Carlos Arboleda

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First off, we are not saying bankruptcy is always the best choice or that Arizona is always the best place to file bankruptcy. After all, bankruptcy is primarily controlled by federal law with certain exemption amounts and other issues being state specific.
Since Arizona is where we practice, we thought we’d outline why it may be a good idea to file bankruptcy in Arizona this year.
Reason 1: Time is Money
Dealing with debt is not something most people enjoy. It can be one of the most challenging times in your life and, frankly, something you want to avoid dealing
Continue Reading Top 3 Reasons to File Bankruptcy in Arizona in 2018

A recent article on Bloomberg is sounding the alarm for consumers burdened with debt. Over the last several years Americans have racked up a lot of consumer debt. During the economic crisis, Americans “deleveraged” quite a bit, but household debt has crept up ever since. Take a look at this chart below from the Federal Reserve.

You read that correctly, we are now at over 1 Trillion in credit card debt. Fortunately, the economy is doing much better than it was and employment has improved dramatically. This helps people with credit card debt keep their head above water.
But that
Continue Reading Rising Interest Rates Could Spell Trouble if You’re in Debt

If you haven’t read Part 1 about eliminating or reducing expenses, please read that first. The most important takeaway from Part 1 is that you must be debt free to retire. It simply makes no sense to try to retire with debt and still making monthly payments. An experienced debt settlement law firm like ours can help with this piece of the equation.
Assuming you’ve got your expenses under control, you’ll need to focus on lining up some reliable income. We’re assuming that you have no savings, i.e. no 401k, IRA or similar to draw from.
Social Security Income
Most
Continue Reading How to Retire in Arizona without Savings: Part 2

Okay, first off, we are not advocating that you don’t save for retirement. But the cold reality is that most people do not adequately save for retirement. In fact, many people have less than $1,000 in savings. Yet, people seem to find ways to “retire” anyway. Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of creative approaches to retirement, so we thought we’d share some with you.
Before we begin, let’s discuss some fundamentals. In order to successfully retire without savings, you’ll need to find ways to reduce your expenses and line up some sort of regular income. That may seem
Continue Reading How to Retire in Arizona without Savings: Part 1

Another very common reason that people go in debt is divorce. This is especially true if there are children involved. At first, if you haven’t been through a divorce, it seems like you could avoid debt. You may wonder what the big deal is, just split everything 50/50 and move on. Why all the debt, right?
Unfortunately, most divorces are far messier. This is true even if the spouses are getting along okay during the divorce. The reasons are many. One of the biggest issues is that your expenses can nearly double. Instead of maintaining one household, you are now
Continue Reading Reason #3 People Get into Debt: Divorce

People tend to think of their businesses as separate from their personal finances. Most people set up their small business as an LLC or similar. They may think that whatever debt the business incurs wouldn’t affect them personally if things went south. Unfortunately, that’s rarely true.
Personal Guarantees on Business Debt
One of the sneaky ways your business debt can affect you personally is through the personal guarantee. For example, if you signed a lease for business space, chances are the landlord had you sign a personal guarantee of the lease. This puts you and your personal assets on the
Continue Reading Reason #2 People Get into Debt: Business Failure

In this series of three articles, we’re going to talk about three of the most common reasons people find themselves deeply in debt.
But first let’s address the elephant in the room. There is a very common stereotype out there that people who accumulate a lot of credit card debt or file bankruptcy are just reckless spenders who always buy the latest gadgets, clothes and dine out a lot. While those activities can certainly lead to debt problems, in reality, the causes are much more complex. Reckless spending can sometimes be an issue, but it’s these other three causes that
Continue Reading Reason #1 People Get into Debt: Medical Bills

We’re nearing the end of the year and peak gift giving season. Sometimes, this can mean helping a family member or friend get that new car or home they want. But if their credit is less than stellar or they have been struggling financially, they may ask you to co-sign on the loan for them. Even if you trust this person and have faith that they’ll pay the loan back, co-signing is almost always a bad idea.
No One Can Predict the Future
No one can predict the future, and people act differently about money than almost anything else in
Continue Reading 3 Reasons Not to Co-Sign on a Loan

Credit card debt is what we call unsecured debt. That means that the only “security” the bank has for you to pay it back is the piece of paper that is the Credit Card Agreement. It’s not directly secured by your home or other assets. Of course, if the credit card company gets a judgment against you, in theory, it could pursue your other assets, but that is a different topic.
Because credit card debt is unsecured, it’s considered pretty low on the hierarchy of debt. At or near the top would be student loans (which are extremely difficult to
Continue Reading Don’t Use a Secured Loan to Pay Unsecured Credit Card Debt

As we come to the end of the year, it’s a good time to reevaluate finances. Dealing with debt is no fun and people tend to put it off if they can. Sometimes that works, but most of the time it doesn’t. In the meantime, you might be losing out in ways you didn’t think about. So here are 3 reasons to consider settling and resolving your debt problem in 2017.
1. The Future Looks Better
Even if you’re struggling financially at the moment, you probably believe things will improve in the future. You might even be working on something
Continue Reading 3 Reasons to Settle Debt in 2017