Bankruptcy-Personal View

As the world finds itself in a financial crisis,I cannot help but reflect on what this will have on the personal level.I have gone through some financial crisis myself to the point of filing for personal bankruptcy protection.The crisis started with a job loss at the time and that led to my inability of make payments on some of the credit cards that I own at the time.Looking back at the filing,I got some pretty bad advice at the time of the filing and I could have avoided going through all the headaches that it caused me later in life if I had a little bit more experience in life.The period was about the early nineties.It had to be 1991/1992 period that I did the actual filing,the effects though lasted for periods that are more than a decade.
The actual bankruptcy filing is not a pleasant experience at all.You have to go to a court house and stand before a judge for your debts to be forgiven.I had to be looking around to make sure that there was nobody in the court house that recognised me.You get to pay a court cost of about $150 dollars at the time and then there is a lot of paperwork that is prepared for you and you then head home.The effects though would start coming and they would last for a long time.The first one is that it becomes very difficult for you to rent an apartment.When I did my personal filing,I was living at Sligo avenue,Silver Spring,Md.I tried to get apartment in White Oak but my application was declined.when I checked into the reason,I found out that it was because of the bankruptcy filing.Somebody had to help me get the apartment at White Oak.For a long period of time,each time that I had tried to move from one apartment to another I was always a problem.The answer would always be that you application was declined because of a bankruptcy that shows up on your record.Later on I would find out that employers also take a look at your credit record before they hire your.I had applied to work for a bank while at Radio Shack and I did not get the job.I later found out that the reason for my not getting the job is because of the bankruptcy filing.Credit cards you could still get despite your bankruptcy filing but you would not be getting a high credit limit any more.For example prior to my BK filing I had an American Express card which comes with unlimited spending limit so long as you pay off the balance at the end of the month.I had other credit cards with balance limits that reached the $5000 mark.After the BK filing the few credit cards that I got had credit limits of around $1000 and most of them came with a yearly annual fee of about $50 together with some very high interest rates.The interest rates is an area where you would notice a big difference.Your poor credit rating now puts you in a bracket where credit card companies would be charging very stiff interest rates for you to obtain their card.There are a number of options that I could have gone with instead of filing for personal BK.One would have been to personal call the credit card companies and try to work out a lower monthly payment schedule with them.The credit card companies would prefer this as oppose to a bankruptcy filing in which they do not get any money at all.
Second,I could have just abandon the debts without going into court to file for bankruptcy.Later on when my personal finances did get better,I could then have called up the credit card companies and they would have worked out a payment schedule for me.This option lowers your credit rating but it does not have as negative an effect as a bankruptcy filing.