I’ve Declared Bankruptcy: Now What?
Bankruptcy is one of the last social taboos that still persist in modern Western culture. Which is unfortunate, considering how common it is. The stigma around discussing the subject doesn’t help, and in fact only adds to, the mistaken belief that bankruptcy is a loophole exclusively exploited by top 1% billionaires to rid themselves of debts.
There’s this common misconception that Joe Average simply isn’t ever going to have to declare bankruptcy. While it’s nice to imagine that that might be the case, the fact of the matter is that we can never predict exactly where our finances are going to take us, and declaring bankruptcy is likely to affect more of us than we’re ever going to be comfortable admitting.
There’s no point beating around the bush—bankruptcy is a small, ugly word which terrifies most everybody who looks at it. After all, it’s never anything except a last resort. Everybody who has filed for bankruptcy did everything in their power to avoid it.
Some people go to drastic measures to prevent the worst coming to the worst, because once you’ve filed for bankruptcy once it’s likely to follow you around on your credit score as well as in society for up to ten years. Seen through this especially pessimistic lens, it’s hard not to think about bankruptcy as something completely irreparable, a colossal killer blow to the life you’ve worked so hard to make for yourself, from which it’s impossible to recover.
The Bad News
The bad news is recovering from bankruptcy is tough, and is going to require serious lifestyle changes. It’s going to be uncomfortable, unpleasant, and not very pretty to look at.
That’s the reality of the situation, and anybody who tells you it’s going to be different is either doing you a disservice by misrepresenting the facts, or they are in fact themselves a top 1% billionaire for whom the term is simply a way to avoid ugly financial obligations (yes, that kind of bankruptcy filing does exist, but it’s not likely ever to affect the vast majority of people who need to, and do, file for bankruptcy every single year.
The Good News
There’s good news as well as the bad, though—and the good news is that it’s possible to recover from bankruptcy. This will involve a number of different strategies, among them credit repair and paring back the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to, but it can be done. What’s more, you can start rehabilitating your life the very second you file for bankruptcy.
Let’s be frank. Whether you needed to file for bankruptcy as the result of a natural disaster or some other accident which was completely out of your control, or whether your filing is a natural extension of the unsustainable lifestyle you’ve been living (living beyond your means is a surefire way to tank your credit score sooner or later, and you’ll have to get booked up on credit repair to get it back up to par) isn’t important.
The circumstances that brought you to file for bankruptcy aren’t what’s important. What’s important is the fact that bankruptcy itself is one of life’s greatest, most unpleasant levellers, and spending time looking backwards at where you went wrong is likely time that could be better spent looking forward, to how you’re going to reconstruct your life.
Which is not to say that there’s no value in objective, honest, self-reflection, especially if the circumstances which required you to file arose out of financial irresponsibility. But if the latter is the case, you’re going to need to think about it anyway as a way to guide your lifestyle renovation project, credit repair included. And if it’s not the case, and the situation was completely out of your control, then dwelling on it isn’t going to solve anything.
In the following article we’re going to lay out some of the steps forward you can take after you’ve filed for bankruptcy to help get your life, your finances, and your credit score (which could well have tanked, necessitating credit repair) back on track. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be very pretty to look at, but it most definitely can be done, and the principles that guide you to its successful completion are straightforward and can be employed by just about anybody at just about any time.
Let’s get into it. Here’s a few things you can do after you’ve filed for bankruptcy to keep moving forward with your life.
1: Take Your Time
Now, more than ever, is the time to slow the speed of your life—and your thought processes—right down. While it can feel like you need to do a thousand things at once to get yourself back on track, the reality of the situation is that that kind of attitude is only going to get you further sunk into the mire. Thinking short-term is going to be the single biggest challenge you’ll have to face when it comes to revamping the way you think about your life, as well as your credit repair task. It’s a difficult skill to manage—unlike the way some people present it, it is a skill, and all skills take practice—but you absolutely must commit yourself to it as soon as you can to prevent yourself inadvertently making matters worse and torpedoing your own credit repair project.
The odds are that sustainable, long-term thinking processes aren’t what drove you to file for bankruptcy in the first place. Far be it from us to make claims about how exactly your personal situation arose, but here at oakvillebadcreditcarloans.ca we like calling spades spades. We don’t think we’re doing anybody any favours by misrepresenting the facts of the matter.
