A blog about debt, credit and bankruptcy

February 1, 2019 By Jen Lee

Got Debt? Your Employer Should Care

Every night, I get Google Alerts with various key words about bankruptcy, debt, credit scores, etc. I know, sounds exciting, right?

Well, last night, I got an alert about a CNBC article titled, “Got Debt? Your boss wants to help with that.” I got excited because I talk about financial stress in the workplace ALL the time and the fact that it costs employers $7,000 per year per employee in productivity (I even wrote a white paper about it).  I read the article with great hope but ended up feeling that like so many previous articles, that this one too missed the boat.  

The article misses the basic point that many of the employees face current stresses and need quicker solutions to the day-do-day problems they are facing.  Talking about budgeting or 401k options is great but won’t help someone deal with a child’s student loans or the stresses caused by buying a house they can’t afford.   Financial stress is not about budgeting or picking the right 401k options! Financial stress is not about inviting financial advisors into the workplace for a free lunch and learn so that they can get your information and sell you insurance products! Financial stress is figuring out how to deal with a wage garnishment  on your new spouse  or a collections lawsuit or what to do with an IRS tax lien because you are behind on taxes or all three at once. Then, there’s the student loan situation. No amount of budgeting will pay off $200,000 in student loans on a $40,000 salary.

No one talks about options. No one explains the various legal scenarios that may help an employee  find a path  to resolve a difficult situation. No one goes through why taking multiple 401k loans may be a bad idea. It’s all focused on budgeting and basic financial education.  Basic financial education is not helpful when someone is in crisis mode. Basic financial education is helpful BEFORE someone gets in that situation. Statistics show that more than 50% of Americans are  beyond  the point where basic financial education is even helpful to their situation. More importantly, it’s isolating and dismissive of their actual problems. Employees are not going to  be motivated to hear about things they know they should be doing but can’t do until they resolve THEIR BIG ISSUE.   On top of that, since no one else is talking about their  REAL  debt and credit problems, they think they are the only ones with this type of problem. They couldn’t be more wrong.

Instead of addressing the problem, employers are doing everything they can to ignore the elephant in the room. Buzz words like “Financial Wellness” and “Financial Literacy” and “Financial Well-Being” are used instead of talking about the actual problems employees face.

Wake up, Employers.  If you really want to help your employees become more productive, help them find the right tools so they can solve their problems and get back to work.  

Here is the link to the actual article. If your company is looking for a great way to improve the bottom line and help employees, Jen Lee Law, Inc.’s Employees Are Assets™ program gets down to the root of the problem so employees are happy and the company can thrive.

This is just a basic overview and is not legal advice specific to your situation. If you have questions about your rights when it comes to debt and credit, you should speak with an attorney in your area for legal advice. If you live in California or North Dakota and would like to speak with Jen Lee Law regarding your situation, please schedule an appointment.

January 25, 2019 By Jen Lee

Meet Bernadebt – the Elephant in the Room!

Hi, my name is Bernadebt.

I am the elephant in every room.

Lots of people have debt and credit problems, but no one wants to talk about it.

When you walk in a room, imagine that half of those people have a debt or credit problem.

What??!!

Other people have debt or credit problems? Yes, over 50% of Americans have some sort of debt or credit problem they are struggling with.

But, that’s not what you see on Facebook? You mean people are not talking about their debt and credit problems on Facebook?? It makes you feel very isolated and that you are alone in dealing with this problem.

My name is Bernadebt and I was created to help you understand that you are not alone.

I am the elephant in every room.

January 10, 2019 By Jen Lee

The Most Important Part of Your New Year’s Resolution

Every year, we all vow to lose weight and pay off debt. We are very predictable creatures. Those are the top two resolutions for people who actually make resolutions. While it’s great to have a goal, many forget the most important part of reaching a goal:

Create a plan!

When it comes to debt, it’s very hard to pay off all of your debt if you don’t know how much you owe, what your options are, what you can do, and when you should do it. I often see people give up on their goals because the goal is so big that it becomes this overwhelming thing that you can’t even imagine.

So, what does a plan look like? Where should you start?

List out everything you owe, including balances and monthly payment amounts. This is the scariest step, but it really helps to figure out where to go next.
If the list looks overwhelming, commit to getting yourself some professional advice on your rights and options (schedule with Jen Lee Law).
Create a budget so you know how much you have to pay towards debt every month.
Decide on the order you want to tackle the accounts.
Develop a few milestone points where you celebrate what you’ve accomplished.

Finally, remember that your plan has to be based on what works for you. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to accomplishing any goal (see last week’s post about more than one way to skin a cat). If you know that you need someone to keep you accountable, find that person. If you know that you have a weakness for online shopping, delete your saved credit card information out of the shopping cart (Amazon, I’m looking at you). If you know that numbers are not your friend, ask for help. You can always schedule an appointment on our website to review your budget and your rights and options.

January 3, 2019 By Jen Lee

Lies You Find on The Internet

Nothing makes me more frustrated than finding out someone read something on the internet that was wrong and then it influenced that person’s decision.

