Bankruptcy Equity Home Loan Guide | Reasons for filing (or not filing) bankruptcy

Reasons for filing (or not filing) bankruptcy

Filed Under Advice, Basic information | Leave a Comment

Filing bankruptcy can be an effective way to plan for a prosperous, worry-free retirement. Many people have little savings in their retirement plan, or have debts that they can never realistically repay.

Let’s say you have a total credit card debt of $20,000 at an interest rate of 16%. The minimum payment of this debt is 2.5% per annum. If you so chose to pay the minimum payment in order to clear your debt, you’re looking at approximately 38 years to bring this debt balance back to zero. The interest generated over this 38 year span will equal approximately $30,000, more than the original amount owned in the first place, and totals $50,000 in the money you actually pay back. Most of us simply don’t have that many working years remaining, and those that do probably don’t want to spend 38 years clearing their debt.

If instead you were able to put the same amount of money into a retirement plan each year, you will end up having significantly more in the end. Mathematically, if you invested the same amount it took to pay off your debt ($50,000) into an RSP that generated 6% interest, you would end up with about $315,000 to put towards retirement after 38 years.

Of course filing bankruptcy should be considered only if your debt is too overwhelming. Bankruptcy will ruin your credit, and make other aspects of your life more difficult. You may find it impossible to hold onto credit cards (even bank accounts), apply for a loan, rent a car, or in some cases even get a job. Bankruptcy can be avoided by keeping a strict budget based on your earnings. Credit cousiling is available to you if you are having problems working through your debt or finding your budget unmanagable.

Here are some things to consider whether or not to file for bankruptcy:

Comments

Leave a Reply