New here and preparing for Ch 7

[Lainie]

Hi, I'm Lainie, married mother/32, and DH and I are almost 40K in debt. We have several collections and judgments on our record, and never realized the importance of money management until we got in over our heads. It's easy to ignore the problem until you try to do something like shopping for a house or car. We came very close to filing Chapter 7 about a year ago, and backed out at the last minute. Now I know that we should have gone ahead with it. Our attorney, a CCCS counselor, and a financial advisor from our Credit Union have all said that we would be good candidates for a C7, and we're going to go ahead with it in the next few months.

We're going to exclude our car loan and reaffirm that (large down payment and decent payment history), and we do not own a home. DH sold off a large book collection that could have been seen as an "asset" to the creditors, but I'm curious what other assets we should try to protect in the process. I know things like furniture and household/personal items are typically safe. We also need to know how this could affect us in a landlord situation...could we have a lease terminated because of a BK?

In the meantime, what should DH and I do with income that isn't going to utility bills, rent, etc., and is no longer going to creditors that will be included in the BK? Should we use it to try to pay down the car loan we're keeping (16% interest) to show a commitment to that lender, or should we spend it (maybe on a trip or something) to keep the bank/CU balances low until everything else is discharged in the BK?

TIA for any advice you might have!

[Cali]

Did he sell the book collection knowing he was going to file BK? I am not sure how the attorney would look at that.

Have you stopped paying all credit cards?

I don't think landlords can make you move if you file BK.

Have you written down all expenses and taken your income to see how much you have or don't have left each month?

I wouldn't advise you to take a trip before filing.

[Lainie]

Did he sell the book collection knowing he was going to file BK? I am not sure how the attorney would look at that.

Have you stopped paying all credit cards?

I don't think landlords can make you move if you file BK.

Have you written down all expenses and taken your income to see how much you have or don't have left each month?

I wouldn't advise you to take a trip before filing.

When we were considering C7 last year, our attorney advised us to liquidate the book collection (about $1400), and try to put that $ toward other expenses - like continuing to pay on the car loan we plan to keep.

We don't have any open CC accounts...they're all in collections. We just have a prepaid debit card for emergencies, and other than that, we live on cash.

We've written down a income/payment plan on our own, and tried to set up a model of one with the CCCS counselor, and we can't cover the expenses from the judgments and the accounts that are in collection/CO status. We were in the red on almost every plan we did. And if we took the payments down to a more reasonable level, it would take 3-5 years (minimum) to pay off the creditors.

We were advised to not purchase anything of any significant value, e.g. jewelry, electronics, etc, that could be viewed as an "asset" by the trustee or creditors - household goods only.