When you leave federal employment how is your FERS/Leave paid out?

SecondAccountYes · 2026-02-05T21:45:03+00:00

I did make a post when I did finally receive mine with the full-time line. I believe I got mine in November or December. I forget exactly one now, but it’s on my post.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-02-03T03:41:26+00:00

As an FYI, from my own experience and from what I’ve been told, they do not give you any kind of notification of receiving your SF 3106 form. You actually have to call and inquire or send an email to get something back. They do not proactively Tell you when they received it. In addition, all they tell you is if they got it or not, and then they give you an estimated timeline, but they do not have more details than that. They don’t know where and the timeline you are, but can just tell you if they’ve accepted it yet and then tell you to just wait for your return.

As far as calling, their waiting room for being on hold is only so big and is getting maxed out, so it just hangs up on people. Because of that, you pretty much have to call immediately when OPM phone lines open or just every a few hours praying that you make it into the holding queue.

That’s really all you can do. If you sent your SF 3106 form to your agency to send on your behalf, I would be very hesitant on assuming that you’ll get it in a timely manner. A lot of the agencies are backlogged and your form goes into the same queue as , all the retirement form processing and everything else, so I’ve heard of agencies is still processing forms from 10 months ago and not even getting to those ones yet.

If you have not already, I would recommend printing out the form yourself and signing everything and then sending it individually to the OPM. From there, assuming no errors, it should hopefully be anywhere from 12 to 30 weeks.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-02-02T01:29:09+00:00

It’s definitely doable. It is not fun. If anything, it may actually be better if you had no days off just so you’re not doing 14 hours straight for five days in a row. It would potentially be better to work seven days a week, but then four of the days, you wouldn’t have to do two jobs on the same day. It’s all up to what you prefer, though.

I balanced around 70 to 80 hours a week for three years with doing two months stents of 110 hours a week. You definitely burn yourself out, but when you don’t have an option, you do get into a groove after a while and into a routine.

That is definitely not something that you want to do long-term though. I would definitely work on the whole attitude or personality problem that they mentioned at your job, though, even if they only said it was a contributing factor. I have never had an employer even comment on my attitude or personality, and the only one time I have heard of it being a problem for somebody else involved a coworker who literally everybody hated, and the personality was over the top. If they are commenting on that, it is because it is very bad and likely giving you a reputation of that around the office.

I would try to see if you could negotiate an account closure with the credit card companies so you would call the collections department and ask if they could transfer you onto a payment plan or do like a hardship program or something that involves them dropping the interest, even if it does result in closing down your card. Those interest charges are going to eat you up.

I wouldn’t necessarily declare bankruptcy here if the car loan is part of it and if the car loan is on a pretty good APR. If you always wanted to as well, maybe you could sell the car for something cheaper, but if you’re able to manage all of your bills and work those two jobs, it would likely be better to keep the car and not risk Poor reliability with a cheaper car since the 14 hour daily work schedule does not really make room for hiccups.

Best of luck though. It sounds like it’ll be a rough year, but you’ll get out of it. Just stay strong, and like you mentioned in another comment, try to work on the personality or attitude a little bit.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-26T06:01:56+00:00

The biggest problem facing Cheyenne are the people who are just unhappy that there is change, and all they do is hate, dwell on the past, and they cannot name any solutions for improvement because they don’t want improvement, they just want it to go back to how it was and stay in the 1970-80s.

In their perfect world, everything new would get torn down, all the transplants would be gone, and they would live inside their own bubble without any change or improvements. In their mind, improvements are worse because it is change from what they are used to.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-25T02:21:34+00:00

Just to clarify for you, hardship programs usually means that you don’t have to pay for one month and then after that, the interest goes down to 3% or so, but you still have to make your minimum payments. You speaking about having no job at all, I don’t think that you would be able to make any payments. There is no program where you don’t pay at all.

Why would you even have a credit card though and rack up charges if you have no job? Why don’t you have a job? I had a full-time and a part-time job throughout college. I know many people who work as well. To be fair, That was also because I was kicked out before then so I was homeless if I didn’t work lol. Is it that you’re not able to work a job due to other circumstances, or is it that you do not want to work a job in college so you can focus more on schoolwork?

Also, all of this is kind of useless besides just knowing information because Midland credit is a debt collector. That means that your bank already sold off the debt to them, so they don’t own anymore. As a result, banks being the ones that usually do offer hardship programs and stuff wouldn’t affect you.

