Tracy A. Carr - How to Survive and Prosper After a Financial Misfortune: A Complete Guide to Your Legal Rights After Bankruptcy, Foreclosure, Repossession, and Eviction

A few years back we lost our beloved pet dog Bear, who was not only our best and dearest friend but also the Vice President of Sunshine here at Atlantic Publishing. He did not receive a salary but worked tirelessly 24 hours a day to please his parents.

Bear was a rescue dog who turned around and showered myself, my wife, Sherri, his grandparents Jean, Bob, and Nancy, and every person and animal he met (well, maybe not rabbits) with friendship and love. He made a lot of people smile every day.

We wanted you to know a portion of the profits of this book will be donated in Bears memory to local animal shelters, parks, conservation organizations, and other individuals and nonprofit organizations in need of assistance.

Douglas and Sherri Brown

PS: We have since adopted two more rescue dogs: first Scout, and the following year, Ginger. They were both mixed golden retrievers who needed a home.

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

• Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.
• Support local and no-kill animal shelters.
• Plant a tree to honor someone you love.
• Be a developer put up some birdhouses.
• Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.
• Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.
• Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.
• Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.
• Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.
• If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.
• Support your local farmers market.
• Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all of the individuals who have gone through the turmoil of financial misfortune and have struggled to find a way out. Rest assured, there is a way to turn your life around and get back on track.

Foreword: Moving Past Crippled Debt

Financial disaster can strike anyone at any time. It most often takes the form of a medical emergency, job loss, or divorce, but the severity of the impact of a financial crisis varies widely.

Families with a savings cushion and no credit card debt can typically weather a short-term storm with few lasting effects. But for families living on the edge financially, job loss or a severe illness can push high credit card balances past their limits, leaving them unable to meet even basic financial commitments.

I suspect you are reading this book because you fall in the latter category. At this point, the damage is likely done, and you are weighing which option is best for you and your family. Whether it is credit counseling, debt settlement, or even bankruptcy, it is important to not only focus on your options for getting out from under your debt, but also to gather the tools that will help you build a healthy financial future after your debt has been resolved.

Before embarking upon any debt reduction effort, it is important to understand the options available and whom they are best suited for. There are three basic ways to alleviate debt each very different, and each with its own impact on your credit score and total debt. If you have yet to file for bankruptcy or become involved with a particular debt relief alternative, weigh each of these options and determine which is the right fit for your unique situation: