My own may be in the future, and just wondering if anyone has advice, etc.? Regrets, best thing you ever did, how did you find a competent lawyer, is trying to negiotiate with creditors on your own better?
I’m thinking being saddled with a negative credit report for 10 years is better than being shackled to credit card companies for 20+ years.
This is really more of an IMHO thing. I’ll shoot it over ther for you.
Well, a few questions about bankruptcy first:
1.) Do you legitimately owe the money?
This question goes a long way towards answering what the right course of action is.
The second question is:
–Can you cover the interest payments for the moment?
If the answer to both questions is ‘yes,’ I would not recommend bankruptcy.
Sure, it rolls off your credit report after 7 or 10 years (I forget which.) But when it comes time to buy a home, right there on the mortgage app it will ask you: Have you EVER declared bankruptcy?
A lot can happen with the passage of time. Inflation is your friend, and the Fed is flooding the system with money.
You may get a better job, you may get a pay raise, you may inherit some money.
If you should lose your job, or have to pay medical bills all of a sudden, and can’t even come up with the interest payments, you could declare bankruptcy then, and I think that’s ok. But if you’re in a position to take care of your business partners (i.e., your creditors), by making progress, however small, then I think you should stick to your guns come hell or high water.
It’ll take years (probably not 20 years–I’ll bet you could do it in about 3 years, if it’s a typical case of getting in over your head in consumer debt, and you can get really aggressive about repayment–which involves harnessing a lot of that emotional energy that is driving you toward a bankruptcy lawyer.)
But when you’re done, the skills you’ve learned and the habits you’ve developed over 3 years of earning less than you make are going to make you a much, MUCH better steward of your money when you are out of debt and all of a sudden have money left over to invest or give away. What a great feeling!
But so many times, people declare bankruptcy and come out of it with the same ingrained habits that got them into unmanageable debt in the first place. And 2 years later, they’re right back in hot water again, and they can’t declare bankruptcy.
But if you and your loved ones can beat this, you’ll have won a permanent victory.
Here’s a couple of good resources to help you:
http://www.myvesta.org/
http://daveramsey.com/
Also, while you’re fighting off debt, take some time also to educate yourself about investing
I’d start with “Financial Peace,” by Dave Ramsey, “The Richest Man in Babylon,” and then “Get Rich Slow”
When you see what’s possible with compound interest working FOR you instead of against you, that’s a powerful motivator. 
A quick note: I’ve been there. I owed over $20,000, mostly in college loans, although about 6,000 was in stupidity loans. <g> Some of those were at as high as 24% interest. Lost my job when I was 26, and my income was cut in half for nearly 4 years. So there I was making $16,000 per year. But I learned to live on very little and was still able to make progress very slowly throughout that time.
Finally I scraped up enough money to get out of that small, low-wage town and quickly got a job (as a personal finance reporter. Imagine that! <g>) which more than doubled my income, but my debt remained the same. My disposable income (that available for debt servicing) increased nearly ten-fold as a result.) Thanks to the EXTREMELY painful lessons of adversity, I learned to live on much less than I make, and was debt free within a year and intend to stay that way.
And thanks to that experience, I’m able to contribute the maximum to my 401(k) (16% of my income) and I expect to be able to max out an IRA contribution by the end of the year, too.
Had I not gone through that experience, which forced me to become very aware about money, and where it goes and how it’s used, and which caused me to reflect long and hard about how I can be a better steward of my own money, I would not have gotten this job, and I’m sure I’d still be living paycheck to paycheck.
I’ll never forget how discouraged I was, though, between about 1997 and 1999. But with a lot of discipline and sacrifice little luck, that, too, can pass.
Hang in there, friend!