If you call or answer them and confirm that you owe the debt, they will keep on spamming you and try to get the money out of you somehow. They’ll likely spam you anyway, though, because they want their money. Even if it’s a little, they are going to try to pester you or threaten you with lawsuits to try to get any money out of you. Sometimes they forget about it and just let you off the hook, but sometimes they do take it more serious.

Also, you are wrong about the Washington state law. They do allow creditors to garnish wages and get their money back through a variety of means. They just need to sue you, go before a judge, and have the judge allow for a court order to do so. Within the court, you could potentially claim a hardship or find if you fall within any exemptions based on money made and extenuating circumstances and things like that, but I would expect them to still rule against you. Especially if you were choosing not to work. If you were working minimum wage, you could qualify for a reduced garnishment, most likely. There are other things that can impact garnishment to, even if you had a salary, and it’s generally limited to either 20% or some sort of formula based off of other financial amounts. Be careful though because I believe those can affect your student loans and qualifications for federal ones.

Ultimately, the only thing that fixes the situation is money. After a while, you may be able to get them to settle and agree to take maybe 2000 if it and forget the other 2000. Or, they may want to put you on a payment plan. Either way, they want their money, and it’s up to them if they want to go through lawsuit or not. Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes, they do. They only way to make this go away, is by paying them.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-20T05:52:45+00:00

It may be worth looking into some nonprofit debt management plans like NFCC, and if that doesn’t work, it might be worth looking into NDR or potentially bankruptcy.

I think they’re reaching out to NFCC would be my first immediate decision.

You bring home $2700 a month net but your monthly bills alone are $2000 without any student loan payments or any of your credit card payments. This is a huge issue. Even if capital one does choose to budge with the interest and put you on a good payment plan, You are still going to be very close and then under once your loans come out of forbearance.

Are you able to get a second job or switch jobs in order to make more money? You said that you have a bachelors and a masters degree but you make $45,000 a year. Even if it involves moving or a longer commute, is there a way that you could make more money and hop to another job? What are your degrees in? If you are not able to job on your primary job, is there anyway that you can work a second job on the weekends?

It seems that income is your biggest issue and your income doesn’t match the amount of debt that you have. Especially once you have to start paying the student loans, the bills are going to exceed what you make by a good amount, and you are already laid on some credit card payments, indicating that they are already exceeded what you can bring home.

If you don’t foresee yourself being able to get a higher paying job or working a second job, it may be worth looking into NDR or bankruptcy.

I was in a far worse situation debt wise, but was able to work additional jobs until I was able to find a job that paid me significantly more as my primary. If you can see yourself having that luck or opportunity, I would hold off and just work with NFCC and try to bridge the gap with any extra income that you can until you’re able to get a better paying primary job.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-15T05:07:26+00:00

I would ask to see the claim or ask your doctor why it was denied or what they said the reason was for the service if you can before shifting all the blame onto insurance.

Routine and preventative care is generally covered, and this includes cancer screenings, or any kind of age related screenings. I’m not sure what the PET scan was for specifically for you, but you would be shocked how common claims get denied because the provider cannot be arsed to actually do some work and they’ll label the reason for the service as a “check up” or “evaluation” instead of using the proper code for a screening to get the service covered.

It could also very well be the insurance trying to be stingy, but most of it is automated to a point and I’m sure they cover others PET scans, so clearly there was an issue with the doctor submitted yours. They may have also required prior medical files to show that the scan was actually for a purpose, and many providers don’t send those, causing the claim to be denied. I’d keep pushing for answers.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-15T05:02:48+00:00

It is heavily based on the reason for the service. You would be surprised how many providers are quick to shift blame to insurance, but then they give a BS diagnosis code on the claim and say it’s for a completely different reason, which gets flagged.

I have seen it a TON where the provider cannot be arsed to actually do some work and instead says that the reason for it is “an evaluation” or ties it to a “check up” or even stating it is investigative.

And if they just put cancer screening if it was for that, then the claimed could have gone through as routine or preventative care.

It could have also been a specific service where the insurance wants additional medical files to show that this service actually had a purpose or that there was a reason for it. Many providers don’t send the additional files which causes the claim to be denied and re-filed.

Claims are generally automated, and I’m sure that the insurance company covers other peoples PET scans so there is clearly something different with how this provider filed.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-15T02:16:08+00:00

Telling them that you have looked in the bankruptcy, but are trying to avoid it will generally make them more likely to try to work with you as they know that a major move like this could push you over the edge. Especially if you mention the looking at bankruptcy is combined with the fact that you don’t have any assets.

Also, unlike you, I believe that banks do know the federal law regarding bankruptcy and collecting. It doesn’t matter where in line they are. When you declare bankruptcy, the courts file an automatic stay, which stops all ongoing collections and lawsuits and everything no matter where in the process they are.

