From The Hospital to Bankruptcy Court is the title of a recent article in the New York Times that gets to the heart of why we need healthcare reform. You could have a job that provides health insurance, but that health insurance policy has a cap on how much they will pay over the life of the policy. Add to that limit, your deductible and co-payment amount of say 20% and you have a recipe for financial disaster and a prime bankruptcy case.

If you’re faced with medical debt, do not use your credit cards or home equity or any other financing to pay that debt. You’re only adding interest to that debt and avoiding the most likely inevitable bankruptcy. What’s worse is that if you use home equity, you could lose your home later if you fall behind on your mortgage. Taking action sooner, on deciding your options, could help you avoid a financial collision with bankruptcy court.

First, be sure you understand the limits on your health insurance plan and if you anticipate any large medical expenses, check to see if your employer offers a benefit plan where cash is taken from your paycheck, in pre-tax dollars, in advance to cover anticipated medical expenses. What this does is essentially save you from paying income taxes on that money in advance, as opposed to deducting it on your income tax return later. If you’ve already paid for medical bills with your after tax money, then be sure to deduct it on your tax return. Continue reading ‘Are We Just One Injury Or Illness Away From Bankruptcy?’ »

With most people who owe money to several different sources, the temptation to fall behind with payments is always there. When this happens, a bankruptcy lawyer is the person to turn to for professional help. Debt relief is perhaps the only way to get through the problem without losing everything that the person has worked for.

Many people live far beyond their means, trying to keep up appearances and letting the children have everything that they want is the fastest way to fall into the trap of unpaid bills. Even buying coffee or lunch every day while at work soon adds up to hundreds of dollars a month. Add on all the things that children do after school, the car payments, the fuel costs and everything else that comes with a family, and it is easy to see that the bills will just escalate to the point where very few would be able to pay their way comfortably. Continue reading ‘Tips to Hold on to Assets When Drowning in Debt’ »

Bankruptcy is well known to have been used by people that cannot pay their debts to commercial organisations. What a lot of people don’t realize is that bankruptcy can also be used against government organisations. The major revenue department of the U.S. government is the IRS and there are a lot tax payers that find it hard to cover their tax liabilities. One possible option is to file for bankruptcy on your tax debt.

There are two chapters that maybe used for bankruptcy, Chapter 13 and Chapter 7. Chapter 13 is called a reorganization bankruptcy which basically allows you a period of 3 to 5 years to get your financial affairs in order, whilst paying back a reduced amount of outstanding tax during this period. Usually any outstanding tax will incur interest payment penalties. The tax payments will not be reduced if the IRS has already issued a tax lien prior to your bankruptcy. This is because a tax lien becomes a secured debt. Chapter 7 is called a liquidation bankruptcy and can be used for debt that is over 3 years old. Filing a chapter 7 will remove your tax debt if the IRS has not issued a tax lien on you prior to you filing chapter 7. If the IRS have issued a tax lien to you, then the tax debt is held until you have removed yourself from chapter 7, when it will then become payable. You must plan out your financial obligations post chapter 7, before removing yourself from bankruptcy. Continue reading ‘Bankruptcy For Tax Debt’ »

Bankruptcy has been used by many people to help them address their financial situation where they owe creditors large sums of money. They have use bankruptcy as they could not repay their debt and needed to gain control of their financial lives again. However if you are thinking of bankruptcy you also need to consider the alternatives, as bankruptcy is hard mentally, which can affect you physically and you need to be strong of mind to go through with it.

Alternatives to bankruptcy are many; to determine the what to do, the first thing to do is a full review of your assets. Look at what assets you have can be easily turned into cash, if you can sell them off. These are normally assets where you can get a fair bit of cash for, like cars, motorcycles, boats and mobile homes. If you have a home, you may have built up a lot of equity that you could realize, through obtaining an equity loan that could be used to pay off your other debts or at least pay off a substantial amount of the amount owing, which then enables you to renegotiate the loan over a longer term, thereby reducing your regular payment amount.

Another option is to approach your creditors and seek options on varying your payments so that you can meet your obligations with them. A creditor looks more favorable on a person who approaches them on problems about repaying then someone who defaults on payments and the creditor needs to chase them up. In the review of your assets, you may have identified that you have money owing from relatives you can obtain back from them, you could downsize your home, borrow against your pension or retirement fund. If none of these can be done you should then look to take a second job and use this income to pay off their debts. Continue reading ‘Some Bankruptcy Alternatives’ »

It’s very important to know exactly how much car you can afford to buy. And not only that you need to know how much car you can afford to buy with payments that last no longer than 60 months.

Because of the constantly increasing cost of vehicles these days, manufacturers and financial institutions are now extending payments to even 72 months. But, 72 months simply isn’t a good idea to be on the hook for paying for car for the vast majority of us folks.

The reason is that a car is a depreciating asset. It is not an investment. The longer you stretch your payments out over the course of time, the more depreciation you are actually paying for. Continue reading ‘Car Buying Guide – Don’t Come Out Upside Down’ »

There is only one true test for either a commodity trader…or even an investor in trend following with a commodity trading advisor. I am not trying to be funny…but this is a true test an old timer told me. Everyone thinks they accept risk…but when it comes down to truly accepting the risk do they? ( In most cases…NOT). First one should ask themselves do they really want to trade or invest in commodity trading. Truthfully commodity trading or forex trading can be the most aggravating..& hardest mentally way to make money ( if you even do make money). Now that you have answered yes… can you really afford to lose money? Will losing money change your life style? Do you realize as much as you think the trade will work…you can lose money? Continuing in this experiment….now that you realize that you can lose money and it will not change your life style… go to it.. But before you trade your favorite commodity or forex of your choice…or allocate to your favorite commodity trading advisor… stop by the bank…& take out $2,000.00 to $3,000.00 dollars in cash in $1 dollar bills…The reason is in most cases… in order to put on a trade on most commodities and risk 1% or less and be diversified you need to risk that much per trade depending on your account size… Now… you choose.. you can give away the $1 dollar bills to everyone passing you by…or you can set them ablaze…just burn them… Examine how you feel… The reason being… before you can blink…you can lose this money trading commodities or forex… Continue reading ‘The True Test For a Commodity Trader or Forex Trader’ »