Unless you have serious assets that you need to protect, you can do a very simple bankruptcy in most states with a documentation company, rather than a full-blown lawyer deal. But if you have a home and a retirement plan (neither of which produces cash, of course), the lawyer's definitely worth it.

Have you tried negotiating with the lender to avoid repossession, e.g., by making partial payment? Unless the truck is virtually new and you made a sizeable down-payment, they don't really want to repo it...but they do need to get some $$$ from you on a regular basis.

It's a 2006 with low mileage, and I made a *really* small down payment. So maybe that'll help me.

I have no assets! So that might help me also... save the one horse, but I paid cash for him -- I don't think that could be touched by this?

@Consumatrix If you don't deal with them now, they *will* repossess the truck, and you'll have to pay everything you owe them plus towing fees, etc. to get it back. Had it happen to a couple of friends. So call them and see if you can work out some kind of payment plan to get you back on track.

Other than the truck, what else do you owe that would necessitate declaring bankruptcy? Credit cards? Most credit card companies are desperate right now to get any kind of cash, and will agree to a "settlement" that is a fraction of your current outstanding balance. Call them and ask about a settlement before you do anything else.

I have had experience in this, in that I worked in auto lending/repoing and had my car repo'd. I've also gone to a free bankruptcy consultation.

Basically, it differs bank to bank. Some are willing to negotiate, depending on the collateral, some aren't at all. In my case, they weren't at all, so I essentially told them "Ok, fine. Take the car. Sell it at auction for less than half it's value and then have fun charging that amount off when you realize I have no way of paying your massive repo and auction fees."

At Wachovia we would negotiate a new payment plan, interest and deferments if it meant saving ourselves from a massive charge off. In your case, since you say the down payment was really low, you might be able to do that, but it's hard to say at the moment.

As far as bankruptcy, at the time I was looking into it, I ONLY had medical debt, but I was informed that unless I actually had assets worth suing for, chances are, bankruptcy would really just be a waste of the $500 to file for it, considering it takes around 10 years for the bankruptcy to finally be overlooked in most situations and it only takes about 7 for charge offs and generally most lenders don't care about auto debt anyway.

Well to give you guys a quick outline (since I'm getting some good feedback here) I'm in for about 8 credit cards that are maxed out and late on payments ranging from $500-$2500 apiece for a total of.. I don't know? Maybe 10 or 12 grand?
I have the truck debt, I probably still owe around $11k on it.
I have various small loans on top of that for a total of about $2200 or so.
I think the one debt I don't have is medical debt. Oh wait, yes I do; for my insurance premiums that I wasn't able to pay while I was on disability.

I'm checking into this bankruptcy thing because at this point, being jobless with my only prospect on the horizon being a modeling gig, (hair modeling, at that, and it's probably not even a paid gig) I have absolutely nothing to put down on any of the loans/credit cards/etc and who knows when I'll be able to do any of it.

And shit. I thought things were bad before!

I guess my main problem right now is that I have no income so I'm not able to do anything... even file for bankruptcy.

LOL irony.

I know, it's ridiculous how much it costs to file BK. Honestly, I'm in various debts up to my eyeballs. But to be honest, a LOT of people are right now, so in the future credit analysts will be like "Oh yes, good ole 2009, when we ALL were in debt, that was something."

Try not to worry too much. Right now companies are struggling to keep afloat, let alone hunt down a few grand here and there and they don't have the money for legal actions they would have in the past. Just don't let them scare you and try not to let your debts get in the way of your productivity.

So far I only have one maxed credit card I'm unable to pay on, for about 2k and then after having some major issues with Wachovia, I ended up overdrawing and they fee'd me to death and I pretty much was like, sayonara, I'll pay you when I can, if I can. Then I owe the state money, but I should be able to fix most of that this coming week when I have a chance to run to the DMV. My boyfriend owes thousands to our own government in taxes right now. All in all, basically I know my credit is fucked. Big time. I know that in a lot of ways, only time can really help at this point. Luckily, I have lots of time, because lord knows I don't have any money.

I've been looking for a second job for the first time in my life lately and no one will even hire me for retail. I mean, I don't exactly have retail experience, but I thought places like Ralphs hired anyone. My company seriously put an ad out for a customer service person for only $8 an hour. We ended up getting over 200 resumes because people are so desperate for work, at this point, they'll take anything.

The only good advice I have on the repo front - if they can't find it, they can't take it.. so if you have a garage, put it in there ANY time you're home. If you don't, try parking it backwards (assuming your state doesn't have front plates)... my neighbour went through that a while ago, and they managed to keep the car (minivan actually) because they kept it hidden from the repo people until they could get everything straightened out with back payments and that.