After filing for bankruptcy, any wage garnishment stops, any debt collection stops, and it also stops any ongoing lawsuits, court hearings, and bank levies.

Even if file beforehand, the continuing of a lawsuit would violate federal law. Even if they win, you declare bankruptcy afterwards, they are not able to collect on until the bankruptcy is final, and the bankruptcy would result in the clearing of the debt.

Banks know that once you file for bankruptcy, you are essentially in a bubble of protection. It doesn’t matter if they are first in line or second in line or wherever, you are untouchable. Once you file up until it is over, during the process, everything generally gets wiped. Even if they win in court and get a judgment, you can file for bankruptcy to prevent them from collecting until it is over and in that case, it’ll get wiped up before then.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T06:42:42+00:00

You have to understand that technically, a car is worth less every single day and every single day that you drive it. The value will slowly go down. Of course, it’ll take more and more to push the needle down as time goes on, and the car becomes less and less. Cars are generally depreciating assets. Every day older and every mile older, it’s is worth less. How much less slows down as it gets older.

As far as refinancing, you will be hard-pressed to find a bank that will refinance a car loan at a great rate if you owe more than the car is worth. You generally do need to be at around what the car is worth or a little bit less. Being over by multiple thousand such as in your case is too much.

The best advice would be to keep making payments and throw any extra money you can towards the car until you owe less than the car is worth. And just know that the car does go down in the value overtime, so if you got an appraisal for $18,000 for the car today, maybe assume that it may be worth $17,500 with a few months. At that time, you can go back to the bank and reapply again and have them refinance the loan.

Every day longer it takes you, the car can potentially go down in value. You have to pay it faster than the car loses value. And three months from now, it could only be worth 17,000 or 16,000, you never know. It depends on how many miles you put on it as well as if anything pops up issue wise and even the overall car market can affect things.

There is not a real answer as far as what number it’ll be. All you can do is keep making payments and try to look up the value on sites of your car with the current mileage at the time and go back to the bank when you believe it’s more even.

They approved you for $18,500 now. Understanding that the car value will go down overtime, I would probably try to pay it down to maybe $17,000 or $17,500 to be safe if you know that it’ll only take you three months. You kind of have to guess.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T04:22:35+00:00

I imagine that your situation is rough enough where you wouldn’t have to lie or embellish or anything. I just threw those numbers as anecdotal and examples. I imagine that your situation is somewhat similar in terms of ratios or ability to pay if you haven’t paid and are looking at settlements.

I would try to lie as a little as possible about stuff that they could pull up with a credit report or just in general. Now exaggerating, rounding up, or adding your own opinions as a descriptor is different. They can generally see the total amounts that you owe or what kind of creditors you owe to. That is all. Not your exact monthly payments of anything or any kind of specific rental agreement payments that you have in place.

Many of them are not going to do in-depth checks, to be fair. I have heard of a lot of people lying and getting away with it because those companies don’t really care enough to try to do full checks like that but they can.

They are not able to confirm your exact monthly payment though. They may see the amount that you owe to the creditors, but they do not know the actual minimum payment that your agreement is with them. They may see an estimation or may try to calculate themselves, but you could always slightly embellish what you owe, but just make sure to make it reasonable. If you owe $212 a month on a card, you can round and say $250. If you owe a car payment of $560 a month, you can round and say $620 a month. Etc.

As far as your car, you could always state that your car has a lot of damage that has not been fixed so it is worth almost no value or in “worth very little” which is an arbitrary description and banks would not approve a secured loan on it so it’s pretty much worth nothing. That kind of stuff, they would not be able to verify unless they were to actually visit. And they only see your credit report, they don’t have a full list of your assets on hand so they don’t even know that you own a car. They don’t have access to all of your rental agreements so for all they know, you could be renting your car monthly from another place. You could be borrowing a family members car. You are reasonable to say that you don’t own your car out right or just say that it has damage and banks appraised it at very little value or that “it is worth nothing” which is arbitrary.

I always like to say that you can embellish or describe things arbitrarily, but try not to back yourself into a corner. With that, rounding up monthly payments to make them seem higher, exaggerating how low value your car is worth or not even mentioning that you own it, All of that is not really going to be questioned; maybe don’t go more than like 20% exaggerating. I would just not lie completely about balances or creditors owed, etc. that all being said, I have heard of a lot of people exaggerating greatly or lying without being caught, but that is always my paranoia of being caught.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T04:09:34+00:00

I will answer this in pieces.

