[Rick Lee]

I have a good friend going through this right now. He said something about having your creditors take a real close look at your credit card usage over the last 90 days to see if you bought anything of value once you decided you were gonna file. He said he's spent about $1200 in bars in that time and expects to be on the hook for it. Did I mention he's bad with money?

The killer with BK is that a lot of folks wait until they've hit rock bottom before doing it. And let's face it, when you get a BK on your credit report, no one really cares that you tried to stick it out for 6-12 mos. before finally pulling the trigger. So, as irresponnsible as it sounds, if you really think BK is where you're gonna end up, you might as well do it before you burn through all your cash, savings, 401k, etc. trying to keep your head above water. My friend above tried very, very, almost too hard to keep his head above water. When he sold his primary residence so he could move back into the cheaper TH he had been renting out, he took out a $60k personal loan to avoid a short sale. His lawyer is now telling him that was a stupid thing to do. Not only did the payments sting him for a year, but a short sale would certainly be no worse than the BK he's now getting on his credit report.