Chicago Bankruptcy Lawyer Blog

With U.S. foreclosures up 32 percent in the last month, there's good news and bad news for Illinois homeowners. First, the good - foreclosures here decreased 11 percent from March to April, making the state more stable than the rest of the country. Now the bad - that's still 54 percent higher than a year ago, according to data just released by RealtyTrac.

Now, people seem to handle news like this in two very distinct ways - by either underreacting and overreacting. Underreactors brush off the data and think, "It's not like it will happen to me," even as they pile up debt and miss payments. Overreactors tend to panic and imagine the worst, sometimes to the point that they enter a state of denial and thus don't actually do anything to protect themselves. What do they have in common? Neither behavior does anything to stop foreclosure.

Continue reading "Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Can Prevent Illinois Foreclosures " »

When the stock market took a dive last year, so did most retirement funds. But it's not just Wall Street doing damage to our savings - it's our own impatience. Since the recession began, people have been pulling the plug on their retirement money, cashing out to pay for present-day expenses like bills and groceries.

Even I'm not immune to stealing from my own piggy bank. When I changed jobs a while back, I cashed out the earnings from my profit-sharing plan with the full intention of re-investing them. That didn't exactly happen. I learned a valuable lesson: if you have money in your primary account, you will spend it. Gas prices were going up and it was pretty convenient to have that extra cash cushion. But the problem is that, now, it's gone for good.

Continue reading "Chicago Bankruptcy Lawyers Help You Hold On To Savings" »

In our last post, we debunked a common myth about bankruptcy: some folks misguidedly believe filing will cause them to lose their belongings, including their house. But bankruptcy can not only eliminate your debt, it can actually help you save your home, car and other possessions. Want to see for your own eyes? Take a look at your state's exemptions. In addition to federal exemptions, each state has its own list of items that are protected from repossession.

In Illinois, for instance, you can exempt up to $7,500 of your home's equity or up to $1,200 of the equity in your vehicle. In Georgia, it's $5,000 for the house, $1,000 for the car. If you're married, you're in luck - those amounts double.

Continue reading "Illinois and Georgia Bankruptcy Exemptions Part 2" »

One of the biggest misconceptions people have about bankruptcy is that they'll have to give up all of their stuff when they file. A woman in my neighborhood was so terrified that her house would be taken away if she went bankrupt that she (unfortunately) didn't even consider filing as an option. She just let the bills pile up, hoping for a miracle, until - lo and behold - the bank foreclosed on her family's home. Had she tried bankruptcy - the option she feared the most - she'd probably still be living down the block.

Despite sometimes misguided public opinion, of the most appealing features of bankruptcy is its ability to protect assets from creditors, thanks to a long list of exemptions. It's why at DebtStoppers we often tout Chapter 13 as the surest way to stop foreclosure.

Continue reading "Illinois Bankruptcy Exemptions Can Protect Your Assets" »

Whoever said that patience is a virtue might have been talking about payday loans.

You've probably noticed payday loan centers in your neighborhood - maybe you've even used them yourself. An online search for payday loans in Chicago nets nearly 300 results. And with so many folks living paycheck to paycheck, it's no wonder. But, as with tax refund loans, while there's no faster way to get your earnings, there's also no faster way to lose them.

It's why my first payday loan was also my last. My coworker at the time wanted to go out to a club one night, but I said I had to wait until we got paid. No worries, she said, we'd just go get a payday advance. She took me to a center, where the cashier counted out three crisp $100 bills - for a $50 fee. Ouch! I decided then and there I'd rather wait for a few days and hold onto my entire paycheck.

My coworker wasn't so patient.

Continue reading "Payday loans a bad deal, advise Chicago bankruptcy attorneys" »

Time and time again, I've watched friends, neighbors and co-workers choose to struggle with growing debt, decide to stop paying the bills and throw away their homes to foreclosure, all because they're saving bankruptcy as a "last resort." Why do I call these things a choice when it's obvious the ailing economy - something out of our control - is at play? Simple. Because bankruptcy is a no-fail way to stop all these things from happening.

Bankruptcy shouldn't be a last resort - it should be Plan A. Most people have it backwards. They try the stuff that doesn't work first, like denying they have a debt problem and thus doing nothing, or paying a debt settlement company, which actually adds to their debt. Had they filed for Chapter 13 first, they would have overcome their problems a long time ago - and saved money to boot. That doesn't sound like a last resort to me.

Continue reading "Chicago Bankruptcy Attorneys Question Big Bank Money Motives" »

I usually excel at trivia questions (seriously - the board game Trivial Pursuit has a permanent place on my coffee table) but this one stumped me recently: What do Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln and the founders of both Hershey Chocolate and Heinz Ketchup have in common?

Give up? Each filed for bankruptcy before finding success. I personally found it surprising because, the way the media spins it, you'd sometimes think bankruptcy is the end of the world. But, in fact, it can be the beginning of the world. By erasing your debts, bankruptcy gives you a fresh start - and the financial freedom you've been waiting for.

Think about it. One day, you're drowning in debt. The phone is ringing off the hook with creditors threatening to pay up or lose your possessions. You've got a stack of bills and you have to decide which ones you can pay - if any. You're worried the bank will foreclose on your home.

Continue reading "Illinois Lawyers Point to Famous Bankruptcy Cases" »

Imagine this scenario: You're at a cash register being rung up for your purchase when the cashier asks if you'd like to save 20% by opening a store credit card. What do you do?

Me, I used to fall for it every time. I had so many store cards that they didn't fit in my wallet - I had to stash them all over the house. As far as I was concerned, the shop might as well have been handing me a generous coupon. How could I refuse such a good deal?

Unfortunately (especially for my credit score) there's a major catch. Store credit cards have some of the highest interest rates around - often 30% and higher. Unless you pay off your balance immediately, you're going to erase that little discount fast. But have you ever noticed that store cards also have dinky minimum payments - sometimes as little as $5 a month? It seems convenient at first, but if you're paying off something large - like the $200 iPod I once charged to an electronics store card to save (or so I thought) 15% - it could take ten years and three times the original amount to pay it all off!

And it gets even worse.

Continue reading "Chicago Bankruptcy Attorneys Advise Shoppers to Turn Down Store Credit Cards " »