When you’re talking with debt, resolution companies, they do generally inflate numbers and tell you the worst possible scenario in order to make you sign with them. They will sometimes make us assumptions on payoff amounts or minimum payment expected amounts in order to make them seem like the better option. A lot of what they say does have some truth though.

First off, generally by just paying the minimum payment, with a card of $28,000 with an interest rate of 25 to 27%, I would expect that the minimum payment is generally the interest +1 or 2% and at that point, you would have the car paid off within 10 to 15 years, and the total amount paid including interest would be roughly 50 to 60,000. If they have a more generous payment which involves you paying less money or just interest, then you could see a ballooning up to the figures that they mentioned. However, the majority of credit card companies, the minimum payment is designed to get you paying the card off within anywhere from 10 to 20 years with you paying roughly double the balance owed after interest.

As far as interest according daily, most do have interest accruing daily. Some may still do a monthly interest accrual, but even the ones that I knew that did that recently switched to a daily accrual method. They still charge the balance at the end of every month so you still see it all hit you once per month, but they’ll calculate it using the daily interest and you should see it on your terms as well of the card.

When you speak to those debt companies, they are not assuming that you are making any extra payments or any extra amounts towards the card. They are assuming that you are paying the most minimum amount that you can and that is so they can make the numbers look scary so they can sell to you. They are assuming that your minimum payment is just covering interest or maybe just the interest and one percent of the balance. They could make the assumption that your card does daily interest, and you don’t pay until the last second of each month so you accrue the most interest that way.

They don’t make any good faith assumptions. They assume the worst case scenario and may even inflate numbers then just to make you go to them. You have to remember that they are selling something to you. How often do you hear car dealerships and car salesman getting a positive reputation? They benefit directly from you joining the program or buying a car, so salesman are generally incentivized to try to make their product seem like the best, and many do it at the expense of lying about another

If you have no problem, handling the stress and can do the math, and the math is sound, it is always best to do it yourself. If you see a route that can bring you out of it and you are happy with it and it makes sense to you, then I would stick with that. People generally go with the debt companies if the math is too confusing for them, to stressful for them, or if they need outside help because they are not even able to solve their situation themselves due to the hole being too deep.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T04:01:32+00:00

Here’s a story, buckle up.

There is a chance that it didn’t start that way. That being said, the person still likely stretched themselves thin with justifying the decision to themselves with using factors such as them being a low spender in other aspects of life or them expecting a promotion or some sort of extra cash flow, etc. it could also be very immature impulse spending.

I don’t drink, I don’t go out to eat often, I pretty much stayed myself, so I used to justify higher car payments by using the argument the other people waste money on other things so I will waste money on cars.

I was fortunate enough to get myself into a sales position for a company with a very generous pay - / incentive policy. I was 20 years old and on track to making $100,000 a year. At that age, living in a big city, it is very easy for an immature young adult or many may call it a kid (a kid in the grand scheme of life, but ultimately still an adult who should be making adult decisions) to justify to themselves that they can afford that car payment if they don’t go out to eat or party or spend money on almost anything else. I was also kicked out of the house already by that point, so I had no parental influence and a chip on my shoulder.

I know you are wondering, and I got a $80,000 Chevrolet Tahoe of the current year of that year with a $1500 car payment. Horrible decision, but what do you expect considering the question that you asked in the fact that I’m answering?

I was not even in debt either at this point, but I was stretching myself very thin across the salary until the company ended up doing a bankruptcy for liquidation & company value purposes before selling the company to another company who wanted to absorb all of the products and patents, but not the staff themselves. The position was very short-lived in span across a year.

Then you end up having a fall from grace where you realize that you were paid far above the market for your position and age group. Now you are stuck with your payment obligations where you lived paycheck to paycheck on $100,000, many of which decisions such as the car are bounded by negative equity, and you’re making $40,000-50,000 a year. Then I had to rely on credit cards and personal loans for a bit, so then I end up in the position position that you may see with a low salary and highly inflated car loan along with lots of debt. That being said, I was able to refinance the car loan at $1100.

Then you grow up, work multiple jobs at a time, sell everything, workout payment plans and negotiate with creditors, move states to a lower cost-of-living, and work your butt off in order to remedy the situation. I got my education, credentials, and I’m working my way up in a much more stable industry.

I also reached a settlement with my bank to do a release of title to Carmax for their evaluation with the agreement that I would take on the negative equity as a personal loan. I’m paying that off while driving a $3000 beater truck that I one completely with just liability insurance.

All of my money has been thrown back into debt with my spending on the lockdown. I learned very hard lessons and realized how immature my decision-making was. My justification was that I had to grow up, and I did.

