Aside from total bonehead maneuvers, like not listing a creditor or a substantial asset, the worst mistake you can make in your bankruptcy case is simply not filing it.
The reason is the same reason that Napoleon told his officers that they could ask him for troops, or ammunition, or horses, or anything they liked, but time.
Here's why time is your greatest enemy, or your best friend, depending on the situation and the choices you make: if you are paying minimum payments (let's make them $800 per month) and negatively amortizing (the debt is going up, not down, every month), you will never pay off your debt. Never.
And you will arrive at retirement (twenty-five years later) exhausted, broke, and sad. And you will buy titles from Amazon like "How To Cook Catfood Casserole; It's Not Really That Bad!"
If you take eight hundred dollars a month, and put half of it in a tax-sheltered retirement fund of your choice, and you do that for the same twenty-five years, you will retire with more than a million dollars, and spend your retirement laughing and singing, with two Margaritas, one for each hand.
Now, don't trust me. You don't know me, and I'm just a bankruptcy lawyer in Phoenix.
Instead, go find any old free, online retirement calculator on the Internet.
And plug in half the amount you are currently paying for your credit card debt, or any other unsecured debt you may have.
And move time forward by twenty-five years and see how much dough you have, with which you can...well, party!
And play with the time calculation; see how much you have left if you only save for ten years. Or five.
You'll discover that, as Napoleon suggested, time is valuable.
Because if you save longer, you'll have more left at the end, for your retirement.
Which means, in addition, you won't be knocking on the doors of your children and saying, "Remember me? Put a pillow on the couch! I'm heeeeere!"
The reason is the same reason that Napoleon told his officers that they could ask him for troops, or ammunition, or horses, or anything they liked, but time.
Here's why time is your greatest enemy, or your best friend, depending on the situation and the choices you make: if you are paying minimum payments (let's make them $800 per month) and negatively amortizing (the debt is going up, not down, every month), you will never pay off your debt. Never.
And you will arrive at retirement (twenty-five years later) exhausted, broke, and sad. And you will buy titles from Amazon like "How To Cook Catfood Casserole; It's Not Really That Bad!"
If you take eight hundred dollars a month, and put half of it in a tax-sheltered retirement fund of your choice, and you do that for the same twenty-five years, you will retire with more than a million dollars, and spend your retirement laughing and singing, with two Margaritas, one for each hand.
Now, don't trust me. You don't know me, and I'm just a bankruptcy lawyer in Phoenix.
Instead, go find any old free, online retirement calculator on the Internet.
And plug in half the amount you are currently paying for your credit card debt, or any other unsecured debt you may have.
And move time forward by twenty-five years and see how much dough you have, with which you can...well, party!
And play with the time calculation; see how much you have left if you only save for ten years. Or five.
You'll discover that, as Napoleon suggested, time is valuable.
Because if you save longer, you'll have more left at the end, for your retirement.
Which means, in addition, you won't be knocking on the doors of your children and saying, "Remember me? Put a pillow on the couch! I'm heeeeere!"
Leave a comment