do we have enough to settle or BK is the way?

Hello.
Well, in my honest opinion I would have to say that BK is your best bet. For debt settlement to be a realistic option, you need to be able to save about 50% of what you owe (so in your case that would be about $49K) within a 12-18 month time period. Being that your accounts are already in the collection or legal phase, you have MUCH less time.

If you have legal payment plans in place my guess is that your credit is already shot. If you have some money, you might be a candidate for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, where you would be able to keep your home/cars. If you do want to try the settlement route again, by all means do NOT pay a company to do it. You will be better off and save money if you do it yourself. A lot of people on this site have used Zip Debt for do-it-yourself settlements and have had great success.

It sounds like you have been dealing with this for a long time. Sometimes BK truly is the best decision, as awful as that may be to think about. How much can you realistically save each month to go towards settlement? Or is the 25K it??????

I am no expert by any means am new to this and in the process of just beginning to settle my debt on my own.Hey sunnymay...can't he try to settle with the creditors on his own first? before jumping in to bk. My husband and I just saw a bk lawyer to see our options..it's not pretty...very tough laws now. What do you think?Hey fldude, have you tried yet to settle with any of them on your own?

Yes absolutely settling first is always better than BK. BK should be your absolute last move. Maybe I wasn't reading clearly but I assumed that 20-25K is all that fldude has.....am I wrong? Being that your accounts have already found their way to attorneys you probably should try to settle those first as they may garnish your wages if you default on those agreements. Do you have 20-25K already in a lump sum? If not, how long would it take you to come up with that, and is that the maximum amount of money that you will have to settle? These answers will help us to help guide you.

Look...lets lay it out on the line for you...its going to be rough...so get a game plan...if you have 21k or can get it....than your not broke and certainly not BK.
You didn't give enough details but I would try to settle with all creditors with a 20% starting point and most will settle for 40% or less

Ok yes $2k is not in my hands but that is what I could get for all my assets. We have two cards that resulted in legal payment plans bc otherwise they were going to sue us. I dont have any money in my hands but i do have some items of value that I could sell to get some money. Im worried if anyone else sues us. We are struggling to make ends meet as it is.
I have a mortgage, equity line, medical bills, cc debt...
I would like to call the creditors and offer a settlement but I dont know if that would speed them up to sue me?

i dont believe that would speed up the process, only slow it down in my own opinion. Because i would think that they would see that your attempting to do something. I would first call them and say hey, i just came into x dollars take it or leave it, but i will give you this to make it go away. they will either say yes or no, and you were no worse off than you was before right?

try it first before bk in my opinion. hey you never know and if they dont take it, maybe they will counter offer something a little higher that you can still deal with.

ok thanks

hey fldude know exactly how you feel.We are in the same boat.We decided we are going to try to settle on our own and what I have learned is to wait for them to come to you with a settlement offer..don't know if that is wrong or not but have learned that the older the accounts the more they want to get to get rid of them. If you need to sell your things to get money then you should do asap because I've heard once they offer you a settlement they are not going to sit around waiting for their money.Have they called you to offer you something?

Fldude...did your attorney recommend Chapter 7 or 13?

Chapter 7

guest...well we havent received any offers to us personally. We just got rid of credit solutions about a month ago. But we are scared to answer the phone. So we dont. Maybe we should start : )

Let me start by saying that BK is a personal decision and not an easy one to make.

IMHO...if you qualify for a Chapter 7 - which means that all debts are wiped clean...then I would go for it. Your credit is already trashed, and you can always rebuild after your discharge - just be careful when you do :).

Again, IMHO, if you sell your possessions and come up with 20K-25K, there is no guarantee that you will be out of this mess...(you might overlook some loophole and then have to deal with junk debt buyers all over again).

The important thing is you get a fresh start...learn from it and plan (fiscally responsibly) in and for the future. Many people who do debt settlement (no offense here) fail to consider planning for retirement, saving for a house or even having an emergency fund of 3 to 9 months of expenses. Then something happens and they get caught short again.

Now if the lawyer recommended a Chapter 13 - which is a repayment plan and you had to pay back 100% of your debt over 60 months, THEN I might try debt settlement. Since you qualify for the Chapter 7, might as well become debt free without all the hassles.

Again, this is a personal decision and I wish you all the best.

Thank you! Thats pretty much what the attorney said too. I just hate to do it. I feel like a failure.
Can you explain more on "just be careful when you do" Are you talking about getting into cc again? Bc I just wont do it. I dont trust them. They dont play fair. Thats how this whole mess got started. We were struggling but still paying everyone and always on time. Then out of the blue they took away 2.9% deals and put them at 18, 22, & 29% interest saying our debt to income was too high and raised our payments to crazy amounts and thats what started this whole mess. And it just snow balled into where we are now.

just to clarify
the lawyer said yesterday that yes we qualify for the 7

Thank you to everyone for your help. This is an awesome community.
Thank you!
Best wishes to all

There is "good" debt and "bad debt...

Good debt is a mortgage or car loan...necessities...I don't know many people who can afford to buy a house or car with cash. You need credit to do so...but in order to have credit you have to establish your credit file. You can do this by getting a secured credit card at a credit union (I know BOA offers one) after your BK is discharged. Start small and go from there.

Bad debt is usually unsecured credit (like credit cards).

Good Luck!