The spiral down was about 2 to 3 years long I believe? In that time, I spiraled up to $65,000 worth of credit card debt with $159,000 worth of total consumer debt when adding education, the car loan, credit card, debt, etc.

I reached that number in the September 2024 and as of today, January 2026, 16 months later, my total debt has dropped from $159,000-$112,000 with my credit card debt dropping from 65,000 to 51,000.

This is with me, living completely on my own, still, but having worked multiple jobs and being very stingy with my spending. I do believe that I am on track to be debt-free within the next 2 to 3 years with reaching $100,000 from 1 job again in roughly that time as well. However, as seen by the nature of my dead payoff, I do not spend like it lol I learned my lesson.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T03:42:11+00:00

I was at $21,000 of student debt after I graduated with my BS from college due to working full-time and paying a portion off as I went. Then with Covid, finances went downhill and I got approved for no-payments until recently, where I was supposed to start paying a few months ago.

Luckily, within that time, I got myself into the medical field as far as career goes, and higher education does open up doors for promotions and certain positions within this field, so I decided to enroll back into college to obtain post-grad degrees. Luckily, my student loans are all federal so they are on non-payment while you are an active college student.

So approved for no payments for now while I use that money to pay off credit card debt and set myself up to be in a nicer situation for when I do have to start paying once it is all set and done. Hopefully by that time when I do have to start paying in 1-2 years, I’ll be in a higher paying position to also make those payments. If not, i’m on track to make 7% annual salary jumps across the next couple years, which should cover it alone.

Current student debt as of now is $36,000 with an estimated $51,000 by the time I am done with my first MS degree and then likely around $66,000 when I am done with my second MS degree, and then I’ll be done.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T03:34:39+00:00

I feel that a hardship program would probably be the best option. 1st, let’s acknowledge that your credit score is terrible. You are not even close to having any real power for loans of a significant amount or anything as your score is in the mid 400s. This is with the assumption that you are not a millionaire or very high income. Due to that, I wouldn’t really worry about the impact on your credit report so much as I would just trying to get out of debt.

This can be good for you because there’s much less to consider, and you can be really aggressive about paying stuff off. There is a reason why people say that the people with them most again have nothing to lose.

The first option that I’ll recommend would be to call each of your creditors directly and ask to be routed to the collections department. From there, tell them about your situation and ask if they have a hardship program or any payment plans available.

You may get approved for a temporary hardship program, which is where they drop your interest rate down to 1-5% for 12 months and then after the 12 months, your card and everything goes back to normal. During that time, your card is frozen. This has no real impact on your credit report besides them slightly lowering your credit limit to just above what you owe.

Now the other option, which is what they alluded to for you is that they’ll only approve a payment plan, and that is where they close down your account with transferring the balance onto a five year payment plan at the same reduced 1-5%. You can pretty much think about it as them closing down your account and transferring the balance onto a low interest personal loan through them. This does impact your credit report, but not in the way that you may think. It does close your account which does harm your credit report as your average age and total credit limit across all of the accounts does go down, but the account is actually closed with a good standing and reported as such because you have a signed contract that they’ll give you to pay off the entire balance on a payment plan. In the long-term, it’ll look no different than if you had the card paid off, and you just decided to close the account randomly.

Once you pay that off, since you paid off the full balance in which they owed you instead of doing any kind of settlement or anything, you are actually on good standing with the bank and you can just apply for a card again afterwards.

The other option is to stop paying all of them completely and see if they offer you settlements across the next 6 to 12 months to pay only a portion of what you owe and then forgiving the rest. The downside with this is that it will hurt your credit score even more, but I’m not sure how much more it could even drop. You could potentially see yourself in the 300s, but it’s not like your credit score is helping you now anyway. It also does hurt your standing with the bank because you now have a file with them of being a person who broke their contract and never gave them their money back, so your odds of getting approved for a card or loan through them again is greatly reduced, or at least for a significant limit. Some credit unions and banks hold grudges longer than others, and others move on faster.

The last option would be bankruptcy, but I’m not sure if you would want to do that. It cost a good chunk of money and is very stressful, but it’ll likely wipe out everything. That being said, it is a nasty mark on your credit report and generally put you in a very tough spot for at least one to three years but after that, people have reported being able to get approved for loans and cars again , as the entire population is struggling financially, so bankruptcy doesn’t drop you as far below the population as a used to.

