Overcoming the Challenges of Divorce and Its Associated Debt
Making it through divorce is challenging enough, but did you realize that divorce is also a leading cause of bankruptcy? As a person getting divorces, if you aren't careful, the divorce can consume your assets and leave you in the whole.
This is especially true during today's troubling economic times that have couples divorcing amid foreclosures and out of control credit card debt. If not handled properly, a divorce can equal bankruptcy in just a few short months. Without that second income from a spouse, or the need to pay child or spousal support, money priorities quickly shift making it harder if not impossible to pay the bills on time or at all.
Take for example a divorcing dad who, prior to his divorce, brought home more than a million dollars a year. Not long after fighting through an expensive divorce, this father was also forced into bankruptcy.
You can find assistance during divorce and following it that helps you with catching up on your debt without bankruptcy protection. The divorcing father would have benefited from a guide on debt designed to help its readers overcome their debt without the assistance of bankruptcy protection.
Think the bankruptcy syndrome does not apply to you? Don't be so sure. According to Joseph Pomykala's article "Wrestling with Bankruptcy," the odds are stacked against you:
- In 1998, one of every sixty-eight families in the U.S. requested bankruptcy protection. That figure has grown consistently over the years.
- In fact, claims for bankruptcy are on the rise in the US and currently double the claims filed during the Great Depression.
- The average home is accountable for around fifty-eight thousand dollars in debt.
- Credit card debt and other unsecured debt have increased on average by fourteen percent each year since 1978.
- About nine percent of those who file bankruptcy have filed for protection before.
Of course the most relevant statistic of all states that forty percent of all bankruptcies are a direct result of divorce, unemployment and medical crisis. The reality is divorce has a way of impacting a life in ways they may not have foreseen. By using a guide on consumer debt, you can lower your risk of relying on bankruptcy for help.
