A debt discharge is the goal of consumer debtors when they file bankruptcy. In Chapter 7, a discharge may not be available to everyone. To ensure that potential filers were not abusing the system, Congress created a Mean’s Test that debtors must “pass” in order to invoke Chapter 7 bankruptcy relief. When computing the Mean’s Test formula, there are several steps to
Since the Chicago Tribune coined the phrase in a 1986 editorial, stating “We’ve become a nation measuring out our lives in shopping bags and nursing our psychic ills through retail therapy”, shopping with the primary purpose of improving the buyer’s mood or disposition has achieved a certain legitimacy – and has become a contributing factor in
There is a national organization, Debtor’s Anonymous, which is based on the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous and uses AA’s 12 Steps to address the problem of unmanageable debt. This program is not a substitute for bankruptcy by any means, being primarily aimed at helping people avoid incurring additional debt, but it is potentially a very useful tool