at the end of the five years you would have (again assuming 10% interest) $32,910.76! Even with NO interest you’d have $25,200.00.
How do you want to spend the next five years: Filling a hole (and trying to survive the stress) or building your castle?
So, bankruptcy sucks? I don’t think so.
Thanks for your time and interest!
Mark Emmett, Consumer Bankruptcy Lawyer
Member National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys
Mark R. Emmett, Esq.
mremmett @ gmail.com
716 East 4500 South N240
Murray, Utah 84107-3619
801-438-4050