So, if you are filing bankruptcy, why would you want to hold on to one of your credit cards?

To me, it appears the answer is simple: Emergencies. Many people are afraid that if they don’t have access to a credit card, they won’t have funds for an emergency. This brings to mind my freshman year of college. As an 18 year old, I was taken in by that free t-shirt! I did ask my parents if I should get a credit card. Their answer, “It’s a good idea to have one for emergencies”. The only thing wrong with this statement, I found that I found myself in a lot more situations I felt qualified as “emergencies”, where I would use that dependable credit card.

No doubt, there are legitimate emergencies in life. And, it is nice to have a credit card there to help bail you out of an unexpected mess. But, wouldn’t it be even nicer if you could bail yourself out of that emergency situation? Why not take that fresh start you’re being offered through the bankruptcy process and use it to rid yourself of the mindset that credit cards are the answer to life’s emergencies? After all, once your debts are discharged through the bankruptcy, you are free to pay yourself a “minimum” payment of, say, $100/month and to send that payment to your savings account instead of sending it to the credit card companies. This will also allow you to focus on rebuilding your credit without falling into the same trap.

Within a surprisingly short amount of time, you can create an impressive emergency fund. Get a flat tire? You’re covered. Tooth starts aching and need to run to the dentist? No need to pay for that trip to the dentist for a year after your tooth is fixed if you have an emergency fund available to cover the cost.

When someone files for bankruptcy, the court requires they list everyone they owe money to in their bankruptcy petition. I advise all my clients when signing the bankruptcy petition, that they are declaring under penalties of perjury that they have done so. While I would like to believe this advice is followed by every client, I am not that 18 year old college freshman anymore.

I am well aware of clients who have attempted to keep one of their credit cards off of their bankruptcy with the goal of continuing to use it. Unfortunately, your creditors can still find out about your bankruptcy filing if you do not list them on your petition. Credit card company subscribe to a notification service that will deactivate accounts of customers who file bankruptcy. Once this happens, they are left with no credit card, and they have failed to disclose the debt in their bankruptcy, as required by law.

Why not take control of your financial life by rethinking the notion that you need a credit card to help you out in an emergency and depend instead on your own emergency fund that will don’t have to get into debt to have access to.

Looking to find the more information on bankruptcy? Then visit www.khuntergoffpa.com to find the best bankruptcy lawyer for you.

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The answer? Your credit card company will begin the collection process, which normally proceeds in this manner:

1. Non-stop, for about 60-90 days, the original creditor will call. They will call you, your family, your job. All in an attempt to get you to make some type of payment over the phone. They will threaten to ruin your life, at least financially, if you do not pay them.

2. Once the initial creditor believes they cannot convince you to make a payment, usually after 90 or so days, they will sell your account to a third party collection agency. This collection agency will then proceed with the actions listed above.

3. Then, around 180 days from the time you stop making payments, you may hear from an attorney. This attorney will simply try to collect on the debt, following the same protocol in 1 and 2 above.

4. The attorney may eventually file a lawsuit against you, in an attempt to get a judgment, which the creditor could collect on. Your wages may only be garnished after a judgment has been entered.

Kind of a long process until a judgment is obtained, right? Over 6 months from the time payments stopped being made if I added correctly. So why, as a bankruptcy lawyer, do I advise my clients to stop paying on credit cards when they hire me?

Because the idea is for my client to be filing bankruptcy sometime well before the judgment is entered. Garnishment is taken out of the equation. This way, my client uses the payments they would have made to an abusive debt collector, for a credit card debt, to catch up on a car payment or a house payment they want to keep through filing bankruptcy, or to start building that safety net their Orlando bankruptcy lawyer advocates creating as part of your fresh start strategy when filing bankruptcy.

But what about those malicious debt collection agents? Here in Florida, we have some of the toughest laws in the country to protect consumers from the abuses collectors use regularly when attempting to get my clients to pay their credit card debts. Additionally, a Federal Law also restricts those abusive acts by third party collection agents in an attempt to collect on a debt. Why not sue your creditors to enforce your rights?

