Well you decided to file bankruptcy under Chapter 7, and a few months and a few meetings and a couple thousand dollars later, your debts are now discharged. What happens next to your credit, and what can you do after Chapter 7 bankruptcy to rebuild your financial life?
The idea behind a Chapter 7 filing is to give you a fresh start. If you were able to file Chapter 7, it’s likely that you don’t have a regular source of income, since anyone with income may be moved into Chapter 13 to repay some debts within a bankruptcy plan. So, if you now find yourself after Chapter 7 bankruptcy discharge, you probably need to consider how to get some significant, regular income coming in, and figure out how to pay any debts that were not discharged in your bankruptcy.
For example, if you had any student loans, you will still be responsible for those. So, you may want to talk to your loan servicing company to see if you qualify for any kind of hardship forbearance, or other way to pay less on your monthly payments. You want to try to keep these current though. At this point, you may not easily be able to get any other credit due to your filing, and these student loans will help you by giving you something current to appear on your credit report. So don’t let these payments get behind!
You may want to start getting credit again, to try and rebuild your credit file. But it will be hard to get lenders to approve you with the bankruptcy on your file, and also if you have no regular income. Getting that regular income is of primary importance right now. Try everything you can think of to get back into a job. And don’t jump too quickly into another credit nightmare either. Learn to live within your means by using a monthly budget, and learn to get past the desire to buy whatever you want, based on your old credit card habits. Remember that buying things on credit means you can’t really afford it anyway, or you wouldn’t need the credit!
After Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you now have a clean slate, and you should make the most of it by fixing your financial resources, getting steady income in place, and working to pay any left over debt on time. Everything else can wait until you are successful in building back your credit by paying on time the debts you still have.
