<prompt> Human: Im supporting a family of three on one income. Ill be 30 later this month, and I just received a letter from the county circuit court. Capital One is suing me for an unpaid credit card account, and I get to appear two days before my birthday happy birthday tooo meee.Im struggling to make ends meet between paychecks. Part of this has been icky life circumstances, and part of it is my own fault. Right now I have four active payday loans, and stuff in the pawn shop.Please forgive me if this seems whiney, but I feel like its relevant to my financial downfall. Icky life circumstances include the following: Ugly child custody battle. I have full custody now, but legal fees were awful. Had to move back in with my parents. As of now, ex hasnt paid child support in over 2 years, and owes over 27k. The state cant locate him to proceed with contempt motions. After moving back in with parents, mom died. Moved in with boyfriend, made my commute longer. Ran into landlord dispute soon after that, and boyfriends mom invited us to move in with her, in a rural area. Things didnt work out well, personally and financially. Tried the long-ass commute for 6 months while looking for a job in my field. Employment situation suffered. Was on unemployment. Speeding tickets and two car accidents drove my insurance payments up. Moved back closer to metro area so I could work in my field. Acquired job. Got laid off from that job. Found another one quickly, but second unemployment kicked me down right when I was about to get a handle on things. Boyfriends mom died, and hes the only next-of-kin. On the hook for funeral expenses. Hes having issues with mental and physical health. He isnt working. We know he needs to get a job. There are barriers in getting him back into the workforce, elaborating will make this already lengthy post longer.Ive got another past due credit card from Capital One, medicaldental debt, Directv in collections, previous landlord bill in collections. Its been suggested to me that I look into filing Chapter 7. Put in an inquiry on a legal site, and an attorney in my area contacted me. I told him that I have 3 of my 4 payday loans coming out of my check. He told me to call the bank and put a stop payment on them immediately. I did, and got paid today. Payday loans are showing up as pending, and I have three stop payment fees. I only have 58 in my bank account right now. I do not have the means, at all, to just put some money aside for savings.I know bankruptcy will look awful on my credit report, but would a wage garnishment or judgement be worse? My credit score is already in the mid 500s, and its not like I can TL;DR:Would it be better to see how things go in court, or proceed with filing Chapter 7?Assistant: I didnt actually see a listing of your debt in your post. Can you list the debt with the type of debt, how much total is owed, the interest rate on each debt, minimum payment for each, as well as how long you have not paid for any debt that you are not current on?Also, you are working now, correct? If so, how much is coming in?And do you have a budget?Human: Sorry about that! I am working now, and Im paid 650 weekly. My position is salaried, so overtime isnt a possibility. Getting a part time job is rather questionable because of on-call rotation.No clue on interest rates.Created a budget? Yes. Able to follow it? No, unexpected surprises keep popping up. One Main Financial - 6000, currently paying 26 on that every other week to the collections agency. DirecTV collections - 531 Capital One - 2,973 the one Im being sued over and 1,626 not listed in summons complaint MedicalDental - 450 and climbing. Old landlordpower bill from keepin it rural - 1540 Payday loans - 366, 312.50, 1000, 220 Pawn Shop - 160 loan from a borrowing subreddit - 120 right now I think  <response>: The debt really needs to be listed with all of the items I laid out. It does matter to the advice we can give. From what little you have written here, it doesnt seem that bankruptcy would be the right option for you.As for a budget, if you have it, post it.As to your assertion that unexpected surprises are ruining your budget, the most common reason is because they are not surprises, just not something that happens monthly. I dont know if that is true with you, but we often see people declaring normal mechanical work on their car, birthdays, holidays especially Christmas, car insurance that gets paid every 6 months, and other very plannable expenses as being unexpected. A good budget will take into account the full yearly cycle of what expenses are to come so these dont catch you unawares. If you post yours and give all the instances of the unexpected expenses from the last several months we can better help you construct a budget that will actually work for you. You have had a lot of bad luck lately, so it may very well be unplannable, but its best to get another couple of pairs of eyes on it. 