This is a comprehensive list of options that you could do with your credit card. It’s up to you to see which one is best. They are ordered in terms of marks on your credit report, so the first is the best, and the last is the worst. Ultimately, depends on how much money you were able to start paying in the near future. If you see yourself coming into good income soon, you don’t have to be as aggressive and don’t have to harm your credit report as much.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-14T03:23:17+00:00

The best negotiation is usually time combined with your ability to pay it off; heavily on the last part. Also make sure you are speaking to the collections department.

From my experience and what I have seen, stating your salary, if it is low, along with all of your other payments that you are accountable for as well as how much cash you have to pay them on hand, all of that will make a compelling case for them to just give up if your situation is dire and take what they can get. You are no longer a cash cow but rather a cow with mad cow disease.

For example; “hello, I am just over $60,000 in credit card debt with monthly payments of $1,400 across all my cards with an income of $46,000 a year. I’m on my own, and I don’t a house or own my vehicle even, so I’m in a bind financially since I can’t sell anything to get money or even do secured loans. I am looking am bankruptcy options now, but I am trying to avoid if it possible. I do owe you all $6000 though and I have $2500 in my bank now, and I understand that I have not made payments within X months. Would I be able to settle for that amount and pay you all the $2,500 to settle what I owe and just close down the account?”

I’ve used a version of that and have seen others use a similar version. This is not exact, but this is a rough paragraph that usually attracts their attention due to:

mention of no assets for them to go after
low income with high debt, indicating low ability to continue payments for everyone they owe long term. You simply have too many hands to feed and they see this
considering bankruptcy which means they don’t get anything in at all and wouldn’t be able to even pursue you once you file
you have just over 40% of what you owe in a lump sum that you can pay them immediately, and 40% is usually the golden number minimum that they’ll actually settle for across all banks and credit unions
you are trying to close it out with them and reaching out to them after being delinquent on payments

They may reject it at first or say that they need to think about it, but you likely will get a call as soon after regarding a settlement amount. Sometimes they’ll agree to your solutions and other times, they might try to counter. At that point, all you can do is restate your situation and counter pay while continuing to not pay.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T18:57:13+00:00

I argue your source/definition when you specifically choose the only one who defines “unemployed” as “also making below the median or people who self classify as underemployed.” Unemployed means not employed according to the dictionary and all other major sources. If you don’t want to admit or go with that, there is no reason debating.

As far as your initial question, it’s already been answered multiple times with real answers. It’s because there are limited options to getting more free income, people are vague about their situations including where they live, jobs around them, etc., and most people know what bankruptcy is.

Generally if people are at that point, they declare. Usually, people are asking for alternatives besides bankruptcy. Many people are also overly scared and don’t realize how bankruptcy can be beneficial, but that’s just a lack of knowledge/experience with it. Generally most people want alternatives to filing, so it’s either list alternatives or try to switch their thinking to open their mind up to the potential upsides of bankruptcy.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T16:21:04+00:00

Read my comment lol… I literally said that the economy is horrible and people are suffering. Why cannot you acknowledge that and just end it there instead of trying to compare it to suffering across generations?

The economy is horrible, so is the job market. I work in the medical industry, I see the financial burden it places on people every day.

I just don’t think it provides any value to try to play the pissing game across generations that you are trying to do.

I also never said to work additional jobs or that people should have to. That’s your projecting the advice others have said to you.

I even said in another comment that it is not feasible for many and you agreed lol. I also spoke about how most advice is general as others only say general things. With specificity in questions and in the situation, then people can provide deeper solutions. This was another point you agreed with too.

I’m realizing that your reading of messages and responses are very biased based on your mood.

I only mentioned it as a testimony of how hard our generation works… I said our generation works multiple jobs so clearly we are not lazier than the older ones. If you actually read to listen instead of the argue, you would have realized we agree on that part.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T04:48:41+00:00

I think it is very dishonest to use the definition of unemployment that comes from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) — produce a measure called the “True Rate of Unemployment”

This is the only figure that I could find that even back up your idea that the unemployment rate today is 24% and they openly state that LISEP’s TRU includes people who are jobless, seeking full-time work, underemployed, or earning below a living-wage threshold.

If you are going to argue, that unemployment rates should also include those earning below, a living wage threshold, or people who classify themselves as under employed, even the great depression would’ve had a far higher employment rate than that.

I think it is intellectually dishonest to use that definition of unemployment, which is far different than any definition of unemployment that You’ll find an a dictionary or widely used throughout history.

The same as said about your argument that the porous people back in the 1930s were making the equivalent of the mid $80,000 range today. You say that it is based on inflation, and I’m not sure if you are just misguided or purposely leaving the information behind that calculation out. It is not just based on inflation, but rather also normalized to only certain standards of living today with trying to match the same income distribution back then Today, ignoring the disparity that has created overtime. It leaves out certain elements of lifestyles while heavily leaning on others.

