Are you tired of watching your funds go away to your creditors every month? Do you really want to put an end to this? If yes, then you can file bankruptcy to put an end to the wage garnishment. However, if you’re hyperventilating in the ocean of debt and there are no spare cash to pay the fees of an attorney, then it is time to file bankruptcy on your own.

Many people think that one can't file bankruptcy without the help from any attorney, but this is a wrong notion. You can file bankruptcy without consulting an attorney. A sound knowledge of the bankruptcy laws will help you submit the bankruptcy petition without any glitch. However, it will not be an easy feat to stop the garnishment.

Here are some steps which need to be followed for stopping garnishment through bankruptcy.

1. File bankruptcy successfully: Complete the financial education programs before filing bankruptcy. Have the copy of the certificates with you. These certificates will come handy at the time of filing bankruptcy. Fill out the documents properly and submit them to the bankruptcy court clerk. Your case will be filed once the clerk glances through your papers and puts a court stamp on them. Note the case number in your notebook or smartphone.

2. Get in touch with your office: Contact the HR department of your office. They will have the wage garnishment or earnings with holding order document. Request them to give you a copy of this document.

If you have been notified about wage garnishment via email, then you can just log in to your email account and check that particular mail. You'll get important details from that document such as name of the lawyer and creditor.

3. Inform your creditor: Inform the creditor that you've filed bankruptcy. You can send relevant documents to justify your claim. You can also send the copy of the wage with holding document to prove that you're not bluffing.

It is true that the employees of your creditor will have the copy of the garnishment order. However, to make the process easy, you can send the copy of the page sealed by the court clerk. This will convince them that bankruptcy has really been filed. Do send the documents via certified mail with return receipt request. This will confirm that the creditor has received your papers.

4. Contact the sheriff: Usually, the creditors will ask the sheriff to stop the garnishment after knowing that bankruptcy has been filed. However, mistakes do happen. Moreover, the department of sheriff may be overloaded. So, it may take a huge amount of time to process the request.

Contact the sheriff and inform that you've filed bankruptcy. You can get the contact details of the sheriff from the garnishment order only.

The sheriff needs to get intimation from your creditor. Once he gets the notice, he’ll contact your boss to put an end to the garnishment. Keep in mind that your boss will not terminate garnishment just because you've submitted bankruptcy petition. In fact, he will do nothing till he receives formal letter from the department of sheriff.

Inform the HR officer that he/she will be receiving a formal letter from the sheriff's department in the coming days. You may expect to get back the garnished money after filing bankruptcy, but there is no guarantee that such a thing will happen. This means that you may not recover the lost money. However, you'll certainly be able to protect your funds from garnishment in future