Building yourself up to thinking slowly will take a while, but you can get started on the journey right away. Keep a notebook with you, and make a note of every time you find yourself longing for a quick fix to things. Once you notice this happening, write down where you were when it happened, what you were doing, and what the thought itself was. While this may sound goofy, it’s actually rooted in awareness psychology, which says that the more aware we can make ourselves, the better our chances our to actually redirect the negative energy into positive, solution-oriented planning—exactly what’s needed for effective credit repair.
2: Don’t Beat Yourself Up, But Allow Yourself To Feel Bad
This is another psychological step which is going to prove very useful in your overall financial journey from filing bankruptcy all the way to being back in perfect financial health. As well as tangible things like credit repair, keeping your mindset where it needs to be is the best way to ensure that every step you take is a) a small one (now is not the time to be breaking long-jump Olympic records; this will only serve to hinder your progress), and b) going forwards.
While it’s good to prevent unnecessary dwelling on the circumstances that led to you finding yourself in the position you’re in, it’s also important not to brush aside your genuine feelings about the situation. Bankruptcy takes a toll on more than just your credit score—it’s an emotionally devastating process that nobody is going to be able to deal with completely on their own.
Allowing yourself to feel a little hard done-by is fine (and in fact is even encouraged) but the second it spills over into intense self-pity, you need to check it. It’s just not going to make credit repair any easier. Self-pity is different from acknowledging that you’re in a terrible situation right now. Whether or not it was your actions that led to you filing for bankruptcy, the fact of the matter is that there’s only one person who’s going to be able to pull you out of the quicksand, and that’s you.
As soon as you start casting around for people to blame, try to become aware of what’s going on and stop thinking that way. Blaming other people isn’t going to get you anywhere, and it’s time that could be better spent learning about techniques such as credit repair or lifestyle management.
3: Ask For Help From The Professionals
Just because you’re the one who’s going to ultimately pull yourself out of the bankruptcy problem, doesn’t mean that you need to reinvent the wheel completely. There are experienced professionals out there who earn their living helping people recover from the exact kind of devastating financial crises you’re currently in, as well as assisting you with credit repair—you can bet that they know more about the ins and outs of the issue than you ever will.
Asking for help is difficult for all of us, especially if we find ourselves in such an unfortunate scenario, but in this case it’s a surefire way to guarantee that you’re moving forward. Here at Oakvillebadcreditcarloans.ca, for example, we specialise in helping people with less-than-optimal credit scores get going on credit repair and secure financing for their vehicles.
It’s likely that you’ll need a car, unless you happen to live in a major city with excellent public transportation; and if you do, there’s no point trying to figure out how to do your own credit repair and finance the car from the ground up when you could be consulting with us.
The same goes for every aspect of the financial life you need to create for yourself, post-filing for bankruptcy. All kinds of different professionals from accountants to lawyers and everything in between, know what’s going on with bankruptcy, and what you need to put in place to ensure that you make a full recovery from filing. Don’t go the distance all on your own.
Asking For Help Is Hard, But Worth It
Now is the perfect time to get into the habit of asking for help if you’re not used to it, because it’s a skill that all humans need to employ from time to time and also because what’s at stake isn’t anything abstract, like a credit repair strategy or a bad credit car loan: it’s your life. Your house, your job, your car, your family. Even your mental and physical health. Filing for bankruptcy takes a serious toll on all of these things, and enlisting a few professionals to guide you on the way forward will stand to you in the future, no matter what direction your life takes.
Summary
So there you have it. As well as strategies like credit repair, the three main things to keep in mind after you’ve filed for bankruptcy have been listed above. While this isn’t the be-all end-all of post-bankruptcy strategies, it’s certainly a place to start. We’re focused on trying to help you get into the right mindset you’ll need to progress, because everything comes from the mindset you’re in, and we believe it’s a lot more valuable than simply throwing a bunch of potential financial decisions at you and waiting to see what sticks.
At oakvillebadcreditcarloans.ca, we consider each and every application we receive for an automobile loan, irrespective of credit score. Send us an email today and find out how we can assist you in your particular situation.
