What to do if you can’t pay your bills.

Who else tells you not to pay your bills?

The Federal Government.

In fact, there is a presumption that you shouldn’t pay your bills – if your income is at or below the average income for your family size.  If this is you – then there is no presumption that you should be in any kind of a payment plan.  You don’t even have to do the “means test” to see if you should pay a portion of your bills.

It’s that simple and straightforward.

$83,515 for a family of 4 is average, or median income in Ohio.

If your family of 4  income is this or less, then you are presumed to qualify for chapter 7.

That’s the kind of bankruptcy where you don’t pay your unsecured creditors.

What’s your income?  Read on…  even if you make more, there’s more to know.

Who tells you to pay your bills?

The people who profit from your payments.

The credit card companies, especially.

Charging an average of about 16% interest. (average according to credit cards.com)

Most of the credit card bills my clients bring me have higher rates than this.

Most of my clients make less than median and are struggling to keep up.

They scrape by trying to pay credit card bills but mostly they pay interest.

Where will they be a year from now?

Pretty much right where they started.  🙁

Their debt will be about the same, too, since they will need to use their credit cards for living expenses from time to time, so their balances just never seem to go down.

All the money they pay . . . most of it goes to interest.

But what if they didn’t pay their bills?

What if they said “Hey, the federal government says I qualify to not pay my bills.
Federal law says I am entitled to a fresh start.

If you are under median income it’s pretty much “no questions asked”- you are entitled to a fresh start.

What then?

Major changes for you!
Changes for the better.
Instantly.
Permanently.

Now, all the money that you were paying to the credit cards, you keep!

Now you can afford to meet life’s unexpected expenses – because you are not paying all that interest.

Now, you can actually save some money (often for the first time in a long time).

And what about your credit score ?

Good news here. . .

(An answer that may surprise you)

Although most of the time people do experience a drop in their score, and it sometimes takes them a long time to recover good credit, it doesn’t have to be that way for YOU!

There is a way for you erase your debt and recover your credit quickly.

Contrary to what credit card companies, and creditors in general, want us to believe.

The last thing they want us to know is how much sense it makes to not pay your bills.

Think about it this way…
If you ran a business, and all the income the business made was going back out again paying interest, you would agree that something needed to be done, quickly, to change this.

A new approach.

You can’t stay in business unless you are running at a profit.

Why not think of your own personal finances as your business?

And run it like a business?

And make decisions designed to improve your finances.

And, if it made good business sense,  use Federal Law to get out of the a vicious cycle of payments that never make a dent in your debt?

Debt that keeps you trapped, unable to save, and keeps you dependent on high-interest credit cards, just getting by day-by-day.

That’s why you should not pay your bills!

You wouldn’t run a business that way.

Why run your personal finances that way?

What if you are fortunate enough to make more than median income?

Does this mean you should pay your bills?

Probably not.

Why?

If you have income above the average for your family size, you probably also have higher living expenses too.

Because of this, you probably DON’T have any extra money at the end of the month.
You may have less, actually, than people who make less.

If your income is over median, then you may still be well advised to stop paying your bills, or only pay a small fraction of them. Pennies on the dollar.

Think about it.

Even if you do have a little extra income – are you really going to be able to pay off all your bills, get to zero debt, in 3 to 5 years?

If so, great!  If you think you can do it, here’s a test for you.

Here’s a quick self-test for you to do. Right away.

Sit down tonight and write out your 3-year plan.

Put it down on paper.  List all your expenses. Balances, monthly payments, everything.

Write out the plan for how you are going to get out of debt in 3 years.

Or 4.

Or 5.

(Warning!  Doing this exercise may open your eyes to the fact that, truthfully,  you will NOT be able to significantly reduce your debt in 3, 4 or 5 years.  When I do this exercise with my clients, they are often shocked!)

You are responsible for your finances.
The government is not going to offer you a bail-out.

You owe it to yourself to know the truth about your finances.
Too often we get lulled into a false sense of security just because we can make our minimum payments every month. We ignore the fact that we are getting nowhere fast.

Normally, we can’t increase our income by much.

We can’t go to the boss and say, “Hey, I’m trying to get out of debt and my 3 year plan tells me I need a $5 per hour raise.”  “Oh, and I’ll need an extra 10 hours overtime every week too.”

Probably not going to happen.

If you can’t increase your income, you could try to decrease expenses.

But, realistically, you’ve probably already tried to cut back.
Budget cuts only go so far.  Normally, it’s just not enough to make a big difference.

What’s left?

If you can’t increase your income and can’t really reduce your expenses, what’s left to cut out?

The bills, of course,

Don’t pay them.

Or don’t pay most of them.

Or, at least stop paying the interest on your debt.

In many cases, if you just stop paying interest on the debt, you can keep your budget exactly where it is and be totally debt free in 5 years or less.

Really.

Most people qualify for this program, but they just don’t know it.

The means test in bankruptcy –  the median income test – doesn’t work the way most people think, and certainly not the way that creditors and the news media want you to believe.

There are so many ways to legally keep your property and pay little (or none) of your debt that if more people knew the truth . . . that the Federal Standards for qualifying to not pay your bills actually protect families and provide a way to legally re-organize . . . , more people would be much better off.  Actually debt free, in an amazingly short time.

The thought that if you don’t pay your bills you are somehow bad, immoral, or that it’s somehow “wrong” to not pay your bills, when that is exactly what our laws provide for you, is a big lie.

Businesses have been not paying their bills for years.

Does anyone think they are somehow doing something bad?

Nope.

Quite the contrary.

It’s a business decision.

And, it’s a matter of survival for the business.

It’s no different for you and your family, so why are we told that it is?

The banks and creditors and lenders want you to think you are doing something wrong if you don’t pay your bills –

EVEN IF IT HURTS YOUR FAMILY.

EVEN IF IT DESTROYS YOUR FUTURE.

Even when it keeps you trapped in debt for decades.

Who profits from this?

Not you.

It’s all about the money – their profits.

So, it’s OK for them to “use the chapters” as President Donald Trump says.

But somehow not OK for us?

Why?

You cannot afford for your family business to fail.

You, as the owner and manager of the business, have an obligation to consider all your options.

A good place to start is to imagine what your bank balance would look like if you stopped paying your credit card bills.

What would your life be like without all the worry and stress that comes from not being able pay the bills?

How would you feel if you didn’t have the constant haunting worry that you are never going to get out of debt  by just making minimum payments?

Life would look a lot different, I bet.

You could start saving money.

Not have to rely on credit for your living expenses.

No need to panic if a sudden emergency arises.

Your life would be normal again.

You could relax.

Start sleeping again at night.

You have options.

More than you know.

So, don’t pay your bills.

If it makes sense, good business sense, not to pay your bills.

Stop throwing your money at bills if you’re not making any progress at getting out of debt.

Find out the truth about your options.

Read this website.

Call for a free consultation.

Find out if it makes sense for you to stop paying your bills.