Room With A View

At our last home, my bedroom window looked out on a street packed with houses.  Here, I enjoy the beauty of trees as I wake up and go to sleep.  It feels like I’m living in a tree house.

My mother was always telling us that money didn’t grow on trees.  If it did, I’d be grabbing a few handfuls and sending some to my good friend, Carla, who is having some real financial troubles.  When I called yesterday, she told me that she had been thinking about checking out Omaha bankruptcy attorneys.  That didn't make sense to me, since she lives almost fifty miles away.  Then she confessed that she was too embarrassed to see a lawyer in her home town. 

Carla feels that they are responsible for their financial problems.  Her husband made a lot of impulse purchases and never said no to a credit card offer.  It was the source of a lot of problems between them.  Carla was far less impulsive with purchases, but really enjoyed eating out.  Two adults and three teenagers can rack up some hefty food bills, even at fast food restaurants.  A couple years ago, they got serious about improving their financial situation.  It didn’t happen overnight, but they had made real progress in reducing credit card debt and limiting restaurant trips to once a week.  Their budget was finally balancing, but their savings account held less than a hundred dollars.  When her husband lost his job, they just couldn’t make ends meet.  He’s still looking for work, but in this economy, it isn’t promising.  They could live on Carla’s income, if they still weren’t dealing with the credit card debt.

I hope that she’ll get over her embarrassment and seek help. I don’t know anything about filing bankruptcy in Nebraska, but I’m sure that any bankruptcy lawyer has seen plenty of people who have made financial mistakes or fallen victim to a bad economy.   Their job is not to criticize, but provide relief.  That’s a much quicker solution than waiting for the trees to sprout dollar bills!