<prompt> Human: I made some bad decided a few years ago and ended up in about 20k of credit card and a car repossessed and still owe about another 20K on that. I was finally able to get my act together and started a great job a couple months ago making 90 K a year. Now that I am stable with a 2k emergency fund I am trying to figure out if it is better to go bankrupt I have already default on the debt and at this point I dont even know who I owe money to anymore or try and track down each lender and try and settle with them. Any advice is appreciated. Edit:Thanks for all the responses, my cash-flow is getting better, I had to move for my new job and had to buy a lot of basic things I didnt have clothes, kitchen stuff, bed, etc. After monthly expenses I have about I have around 2200 left. Ill take a look at the links and try and settle the debt myself. Thanks again everyone  <response>: You dont really say what your cashflow situation is, but presumably you can afford to start paying down your debts. If it were me, Id do the legwork to settle. Itll take a bunch of timeeffort, but it can be done. There is a ton of good info on how to approach this in the sidebar at the right. 