MasConcepts Incorporated

I wanted to file bankruptcy back in May but my husband and I have a personal injury case still open.

We had a consultation with a bankruptcy lawyer and he told us that we could use the wild card in California which could protect about $35k of the settlement. We don’t have any real estate, own only one car, we are both now unemployed, my husband receives his disability from the VA. we are about $100k in debt (including CC, medical etc).

We wanted to file but our personal injury lawyers have been insistent that we wait until the case has been closed. mind you, this case has been open since December 2025. We have asked plenty of times updates on the case, to close the case, but they keep telling us they can’t move forward yet for whatever reason.

We had stopped making payments on our debt (as recommended by the bankruptcy lawyer) because we’ve been saving up but we’ve been hit with so many unexpected expenses. We are barely making it by. We had saved up to $10k in the last 90 days of not making payments but those unexpected expenses have really caused us a dent now in our savings.

We have about $5k now and we are worried that either a) we will accidentally used the deposit for bankruptcy or b) that our bank (Navy Fed) will take that money to pay their credit card. They’ve done automatic withdrawals twice now and I can see it happening again if we don’t pay them.

So, this leads me to this question, should we open up a new bank account with a bank we don’t owe and move that $5k over?