Do these situations currently describe your financial life?

(1)        You’ve reach a point of financial desperation and are simply sick and tired of the fear, loss of sleep, marital strife and the mental, physical and spiritual exhaustion associated with your personal financial disaster – possible foreclosure, job loss, cut hours at work, job furlough.

(2)        You’re overwhelmed with the crushing fear and anxiety of the unknown – what going to happen (lawsuits, garnishments, foreclosure – and when are they going to happen – when is the Sheriff going to be knocking on my door?

(3)       When you’re scared senseless to answer the phone because of the assault of the collection agency terrorists and your garbage can becomes your preferred method of responding to collection demands and credit card bills. The thoughts of pain, desperation, depression can become mind numbingly paralyzing.

Who do you turn to for help and advice?

What should you do?

First: Anyone that says they have the silver bullet answer is a liar.

As a bankruptcy attorney, I deal with similar problems with my clients from Fresno and Merced every day. Each client has a different story and circumstances, so I know from experience that there is no easy answer. Sometimes bankruptcy is the answer, sometimes there are non-bankruptcy options and sometimes there is no black and white answer.

When a new client comes to my office, my initial objective is to analyze their financial situation, which includes their looking at their debt load, types of debt, income and expenses. The next thing that I attempt to do is to educate, providing information about options in working through their situation, including bankruptcy and non-bankruptcy options. This is the first step, I think, in the fear eradication process: EDUCATION.

According to Susan Jeffers, PhD, “fear is primarily an education problem.” You may think that your financial situation and its accompanying fear may simply be a situational (lack of money) or psychological problem – it really is not. Yes, it would be wonderful if we could win the lottery and all of our problems disappear. That is fantasy thinking – not reality. So is denial. Neither of these strategies work in the long run, and in fact they make the “fear” symptoms worse: depression, helplessness, anxiety and paralysis.

Some of the most satisfying moments in my bankruptcy practice is helping clients understand their financial problems and providing possible solutions, option or simply giving them my opinion. My opinion sometimes takes the form of discussing the “elephant in the room.”

Education entails describing the bankruptcy process or providing non bankruptcy advice in the event that bankruptcy is not something that is feasible or desirable for them. Sometimes that they are simply relieved that someone is telling them for the first time that they simply can’t afford to live on their current budget and need to make changes. (i.e., sell the house, letting the house get foreclosed, selling a car and stop using credit cards to pay for living expenses). These are the subjects I refer to as the elephant in the room

I take no pleasure in telling a family that they can’t afford the house they are currently living in or that they are spending a disproportionate amount of their living expenses on expensive cars or other monthly living expenses, but if I don’t, obviously someone else (up until that point) has not told them that.

It is curious, most people in trouble financially (were their monthly expenses exceed monthly income) intuitively know that they can’t continue on without making drastic changes, but they often need that someone tell them the truth.

If the above post describes your situation, I would be happy to sit down with you either in my Fresno or Merced office to discuss your situation. To my ability, I will try and educate you and attempt to dispel some of your financial fears, as I believe that “fear is an education problem.” There are no guarantees, but fantasying your problems will go away or denying they exist will not solve anything.

Disclaimer

Fresno-Bankruptcy-Lawfirm.com is owned by the Law Offices of Jeffery D. Rowe. We are a debt relief agency. We help people file for bankruptcy relief under the Federal  Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code). If you would like to discuss your situation in further detail, please call our offices at: (559) 228-1500 to schedule a consultation.