I never thought at 35 years old I would be "starting over". But that's exactly where I find myself right now. Starting over fresh from Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.
Looking back now I see every mistake I made that led to my credit score being low 400s, debt piled up, borrowing money from family just to stay afloat. The biggest mistake was not handling what was leading me to spend money as if I had no bills and unlimited income, depression.
The "D" word. It's used so frequently now I think we forget that it is an actual illness with real life repercussions. One of those being binge spending in attempt to fill the hole that becomes your life. It wasn't until I addressed those issues that I "woke up" to see what I had done to my family.
We were 34 year old rents with 1 child. Severely behind on rent, car payments, and every bill we had. So with many tears and a lot of arguing we settled on Chapter 7 bankruptcy. I *thought* that we would file, our debts would get wiped away, and we would have a clean slate.
WRONG!
Our attorney never really told us, during all his convincing, that we would be hurting big time after our bankruptcy was discharged.
That's how I found myself here, writing this blog. Hoping that my next steps forward can help someone else who may find themselves in this situation.
As of today, my credit scores are 587, 584, and 597. I have one Torrid store credit card with a $250 limit, a $219 balance, no late payments. And I have a furniture agreement with Acceptance now with a $1400 balance, no late payments. I also have a TON of inquiries (I mean like 90!). We are currently renting a beautiful home, we are current on our rent (early even!), and this landlord has agreed to sell to us in 2021 if we can make ourselves eligible to purchase.
My purpose in creating this blog is to give myself a place to vent, to put my thoughts into words, to document our successes and our failures, and to hopefully provide help and hope to those that feel out of control right now. I'm going to cover everything from cleaning up my credit, making extra money to put towards a down payment, savings, and anything else related to finances and the purchase of a new home. I also love to cook so you may find some recipes thrown in for good measure.
Thanks for following me on this journey!
~AJ