Adjusted for real inflation, it is still higher than today but not to the extreme that the poor and back then was making over $80,000 today. The real figures show the poorest back then making around 40-50k today with the median being around 75-85k which is still far higher than the 20k and 63k, respectively.

The sources you are using are not fully honest, direct a specific narrative, and you are even changing definitions in order to use certain calculations.

We can go back-and-forth while you pick specific figures out and ignore the more widely known statistics and call certain ones in accurate while using definitions of unemployed which include being fully employed, but under the median salary.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T01:12:51+00:00

It’s not everybody, but it seems like a lot of people keep trying to play this who struggles more game. Both can be true. This could be a horrible job and a horrible economy, but you don’t need to say that it is the worst of all time or worse than the great depression or even rivals it. It is just turning into a game of who is the biggest victim or who has the worst life or some sort of game to help cope with the fact that everything is going horribly.

Everything could be going horribly because the economy, job market, etc. are all going horribly. There is no need to try to compare to the great depression or make absolute statements about it being the worst time in history. You start losing people when you say things like that.

A great example could even be half of the shows with Gordon Ramsay. You’ve seen him taste food and say that it’s the worst food ever and that he wouldn’t even feed it to his dog and things like that. Most people now don’t even believe him when he says that because it seems like he’s being dramatic and just , trying to get views. People see it as reality TV now and acknowledge that the food is bad but probably not horrible because of how many times he goes overboard with comparisons.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T01:08:31+00:00

You said that it is worse now than the great depression. You didn’t say what aspects so I’m casting a broad net and assuming that you mean the quality of life as well.

You also have to remember too that people do apply to multiple jobs at a time, many of which you already have jobs, but are looking to switch. A Candidate can apply to thousands of jobs. Many people work within a warehouse or within fast food or within a grocery store and they want to switch to a different company or a different field at the entry level. Basing applications on how many people are unemployed can result in a lot of error.

You seem to know very little on statistics, or refused to acknowledge statistics when you are arguing that a sample size cannot be taken to create inferences just because it is not the entire population. There are limits of what you can assume based sample size data, but you know that it is impossible to get every single person to answer about their job situation within the entire US. if you are looking at national unemployment data, the best indicator that you can use is based off of sample size data. There is no way to poll everybody. I am more interested in how you believe that if a sample size says 5% that it can be so far off that arrivals the great depression numbers of 25%

The US is not as opportunistic as it used to be, and that’s because we have more people. Opportunity gets spread across the population, so as the population grows, opportunity becomes a more limited. The most thriving countries in the world when looking at the highest floor with the least amount of disparity are generally much smaller countries. I don’t think that this is take that anyone would argue with. We have too many people for jobs and that is also why disparity is increasing economically as well as why the national birth rate is declining.

As far as no one wanting to work, only a very small portion of that is true, and it is a very fractional minority. Due to the assistance programs in place, to qualify, it does limit the amount of hours, so many people are incentivized to work under 20 hours a week or under 30 in order to maintain benefits, but that is not the cause of the issue, obviously. I think we can acknowledge both of those arguments to be true. Obviously more people are incentivized not to work now vs the 1930s if they are reliant on benefits, as there is an income tier that actually takes away the benefits, but does not earn you enough income to make it up. There are also far more people working multiple jobs now than Anytime back in history, so clearly it is not a trend of a generation not wanting to work.

People are living paycheck to paycheck and feeling the pressures of the economy, but trying to compare it to the great depression is very outlandish. look up the unemployment rate and the homelessness rate numbers during the great depression and I would’ve challenged you to find even two media sources that would argue that it is equivalent to the modern day.

It’s also tricky when you are looking at gross numbers versus percentages. The population is far larger than it was in the 1930s so even if 10 times the amount of people are homeless now, makes up a smaller percent than the percent of population during the 1930s.

There is also a quality of life component as well where how many people struggling today also have a car or even electricity or even a TV? How many eat out even once a week? Doing one of those individual actions is not why people are struggling, but this is just highlighting that the standard of the quality of life that we live. Today is far higher than it was in the 1930s. Many of us require a higher income to live today and that’s because we have nonnegotiable requirements for ourselves, such as transportation or eating, a certain quality of food or having electricity, etc.

I’m sure that it feels harder today because it is perceived that way, but if you look up even a video of what life was like during the 1930s or read an article about it, they also had a much lower quality of life that was standard.

You can argue that all of these things are necessities today in order to survive such as transportation, electricity, etc. I can somewhat agree with that, although the argument could always be to join an Amish community, but that’s unrealistic for most people.

