October 23, 2017

Why Do People Go Bankrupt?

The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. That’s a line that many people use when they try to explain how the world works. We all feel like it’s true in some sense, but the reality isn’t that simple. 

More often than not, things aren’t as black and white as we want to portray them, and most of us don’t want to delve deeper into an issue when we see a headline on social media. Overall, the mass media exists because people click on it, and they purposefully make headlines that force anger out of you. 

We’re way more likely to comment and click on something that infuriates us rather than commend something good that happened. In that sense, there are many stories online that say the world’s billionaires have gotten richer during the quarantine. Click here to read more.

That’s a fact that would have happened even without the pandemic. In the economy, a lot of attention is provided to the Pareto distribution. It states that 20 percent of people control or are responsible for 80 percent of the results. This means that a small group of wealthy people carry the world forward. 

The same thing is true in sports. A few popular teams are responsible for all of the watch time. You can see this happen in music too. You listen to a few artists that are very popular. It’s a law that’s happening in nature too, so there’s no going away from it. 

However, all of the successes can be masked by all of the failures. Loads of people don’t handle their finances correctly, and they end up making mistakes. We don’t learn about managing money in school. Eventually, that can lure people into taking more loans than they can pay off. 

As time passes, that leads to bankruptcy. The word bankruptcy can be split into two. The first one is bank, and the second is rupture. It’s like you’re making a hole in your bank account, which is essentially true. So, what are the main reasons why people go bankrupt and is there a way to avoid them?

Medical expenses

Without question, the most important thing in our life is our health. Healthy people have a thousand different wishes, while an ill patient has only one. That being said, depending on the disease, you might be unable to pay the bills for treatment. 

More than half of all declared bankruptcies are due to medical expenses. A rare disease puts you in the spot of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for treatment. Even if you have savings accounts, retirement plans, or a stable job, a high amount of expenses will suck all of those sources dry.

When you spend all the money you have on treatment, the only choice that’s left is bankruptcy. If this happens to you, there are a few things that you can do to steer away from medical debt. You can call a bankruptcy attorney for best tips and advice so you know what to do. They’ll tell you how to approach the problem.

Losing a job

The fundamental flaw in our economy showed up at the beginning of March in 2020. Millions of people lost their jobs. In the United States alone, the number of unemployed people rose up to 40 million. That’s a lot of people who need food, water, and shelter in order to live. 

Now, even more, companies are considering layoffs. There are many reasons why someone might get fired. It could be because someone has been doing a bad job, their performance has decreased, or simply that’s what a boss wanted to do. 

Many more people are getting fired without any prior notice and without any sort of emergency fund. The cost of living is getting higher and higher each year. However, fewer and fewer professions are increasing their salaries. Another shocking statistic is the 30 percent of employed people don’t have an emergency fund. 

That’s around 10 000 dollars. It’s a comfortable sum of money that will help you live for three months while you’re looking for another source of income. And yet, three out of every ten employed people don’t have it. This forces them into filing for bankruptcy without thinking about any other alternative. 

No control of your expenses

The quick improvement of technology has both improved and worsened our lives. For example, you can order any item from the Internet, and it will be in front of your door by tomorrow afternoon. It’s almost ludicrous how quickly we got to this level. If you need food, you can just order it, and it will come to you. 

The comfort we have in our homes is on a different level. Shopping is too easy, and lots of people have a problem with it. It’s psychologically proven that you don’t feel the same negative emotion when you pay with a bill, compared to a credit card. This makes many people lose control of their spending. In turn, this decreases their credit scores, and they often times go into debt due to various reasons. 

Unexpected situations

Nature is a force that can’t be tamed. An earthquake can hit out of the blue, and you can lose your house and all of your belongings in fifteen minutes. It’s a bit more uncommon than the reasons mentioned above, but it happens to a lot of families. Follow this link for more info https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/credit-education/bankruptcy-how-it-works-types-and-consequences/.

Even if they have insurance policies, many people don’t know that you need a separate one for earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, and fires. This causes many people to pay for everything they’ve lost out of their own pockets. In the meantime, they also have to look for a place to stay for the night if their property is destroyed. 

A few final words

We never know what the next day holds for us. The best way to make sure that you never get into a situation where you have to declare bankruptcy is to prepare as if there’s going to be one. It’s integral to read more books on financial planning and to take control of the things that you can. 

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