Chapter 7 and Checking

I understand that any cash you have in your accounts go to the trustee to pay your creditors.

My question is in the meantime how do you pay the utility bills, student loans, mortgage, and car loan?

Actually it depends on your state's exemptions.

In many states you can use a wildcard exemption to safeguard a portion of your checking/savings accounts.

Keep in mind that if you have more than what is exempt then only the non exempt money will be taken. You can use the account normally even in this case though, just make sure to account for what the trustee will take and list it in the check ledger so you don't overdraw.

Just try to keep the min. in your account to cover your expenses and some entertainment

Yes, keep the minimum amount in there. Our atty had us make sure nothing else was going to go through and pull the rest out. Not like we had much anyway. But I think the rule of thumb is to keep it under $1,000, but check with your atty.

thats the day of filing I had about 2 k in mine on the day of my 340 but there were checks either writen or going ot be writen agenset that.
the day of fileing is a snapshoot in time