Understand bankruptcy before you need it and you may be able to avoid it. You may also be more confident about getting through it if you need to. Cost/Benefit analysis is thought of as a Business Procedure, but you are in the business of remaining solvent if possible. Your Family and Yourself could have no more critical business to attend to. LET'S START AT HOME What is your Day? What do you spend your time doing? As the grip of debt grows tighter, time is what you have to spend; some days it may be all you have to spend. Roll with it. Panic doesn't solve anything. The basics of course are: * Water * Food * Shelter. We take water for granted, but that's a different subject. Once your children (family) are fed and sheltered, in a sense everything after that is extra. Believe it or not one of the next priorities is 'entertainment', not TV, Dancing, Big Screen type entertainment. I mean, what do you do with your time? MONEY vs TIME Most of our society is trained that entertainment means, 'Where should we spend our Money'. The kind of entertainment I mean is 'How should we spend our TIME?' Those of you with small children realize that sometimes it doesn't matter how much you spend, sometimes it just ain't 'entertaining' to the audience. Sit down with everyone in your Family that 'spends' money and discuss the daily expenditures. Write them down. I know we've all heard that before, 'Write down where ever penny goes'. It really will open your eyes to corners you can cut. Prioritize these possible reductions. Analyze your day, making decisions as to 'necessity', 'entertainment value' and 'cost per hour of entertainment'. Things like 'Should we give up the daily and weekend paper? That $12 a month could be spent better.' But when considered as the hours you spend reading the paper, Sunday Comics, Editorials etc, is $12 a month expensive? You've done something you enjoy for Hours a week. Is it worth Buying DVD's? Again, I don't know about you, but I don't buy a DVD or CD unless it's something I know I'll watch or listen to many times. I consider a Classic Movie, especially with 'Special Features' to be a very enjoyable use of time, every time I watch it. Is it worth paying for Cable TV or Satellite? A good internet connection is something I consider a basic necessity. I use DSL and get my phone bill from the same company. Depending on the area in which you live, the combination may be Cable + Internet, or Dish + whatever, you will make that determination as part of the Plan you are going to formulate before you finish this document. My Cable system uses a tier system and it is quite a financial jump to go to a higher tier to get 1 or 2 channels. On the other hand they also offer Hi-Speed Internet. For the sake of educating our children I put quite a bit of 'weight' on access to a good internet connection. We can't go to the Library 5 times a day. Admittedly there are many concerns with the internet as well as TV, but in my estimation more selective value can be garnered from the internet than is available on TV. As far as the rest of the offerings from TV and the 'Entertainment Media' which lately includes the shows I remember that were known as 'News'. Years ago they were labeled a 'wasteland', now wasted land maybe. If you look at our 'Post Modern' cycle of 'Marketing that which they all need', (Because we told them so), you may notice that ALL TV Programs are selling something, even without the 55 minutes per hour of commercials, the 'show' is selling something. Watch closely, if you dare to watch. The subtle persuasive techniques can have you spending in a flash, almost whether you want to or not. SOME CHOICES If your decision may include bankruptcy, more education is in order. Because people are usually not aware of the differences between chapter 13 and chapter 7, they are unsure of which bankruptcy chapter to file.
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