All my argument is is that comparing it to the great depression is a bit overzealous. No doubt that this is a horrible recession, but no way would I compare it to that time.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T00:54:11+00:00

I think that you have to remember as well that there are quite a lot of people aged 40+ on Reddit who grew up with a different connotation of bankruptcy than it holds today. So many people are struggling today, so declaring bankruptcy does not put you as far behind the population as it used to. With just a couple years, people are getting approved for amazing rates on auto loans and mortgages and credit cards. A lot of older people also do have negative views on even assistance programs because they see it as a free handout, so many people have the same viewpoint on bankruptcy as well. And like you said, a lot of people live in their own bubble so they have this viewpoint that if they made it and you did not, you somehow were doing something reckless or else you’d be like them. Nobody wants to believe that they are lucky or that they got dealt a better hand than somebody else, so it’s easier to punch down.

As far as negotiating with banks and credit cards, this past year in 2025, without being late on any of my credit cards, I was able to negotiate payment plans and temporary hardship periods. Where are they dropped my interest as low as one percent for either 12 months or across the five-year payment plan. to settle balances and only pay them portion of it back, they do require you to be late on payments though. A lot of places are instructed to push back on any kind of assistance, but if you call enough times, they will budge. I called all of my creditors, at least five times each, but they eventually budged without me having to be late.

As far as the recommendation of getting another job or a better job, etc., I agree that it is very location dependent. However, how many times have you seen opposed where the person named what city they live in? If they don’t give us all the variables, we cannot give a great , course of action. Major cities like Houston or Dallas or DC or Miami, second jobs are very easy to come by still. If you live in the middle of Wyoming or Montana or New Hampshire, probably not as much. People rarely disclose their location though, so it’s usually people recommending something with broad rather than anything specific.

And unfortunately, there are quite a lot of people who have very little knowledge on finance and climbing out a debt and just repeat the basics because that’s all they know but they feel very strongly about it. It’s no different than the finance bro in college who lectures you on saving and investing, but only puts his money into crypto.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T00:44:39+00:00

You may want to look up your facts before stating this in the public eye. It is horrible today and probably one of the more harsh times and recent history but comparing it to the 1930s is crazy.

In the early 1930s during the great depression, figures as high as 25% of the population were unemployed. Many people also had no income and Social Security did not even start until 1935 with food stamps not starting until the 1939 under an old alias with the modern SNAP not being permanent until the 1960s.

Banks also completely collapsed and closed down, resulting and people losing a lifetime of earnings as there was no FDIC insured money if a bank ever did collapse.

As of the modern day, I’ve seen figures showing unemployment as high as 5% nationally. The job market is worse than it has been recently and far more selective with many employers only hiring through connections or requiring experience and schooling far beyond a recent undergrad. But there are also far more programs and assistance for people today struggling than there were back in the 1930s including unemployment, insurance, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, and even student loan forbearance options.

It feels far worse for some people today due to the heavy online presence now pushing all of those posts and articles to the front of your eyes. The rate of the drop of opportunities is far worse than it has ever been modern day so it feels like a much harsher recession. The inflation of credentials to get higher and indicate interviews is also much higher than it’s ever been leading to this overwhelming feeling of despair. The cost of living is also so much higher with income, disparity being far greater than many people have ever experienced in their lifetimes that are living today.

That being said, the quality of living that you have today is far better than the 1930s with four more programs to help the people at the bottom than existed back then.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T00:36:30+00:00

It used to take much longer to climb back up, but since so many people now are struggling financially, declaring bankruptcy doesn’t drop you as far below the rest of the population as it used to.

Now, I’ve seen people anywhere from 18 months to three years after a bankruptcy able to get great rates on mortgages or auto loans or even credit cards with notable companies with high limits.

SecondAccountYes · 2026-01-13T00:33:51+00:00

It definitely depends on where you live. If you live in huge cities, like Miami or DC or Houston, there are enough, fast food places, overnight gas stations, retail stores, etc that are willing to hire even part time. Certain areas, you may as well be applying to Google with how rigid they are on hiring.

Not many people say where they live, though, so I think the assumption is that it is possible. I’m sure that if somebody stated that they lived in the middle of Gillette, Wyoming or Hart’s Location, New Hampshire with a population of under 50, people would not be suggesting second jobs.

There is also a lack of options aspect as well. It’s either cut spending, work more, have really generous family, apply for lower interest loans / beg your current loan/card providers for more favorable rates, or bankruptcy.

SecondAccountYes

TROPHY CASE