Everyone has a debt story and this is mine. When my wife and I got married we had just turned 18. I was going to college with all the college loans you can imagine. I worked full time and went to college and eventually also taught Karate in the late afternoon. My wife worked very hard in a factory for many hours. We were determined that there was a solid financial future for us if we did everything right. The student loans were enormous for our little budget. We only had the one car that was a gift from my parents but with our schedules it became clear we needed another mode of transportation as well. The cheapest thing we could afford was a motorcycle. I rode that motorcycle rain, sleet or shine. I would get to work drenched many days but it was necessary. One day I got to work and found a slip on my time card and found out the company was cutting back on workers and I was one of the lucky that was being cut! I was devastated and did not know how to tell my wife. I went on the way home filling out applications at every work place. When I got home was my wife was there and not at work. That was strange for her because we both never missed a day of employment. She was very sick, so sick in fact we had to take her to the doctor then. She was pale and shaking and in a tremendous amount of pain. I could not tell her we had just lost our insurance. We got to the doctors and they immediately put her in the hospital with an emergency procedure because she had an ectopic pregnancy and was rupturing. I have to admit for that moment I forgot I had lost my job that morning. I did not think about the cost of what was going on. Due to no insurance they let us go home that night. After I put her to bed I just cried. That morning I had to tell her what had happened and she just said we would figure it all out and in the grand scheme of things it did not seem as important as it had the morning before. I finally found a job and my wife took on a second job as well. The medical bills were coming in so fast I thought they were sending them twice! My wife had nothing to put her to sleep during the procedure to save money, I found out later, and that saved us quite a bit but if you saw the mountain of bills it was getting out of hand. We went to the hospital to work out payments and they were very nice to work out minimum payments. We needed to have Lesser debt but that was not going to happen anytime soon. Between the school and the motorcycle payments and now the hospital on our tiny incomes we were stuck. After seeing a debt counseler they said they very seldom recommend this drastic result but we needed to file for bankrupcy. We were devastated to hear this after all we thought we were so careful with our money but one thing happened after another and here we were so reluctantly we went ahead with it. At 5 years of marriage we were going bankrupt. It was a shameful process for us because we always thought that something like that only happens to financially careless people. We are here to tell you that it happens to everyone. It took us years to repair what was done in the first 5 years! The financial advice I give to my children is have insurance and be financially careful and alert! I also tell them if something fiancially bad happens to you handle it as soon as possible because we let this drag on for so long we did more harm then good. If you look at your situation and it looks impossible see a professional that can offer solutions and get you back on track faster.
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