Last week, I had a colleague reach out to me regarding a company that his client hired to help him with some debt issues. The client thought he had done debt consolidation, but the company’s information on their website says that they only do debt settlement or debt negotiation. So, the first issue was the client likely did not fully understand what he had signed up for in the first place.

Then, I started looking at the company’s website. It gave wrong information about the benefits of their program and also very wrong information about the difference between debt settlement and bankruptcy. Here is the paragraph from their site that I am going to pick apart:

“Bankruptcy is an option that is generally treated as a last resort and if you need to protect appreciating assets. It will remain on your credit report for as long as 10 years & you can be denied employment, state licenses, insurance, as well as tenancy of an apartment. Most importantly, you can be denied virtually any type of credit with a bankruptcy on your report for several years. In addition, since the bankruptcy laws have changed recently, it is even more difficult to qualify for Chapter 7, the method of liquidating assets to eliminate your debt. You will not be allowed to discharge alimony, child support, taxes, student loans, judgments, or any loan on the bankruptcy petition. Under Chapter 13 bankruptcy, your debt payments are simply restructured meaning you will still have to pay a percentage of your debts while you suffer the consequences of bankruptcy. Debt negotiation is an alternative to bankruptcy.”

How is this wrong? Let me count the ways.

There are very specific situations where a bankruptcy can be used against you in employment and they are very few. I did an interview on this topic with Kira Feick of Ignite HR because it’s such a misconception.
For insurance, your credit score cannot be used to raise your rate or deny you insurance in California. If you consent to using your credit score, the only thing the insurance company can do with it is lower your rate.
You can be denied credit for anything at any time, whether you have a bankruptcy or not. However, you qualify for a mortgage a year after bankruptcy and a car loan immediately after bankruptcy. You will receive credit card offers BEFORE your bankruptcy is completed. If you are in a debt settlement program, you will not get credit because all of your accounts are in collections.
The bankruptcy laws have not recently changed. The last time there was a significant change in qualifying for bankruptcy was 2005 (14 years ago…). There are also a number of ways to qualify for Chapter 7 (and sometimes Chapter 13 is a better route – see last week’s post).
The list of things they say you cannot discharge is pretty much wrong. You can discharge taxes in many circumstances, judgments, and all personal loans.
Finally, they try to scare you by saying that in Chapter 13, you still have to pay your debts back. Shocking. You have to pay more back with “debt negotiation” than with Chapter 13 in most cases. Again, see my recent post on what’s so great about Chapter 13, because people generally recover much more quickly from filing Chapter 13 than trying a multi-year debt settlement program.

Researching online can be a good thing, but make sure that you make your final decision based on knowing all of your rights and options, not just the one they are trying to sell you.

December 27, 2018 By Jen Lee

There’s More Than One Way to Skin a Cat…and Other Bad Clichés.

We’re often talking about resolutions and fresh starts at this time of year. So, I’m going to go off on a little philosophical side-trip through a problem that I see happening a lot and it has more to do with mindset and misinformation than anything else. And, it doesn’t just happen in the debt and financial world, but I see it with almost every industry out there. The tendency for people to say things like:

“That’s not how things are done.”
“That’s not how we do things.”
“You can’t do that, no one else does it like that.”
“I can’t do anything about it because I don’t have any other choice.”

Many of our blog posts come from recent news or client experiences. This particular blog post comes from my own recent experience and the realization that there are a lot of people out there who do not realize that there is more than one way to do things, including dealing with debt and credit problems.

Have you ever posted something on Facebook that you thought was a great thing and just wanted to share it with your friends? Then, someone comes in and tells you whatever great thing you posted was not the way things should be done and there is nothing you can do to convince him otherwise? At first, I wanted to be annoyed with the comment, but then realized that I deal with this every day. I hear all day, every day, that there are no options, no one to help, and that even if there is an option, it’s the end of the world.

What if there are other ways to do things? What if there are other options? Would you want to know about them? Here are a few tips when your mind tells you something is impossible or can’t be done because blah blah blah:

Stop. Pause for a second. Stop jumping to “this won’t work.” This is one of the hardest things to do. I still catch myself immediately trying to come up with reasons something won’t work and have to stop my brain from running away with reasons.
For each suggestion or idea, try to come up with a way to make it work, even if it feels a little silly. Instead of making excuses for why something won’t work, try to think of any possible way it could work.
Look for others with ideas and solutions. Don’t look for others who are making the same excuses or avoiding trying new things. To be a bit blunter, get out of your bubble. I know it’s comfy there, but the tendency to fall back into the notion that things have to be done a certain way is much higher in the bubble.
Finally, when you do find out your options and realize that there is more than one way to do something, keep moving forward and make decisions. It’s easy to try and hide from difficult situations, but the stress of not doing anything about the problem is way worse than the hope you feel when you start acting on your options.

So, I realize this post has very little to do with the technical aspects of solving debt and credit problems, but what if? What if there is someone out there who can help you? What if thinking about doing something differently would help your business succeed? What if finding others who don’t think things have to be done the way they’ve always been done helps you move forward?

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