Attorney Charles Laputka Talks About Eliminating Debt

 

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today on “This Needs to Be Said” listen, you know, when someone visits us for the first time, they’re guests, maybe the second time, but I instantly fell in love with the energy of this attorney. So I’m a little bit biased. So he’s already going to be our friend. So attorney Laputka is back and we’re going to talk about eliminating debts in today’s conversation, and he has some books to share. Get your pen and paper out and don’t miss a thing. Welcome back, attorney Laputka, how are you?

I am wonderful. Thank you very much. I hope you’re having a great day today.

I am having a fantastic day. Super is really my word. Super-duper, we’re going to talk about, eliminating debt and you’re currently our conversation. Last time you talked about just how far back this went for you and it’s, to me, it’s like, it’s breathing for you to make sure people are making the best possible financial decisions they can make. Yet, you are a bankruptcy attorney who doesn’t focus just on that one thing of resending, but having a life after bankruptcy, but you talk about eliminating debt too. So I do have a curious question of my own. What if a person does not need to file bankruptcy, but they want, they have debt. They don’t have enough debt for bankruptcy maybe, but they don’t want that debt. Do you deal with that person as well?

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Absolutely! We certainly do. And you know, that’s a question I get often as well, you know, how much do you need to have in order to file bankruptcy and great question The answer is, yeah, the, there is, there is no minimum amount of debt. It’s more of a situation of what makes sense. For example, if someone comes to me with $6,000 worth of debt and they make, you know, $80,000 a year and have no children and no other expenses then bankruptcy is probably not right, because that person can just trim their finances a little bit. And we would review, you know, a budget for them and try and get them on track to repay that, that, however, the same person that has six or $8,000 in debt that is making $36,000 a year, single mom, two children may not have the ability to repay that six or $8,000 a debt and bankruptcy may be more beneficial for them.

So there is no minimum amount, but let me tell you what the alternatives are. So the alternatives are, like I mentioned, for the higher wage earner, we can just take a look at your budget and find a way that you can pay down the debts faster to eliminate those high interest charges. Or a lot of times we can do a type of debt settlement. Maybe we can negotiate with you on behalf of yourself with the debtor. So if you will, you know, capital one, for example, $6,000, we may be able to settle that debt. If you have 3030 $500, we may be able to negotiate with capital one and reduce your debt from six or 8,000 to three or 4,000. So there are definitely alternatives to bankruptcy.

Wow. I’m glad I did ask that question then. So yeah, that was my, that was my curious question because I, you know, I would have never thought to go to a bankruptcy attorney to help me. I wouldn’t have thought of that. Not unless I needed to go.

So the last conversation we had about foreclosure, right If you’re behind on your credit card bills and you call the bank, they’re going to give you their options. And if you don’t know your rights or, or know your other options, then you’re inclined to believe that that’s the only solution to the problem. And it’s not necessarily.

And even though he’s talking about resetting of finances, I just want to put in a little note that this is with your life all the way around, there are ways more than one way to skin a cat. There’s more than one answer to the question because we’re all different. We’re all humans, but we’re all different. So whatever you did differently, and your slice of life will be different from mine. And our outcome will be different but there are options. The whole conversation is there are choices. We don’t want you to feel hopeless and helpless and alone. And that, you know there’s no way out. And this conversation is about finances, but all areas of your life have a way out. And I hope that we have those conversations. It seems like, come on, jump in.

Okay. Absolutely! So I just wanted to say that those two things that I just mentioned to you are kind of outliers in my average potential client situation. Generally my average potential client is a couple, maybe with, you know, a child or two or three children, and they’re making a decent living, but they just can’t get ahead, there’s so many people out there that are right on the edge, right they’ve got no savings. They’re living paycheck to paycheck. You know, maybe it’s a household of four and they have a hundred thousand dollars a year in income. That sounds like, why should they have any financial problems but if they’re also carrying 40 or $50,000 worth of credit card debt, then those payments on that credit card that can be 1800 or $2,000 a month so all of a sudden that’s substantial income is being eaten up by the credit card debt.

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And one of the things that bankruptcy can do in addition to helping people with foreclosure, like we talked about last time is just eliminating that debt. So sometimes people are not behind on their mortgage, or they don’t even own a home, but they just get money in the bank to save for an emergency because they’re constantly paying the credit cards and filing a bankruptcy is a way to eliminate that credit card debt so that you can make positive strides financially in the future. And I’ve written two books about this. The first book I’ve written is called road to freedom from debt. That was the first book I ever wrote about six years ago. And it’s been very popular and it really talks about the, the way bankruptcy works.

And it gives a little, a few tales about past clients. I’ve had, obviously we’ve changed the names and faces to protect the innocent, like they say on television, but we have some stories for people to identify with so that they understand, you know, they’re not alone in this situation. The average, the average us household has at least 10, if not $20,000 in credit card debt. And that can make all the difference in the world between having money in savings account or living paycheck to paycheck, wondering how you’re going to afford to fix a flat tire on your car this week kind of thing.

Yes. Wow.

Wow. After I wrote that book, I wrote a second book called rebuilding your life after bankruptcy, which is to let everybody know that bankruptcy is not the end of your life. I’ve been doing this Katherine for 20 years and 20 years ago. I can tell you the filing bankruptcy had more of a negative impact or a negative connotation than it does today after the recession that we had in 2008. And now with the, you know, people out of work from COVID getting by on their credit cards, you know, the, the impact of a bankruptcy to your credit is less than ever. And like you said before, we believe in treating people holistically. So when you come to my office with this situation, not only are we going to help you get out of debt, but this other book that I wrote is about a program that I have to help you rebuild your credit and learn the tools you need to stay out of this expensive debt game in the future, learn how to set up a savings account to use as an emergency instead of your capital one card or your American express. So we want to eliminate the debt and set people up for success going forward.

I love it. So how do they get a copy of those books and also how do they get in touch with you?

Absolutely! So the best way to get in touch with me and also coincidentally, to get a copy of the book is to go on my website. The website is www dot laputka law dot com. That’s L A P U T K A L A W.com on that website on my homepage, you’ll see an opportunity for you to fill out a form, give me your name and address, and we’ll send you copies of those books so that you can take a look. We also give you an opportunity to schedule a free consultation. And what I’ll tell you is when you fill out those forms, I’m going to email you copies of my books right away, that you can read on a Kindle or an iPad, or, you know, they’re, they’re in PDF format. You can even print them out if you want it, but we’ll also send you a physical copy of the book in the mail.

I love it. I love it. So make the website the very last thing that people hear, and then we’re going to get out of here. You have an amazing day. Absolutely!

Thank you. You too! Www dot LAPUTKA LAW dot com is where you go to get in touch with me and get copies of our free books.

Awesome! Okay. Until next time, it was nice talking with you today.

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