Is this 'extra' income? Enough for a 13?

[bandrat]

Hello Everyone,

I've got a question about how much extra income is allowed in a month for a ch7. My situation is that my income varies considerably from month to month. My average for this year is higher than normal because of a few months where I had unexpected extra income.

If I take an average of my income over the last year, combined with my wife's, we end up with about $60-$80 left over after expenses each month. If I take an average over the last two years (more accurate), we are about $260 in the hole each month.

Is the extra 60-80/m enough for them to throw us into a 13? We have a young baby with a minor medical issue that could cause some unexpected expeneses, and my wife has a serious medical issue that isn't a problem right now (but was last year). If my wife's problem acts up, it could take her out of work for several months. Since this isn't an issue 'now', will they take this into account for looking at the excess?

Thanks.

[StaciMM]

It will depend on your expenses... Are there any that might be questionable? If you spend $300 a month on hair cuts, for example, the trustee might have issues. (Exageration, I know...)

[bandrat]

That is so incredibly funny that you mentioned haircuts. When I first walked into the lawyer's office, and he went over the paper I quickly typed up in the morning detailing our circumstances, he asked 'you spend $300 on haircuts everymonth'? It turns out that in my rushing I put the yearly figure in my spread sheet instead of splitting it up into 12 months. The likelyhood of anyone mentioning $300/m haircuts to me is like one-in-a-million!