The debt collection process can be an intimidating experience, or an empowering one. If you know how it works and you know your rights, the empty threats the debt collectors hurl at you in a typical phone call from them will seem laughable, and more often than not, actionable.

To learn more about how an experienced bankruptcy lawyer can guide you through the collection process and assist you in getting a fresh start financially, try my Free eCourse.

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As an Orlando bankruptcy lawyer, I help my clients formulate a Chapter 13 payment plan to accomplish their financial goals. Depending on my client’s situation, through their payment plan, which can usually last anywhere from 36 to 60 months, I can help them catch up a mortgage payment, eliminate a second mortgage altogether, wipe out credit card debt, save money on a car loan, or handle IRS debt.

The Debtor, the person filing the Chapter 13 bankruptcy, has to file a payment plan at the outset of the case. The plan’s job is to tell everyone what goals the Debtor wants to achieve during the time the Debtor is in bankruptcy. The plan also instructs creditors how they will be dealt with, and tells the Chapter 13 Trustee who to pay and how much to pay each creditor.

There are many decisions to be made by the Debtor when constructing a Chapter 13 plan. I see many Do it Yourselfer’s in Court who have a really hard time successfully formulating a plan that can be understood by the Trustee or the creditors. This often will result in the creditors objecting to the plan, or the Trustee filing a motion to dismiss the case. When that happens, the person has a bankruptcy on her credit report and absolutely nothing to show for it.

If you want a good result from your Chapter 13 case, hiring an experienced Orlando bankruptcy lawyer is a great place to start. In almost all of my cases, so long as my client keeps up with the Trustee payment during the plan, my client will never see the inside of the Bankruptcy Court. Even better, my clients will have met all of the goals they wanted to achieve when their case was filed.

In Chapter 13 cases, it’s all about having a plan. A plan that gets you through the Chapter 13 process and wipes out your debt is even better.

Learn more about Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Stop by K. Hunter Goff’s site where you can find an experienced Orlando bankruptcy lawyer and learn how he can help you.

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Studies show that more than two credit cards is too many to have. One should be for emergencies, like when your car needs to go into the shop for some extensive repairs, or when you refrigerator stops working. You need to have emergency funds, or a credit card dedicated to emergencies.

The other credit card can be used at places that only take debit or credit cards. They can be used for incidentals, or even groceries. That is because this credit card will be paid back in full every month. The thing to remember is to add up all that you have spent on this one credit card for the month, and stop when you cannot afford to pay it back. If you can think of this credit card as a short term loan, you will not incur any debt with it.

When things get out of hand, and they can very easily, you may need a third credit card. But this one will be to pay off at least one of the other two. And it has to make sense to do this. In other words, the third credit card needs to have a zero interest rate for at least a six month period, and you need to get rid of the card you transfer the balance from. That means that you have to cancel the first card completely. You will pay it off by transferring the balance, but you need to get rid of it completely.

If you keep all of the cards, you will eventually use them. This is just a fact of life.

You can also remedy the problem of your bills coming too soon before you get paid. Just make a phone call to the billing department and have them change your due date.

If you do accidentally miss a payment, do not stress about it. Call your creditor and tell them about your mistake. If you have never made an error like this before, they will believe you, and they will accommodate you by deleting the overcharge for a late payment, along with any other late fees. It pays to ask, and to communicate, when you want to control your debt management.

Are you getting into debt and need a debt relief? Well, if you do we used this consultation program and it helped our debt. Get your debt help and get back on your feet like you should be.

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One hint that can help out is to get rid of all of the cards that you have that are not tied in to money that you already have in place. The cards that you have already are something that you need to get rid of. By doing that you could find that you are not going to be tempted to spend anymore money on them.

Another tip that can help out will be to contact your banks to see if you can get a repayment plan set up for the money that you owe. The banks are generally willing to work with people if they talk to them. By doing that you could find that you could get a lower payment with a set amount of time to pay off the bill totally.

