Why would you BK on $15,000? Check out the Dave Ramsey baby steps. What you need is direction. The baby steps are a good way to start. From there you can educate yourself on personal finance and then start making better financial decisions.

Before convincing yourself that bankruptcy is the answer, I suggest that you contact a bankruptcy attorney and ask him/her for a free consultation. Get your paperwork organized and be prepared not to waste the attorney's time. He or she will run your figures and tell you whether it makes sense to file bankruptcy or not.

I was married and divorced very early and found myself facing $50,000 in debt which is a lot more than you and your fiance combined. I made a promise to myself that if I pulled myself out of debt without filing bankruptcy that I would do something to help others. Like your fiance, I worked multiple jobs. It took me 10 years to pull myself out of debt, but I did it. I wrote a book and created a website about my experience; I know that it is helping people and for that I'm grateful. I'm not listing the name of the book or site here because my intention is not to advertise on the forum, but rather to share my experience with you.

Not filing bankruptcy was more of a moral decision for me. I created a mess of my life and decided I needed to take responsibility and fix it. I think the experience genuinely helped foster self-worth and confidence, two characteristics that I sorely needed.

I have friends and family members who have filed bankruptcy. I don't judge them for it, but it simply wasn't my chosen path.

What I think is really important for you and your fiance to consider is how will you manage your finances moving forward? How will you budget your money? What about returning to school so that you can raise yourself and your salary up to a higher level of income? These are all very important considerations.

I wish you the best of luck and it's a great sign of maturity that you're reaching out to ask for advice. Ultimately, though, the answer comes from you and how you decide to resolve the matter.

Best,
Kim

first make a status, what you have and what you owe, contact the credit card companies and offer them 10 cents on the $ and a payment plan, unfortunately every penny they waive is considered income by the IRS but we get to that later, if you are in a community state do not get married without an agreement, you are both in a bad way but yours seems to be worse. There are first time buyer programs which do not care about your credit, its difficult to get but possible, inform yourself.
You need to work on a possible budget, not a dream, so all hands on deck and all assets and debts on the table, it needs common sense, discipline and sticking it out but it can be done, there are also other solutions, currently there are good programs out there for grants (back to college etc and others), it is possible to get those, don't pay anyone for it (these are almost always scams) but you can do it yourself.

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Many times the accounts that have gone to collections, the original creditor has written off the debt as a loss on their taxes and sold the account for 20%-30% of the original amount..

These accounts are damaging your credit as much as they can at this point, my suggestion would be to save up until you have about 50% of a given collection and make them an offer.. ONLY if they are willing to settle the account in full AND give you a letter of deletion off your credit report.. (sometimes this will cost you more but will save you 7 years of bad credit)

Also the laws surrounding credit have tightened up quite a bit, and fighting these older accounts first would be the best first step.. small debts, especially medical (statute of limitations make it illegal to post on a credit report) and older collections sometimes fall right off without paying a cent.