Bankruptcy is Inevitable

These last few months have been brutal. I go weeks without checking my email, I've considered changing my phone number, the onslaught of people wanting money is never-ending. Don't get me wrong, I want to pay back everything that I've ever borrowed, and I have made a lot of progress since my original business went under. But, the pandemic was the final nail in the coffin. Now, it's a struggle just to keep our bills current.

Just as a quick recap, I started a business a few years back. It did really well for a couple of years, which enabled me to take loans out to help grow the business. I thought I was doing everything right, but what I didn't prepare for was for the economy to shift and for our business to no longer be viable. Which is exactly what happened. To be clear, it was more of a drought than a complete loss, but I wasn't prepared for it.

Those loans that I took out, I personally guaranteed, which means that if the business failed I was still on the hook. I was too confident in what we had going to think that would ever happen. But it did. And so I went back to work and continued to try to pay down an entire business's debt on top of providing for my wife and kids. And I made progress, I really did. I paid down something like $15,000 of debt.

Enter Covid. No more job, months and months of waiting between unemployment checks. Which by the time I got, were barely able to get us caught up on our normal monthly bills. I know some say that the increased unemployment is causing people to not want to work, but for someone like me, I've been applying all over the place, but I can't find anything above an entry-level position for a franchise business like McDonald's or Lowe's. I'm honestly afraid taking something like that would set my career back once everything gets back to normal... if it ever does.

Anyways, so now we're considering selling everything and moving and starting fresh somewhere with more opportunity. It all sounds great, except my credit is absolutely shot. I need to file bankruptcy to get out of this mountain of business debt. However, if I file bankruptcy, I won't be able to buy a new house for something like 7 years, and any decent landlord isn't going to rent to someone that's going through bankruptcy. So, what do I do?

I got through a really dark depression when all of this started. I would lay in bed at night and seriously consider taking my own life. I weighed the pros and cons for hours every night. Fortunately, I was able to come out the other side because of my family. I love my wife and kids more than anything in this world, and I will get myself back up, dust myself off, and I will fight to get out of this mess, no matter what it takes... We're down to less than $100,000 in debt now, and even though time is running out, I still have hope that I can turn this around...

So, if this whole situation has taught me anything, it's that failure is temporary. Almost every successful business person has had at least one major failure on their record and they've bounced back. If I'm going to be great, if I'm going to make the world a better place, and if I'm going to build something to hand down to my kids then I need to take charge of this situation and fix it. And that's just what I'm going to do. If you're in a similar situation, don't let it get you down. It's not a failure unless you give up.

If you're interested in following the journey, stick around, I'll be updating this frequently.