Something that you could try doing as well would be to locate a debt management program to manage your issues for you. These programs are something that you might not have thought about using before, but they can work out really well in getting you in a program that can help you out.

Budgeting your money is going to be a key thing for you to do as well. By doing that you will know where each one of the dollars that you have is going to be going. Then you can make sure that you do not spend more money than what you are bringing in. So that could help you determine how much extra you can pay onto your bills on a monthly basis.

When you want to get back to living your life you know that you need to eliminate your debt. However, you will want to make sure that you know some of the hints to help you get rid of that problem. Without those hints you could find that you are going to be treading water to get it paid off only to see that you are not making any real headway in getting the problem paid off.

Locate great techniques to get out of debt by searching online. There you can find methods to eliminate debt and find a way out of financial problems. Head online now and learn more.

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A lot of the drama related to credit card debt comes from credit and collection companies that work tirelessly to retrieve their money. It is not uncommon for them to call you at home and at work with non-stop insistence. Worse still, these same are not above contacting friends, associates and family members to hunt you down.

It can be especially embarrassing to be hassled by these indignant callers at work, or to have your family, friends and associates hassled on your behalf as well. In fact, the stress that is related to the simple act of taking or avoiding these calls is often the greatest difficulty in deleting with debt. That is the awesome benefit of most credit card settlement offers, being able to live free of collection calls.

There are several ways to go about getting credit card settlements. You can use a debt consolidating company wherein your agent will negotiate settlements with the credit card companies for you. You can also try negotiating for yourself. Often with very little effort you can get a good portion of the debt removed. Often companies are happy to collect on your actual spending and a lower rate of interest retroactively if you are willing to commit to a payment system that has early repayment penalties.

One thing to keep an eye out for is excessive penalties for paying back the settlement amount in advance of the determined date. These penalties are often called prepayment fees and are put in place so that the company can continue to collect interest or some form of it. When you pay back early, the interest amount is optimally reduced, but if you suffer heavy penalties for doing so, you might find yourself trapped in a long term agreement that is less than ideal.

The success stories of credit card settlements are true, but often times these are come about by individuals who have diligently sought out the best deals for making their personal arrangements. Your unique financial situation requires you to do a little investigating in order to find with method of debt resolution is going to work best for you, and who should be at the helm when it is time to begin negotiations. It is possible to improve your credit rating, but this will likely require taking advantage of all of your online information resources in order to find the path of least resistance.

Discover some great methods to debt relief that will help you out. Those debt help options can be found by looking online. Head online and learn more now.

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The first step in filing for chapter thirteen is to attend credit counseling. This is required by the bankruptcy code. Only certain agencies are approved for this counseling, so be sure to consult with your bankruptcy attorney to make sure the agency you use will qualify. The agency may come up with a plan for you to pay back your debts. If so, you have to give a copy of the plan to the court when you file for bankruptcy.

Your repayment plan must be submitted to the court within fourteen days from the date you file your bankruptcy papers. Most likely, your lawyer will submit your paperwork for you and will do it all at the same time. Sometimes the plan will be filed later so that you can have an earlier filing date so you can get the foreclosure process stopped and give yourself a little more time to prepare the plan.

After filing, a creditor’s meeting will be set up. You must appear at this meeting to answer your creditors’ questions about your repayment plan. Some of your creditors may question the amount you are proposing to pay. They want to make sure that you will not have any money left over after paying your debts and necessary living expenses.

After the meeting has been conducted, the bankruptcy judge can take up to 45 days to approve or deny your proposal. In any case, you are required to start making the payments proposed under the plan within 30 days, so that means you may have to start paying on the plan before you know whether it will be accepted.

The biggest drawback to using chapter thirteen bankruptcy to stop foreclosure is that if you are unable to pay the payments as agreed, you could still end up going through foreclosure. The judge can dismiss your case or make you go through chapter seven, where your assets are sold to cover your debts, if you don’t pay everything as agreed. For this reason, you should consider all of the potential risks and benefits before deciding to go ahead with filing for bankruptcy.

Call Janian & Associates for a free consultation with a Loan Modification Attorney.

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