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Submitted by: Gerri

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I can only imagine how stressful and difficult this must be for you. We describe your options for dealing with your debt in detail in our e-book Reduce Debt Reduce Stress. It's challenging, of course, to summarize all that in a few sentences. I think you would find the e-book helpful in your decision-making process, but in the meantime I'll answer a few of your questions. I think the big unknown here is your income situation. It would be a lot easier to decide which way to go if you knew you had steady income coming in. However, at this point it doesn't sound like you know when your income may pick up, and when it does, how much of the making. My general philosophy is that debt settlement is an alternative to a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you are able to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, it is generally a better choice for a number of reasons. There is no tax liability on forgiven debt (which there may or may not be if you settled debt), you have the protection of the court, and you don't risk being sued for debts that you cannot pay. If you decide to go the debt settlement route, I am concerned that you may end up throwing good money after bad. To settle, and you have to be able to come up with at least 50% of what you owe (sometimes more) over the next 24 ?36 months. Any settlement agency that tries to tell you that you can definitely settle for a lot less, or that tries to stretch you out on "payments" for longer than three years is just trying to collect a fee. (Please understand that there is no guarantee that you could settle for 50% of your balances. That's just a ballpark figure.) So let's say that you try to settle. You should be setting aside at least $1000 a month every month ($70,000 x 50% divided by 36 months) while trying to continue to build your business and handle creditor calls or letters. Is that really realistic? You mention that you are getting a lot of conflicting advice. And that's typical. Just remember when you do talk to someone, ask what motivated may have for giving you the advice they are giving you. In bankruptcy attorney will of course recommend bankruptcy. And a settlement company may try to sell you on settlement because that's how they make money. That-s one reason we wrote our e-book Reduce Debt Reduce Stress - to try to provide an independent overview of each option. We hope you will find it helpful. By the way, wage garnishment is illegal in Texas, but that doesn't mean there is nothing that creditors can't do to collect. They can still sue you, and use other means to try to collect.

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