My path to bankruptcy [View All]

[Indenturedebtor]

Well I lost my job this morning. I've mostly spent the day on the phone with the wife discussing our options.

Over the last 3 years my income as a salesman has been steadily declining. We had a brief period of being above water when I was working 80 hours a week as a car salesman, but the customers started to dry up as the housing decline accelerated. Many customers bought cars on their house credit, and many others simply bought more than they could afford using the easily available credit of the time. We needed reliable transportation to work so we ourselves bought one new car and leased another. Before the decline in the car market it was a reasonable financial decision.

After things started to head down hill we were still in the black, but decided to get a fixer upper that we hoped would appreciate through our labor, and in a few years we had hoped to be able to pay off all of our debts besides the house.

1.5 years into the house it's declined about 30k in value (probably despite all of the work and money we've put into it), and because my income has been shrinking we've had to fall back on the cards for food here, car registration there, doctor visit copay etc. At this point we're realistically about 70k in the hole if we sold all of our "assets".

Our only luxury is smokes and cheap beer heh. We've been able to visit our families once in the last 3-4 years because they've paid for it. We don't go to movies. We took one small driving trip to Carlsbad caves a few hours away. But really we only spend money on a house to live in and cars to drive.

We've figured that if we quit smoking and drinking we would still be about 600 dollars a month in the hole IF I got another job tomorrow that paid the same. Realistically though it would take at least 2 weeks to start a new job that called me today... and I would get paid 2 weeks after that. In truth it will likely take me 1-2 months to find another job with the same salary, or longer because now I have to explain being moved off salary to "independent contractor" status (great way to avoid paying unemployment).

So we have no money in the bank and less than half the money we need to keep paying the bills. And honestly I just don't want to anymore. We decided to go against our roaming nature and buy into the American Dream. 4 years ago we were travelling the world on a shoe string. We had a few job opportunities to teach English, etc. But we figured that the path to success and a better life lay in climbing the corporate ladder etc. I figured anyways, she was against it. Since that time we've worked like animals - I went from 80 hour work weeks to 40 at work and 40 on the house and other projects. (I post mainly at work while I call people heh). Our enjoyment in life is only really found with each other and our little dog. And we have nothing to show for the last 4 years really - EXCEPT the knowledge that we really don't care about all of this material crap.

We've decided to file for bankruptcy and move into a crappy little apartment close to the university where she works. I will try to keep one of the cars and hopefully get another job making some kind of decent wage. In the meantime I will take some classes and learn everything I can about building a web business. The dream now is that we can make a grand or two from the web business and go live in the "developing" world.

We're both done with this so called American Dream. Please just take our crap and set us free!