Couple of questions

[sofarindebt]

We have 2 flat screen televisions, will they want one of them? We could get maybe $1000 for both of them.

I also took a loan out against our life insurance policy to catch up on bills (electric, heat, cell phone). Can they take the cash value of your life insurance? We have about $1100 in it right now.

My husband also lost his wedding ring and we got $1100 for that as well. We kept the money because we are so broke and plan on getting him a new one after the bankruptcy. Will they ask about any insurance payouts?

[emoney]

What are your state exemptions will answer the question on the TVs??? What is the limit on housthold goods will determine where you stand on the tvs and other items.
Cash value life insurance in not a good idea. Use term insurance and save and invest the difference in cost. Your cash value is an asset so the trustee could claim it.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
emoney

[HHM]

You would have to look at your state's exemptions...

You may have to give up one TV, but because used consumer goods are hard to sell, most trustee's are not interested, but I don't think you can exempt both TV's

Life insurance is more tricky, generally, life insurance is exempt, but the loan complicates matters as the repayment of the life insurance loan may not be considered a valid expense for the means tests.

The alleged "lost" wedding ring probably won't be an issue.

[sofarindebt]

We have Term and cash value life insurance

we have a payout of $150K if one of us dies, PLUS the cash value, which keeps rising every month as we pay.

I am not worried about the means test, the median for our state for a family of 5 is $85K or something, and my husband makes about $65K/year.

This also brings me to another question. If I got a full-time job a month or 2 before we filed, could this screw things up? Will they take into consideration that I will be making more after the bankruptcy?

The reason I asked about the tv's is because we are going to sell one of our plasmas for $1000. Will this be a problem if we show we paid bills with it? Same with the wedding ring insurance claim?

HHM, he lost it at the gym and we waited a month before claiming it, to see if it turned up in lost and found. I am broke but not a law-breaker (insurance fraud).

[SinkingFast]

If you use Federal Exemptions, you can specifically only exempt ONE TV. It's stated in the Code.

http://newbankrupt.com/DefinitionofHousehold.htm

State, however, may be totally different. Where we live, if you're using State Exemptions, you inventory your personal belongings and bedroom and the common use areas of the home. The kids' rooms and things are just that. The kids'. So, if you had 4 kids and there was a TV in each kids' bedroom, all those extra TV's would be a non issue.

But that's really gonna depend on your State's Exemptions and the Local Rules as to how they are applied.