We Filed Today!

[lrprn]

After 90 l-o-n-g days of waiting, our Ch 13 case was filed this morning. Our 341 meeting will be on June 26.

Any advice from the experienced Ch 13ers here about how to weather the first six months with sanity intact? We've had a strict budget with weekly accounting in place for the last four months so we could catch up on our overdue secureds before filing - we will definitely continue that. Any other things you've found helpful?

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to each of the generous, giving souls here. I've learned a lot from each of you and hope I can give back just a s much over the coming l-o-n-g 57 months of our plan.

[Jman30]

I wish I could say the hard part is over, but it is not. The best advice I can give is to somehow, some way, squirrel away some savings. Problems will come over the next 57 months and the Trustee is taking all your disposable income.

There will be car problems, home repairs, birthdays, holidays, kids, sports, etc.

None of this stuff is taken in account and when they happen...it stinks when you can't take care of them.

At least you are on the road to recovery.........!! Congratulations!

[jane taylor]

Do try and save every penny you can because there will be emergencies!! One can only plan so much. I hate this process, but have learned so much and am much tougher because of it.

We had a lousy month last month--got a little more lax with things (not by most people's standards, but by ours!) and are sucking it up this month.

Good luck to you and you will be a lot of help to others. Check in here often and keep us posted.

jane

[Anj]

Luckily our lawyer was generous with a lot of the numbers - and our trustee didn't balk - the only thing I "may" go back to the trustee about is our clothing allowance - we said $100 - but I work in a professional environtment and between that, my husband's uniforms and 3 growing kids who need complete wardrobes every new season, not to mention shoes!! - it's not enough...
Our mortgage went down by $300 since we filed - and I'm afraid the trustee is gonna figure it out and want to rework the numbers and suck that out of us too - but that's when I'll request an increase in clothing and gas... perhaps I'll get it back in our pocket...

Anyway - yup - it's hard - but like a lot of people said - we weren't living too well anyway, so it's kinda normal goings for us here... I don't really mind this whole thing - but I resent that it's gonna take soooo long to get thru this - however, I do see a light... we are making it

[aa06a47]

Luckily our lawyer was generous with a lot of the numbers - and our trustee didn't balk - the only thing I "may" go back to the trustee about is our clothing allowance - we said $100 - but I work in a professional environtment and between that, my husband's uniforms and 3 growing kids who need complete wardrobes every new season, not to mention shoes!! - it's not enough...
Our mortgage went down by $300 since we filed - and I'm afraid the trustee is gonna figure it out and want to rework the numbers and suck that out of us too - but that's when I'll request an increase in clothing and gas... perhaps I'll get it back in our pocket...

Anyway - yup - it's hard - but like a lot of people said - we weren't living too well anyway, so it's kinda normal goings for us here... I don't really mind this whole thing - but I resent that it's gonna take soooo long to get thru this - however, I do see a light... we are making it

If your happy with your current payment, you might leave well enough alone, especially since your mortgage decreased 300/month. You open up one item, it will open up others as well. While they are greedy, sounds like you have a very workable plan, in my opinion, you shouldn't rock the boat.

What I'm finding out too, is the trustee knows some numbers are a little high, some are a little low. The "generous" numbers the attorney gave you might not have been challeneged due to things like the clothing allowance being low.

[Jman30]

The other piece of advice that I can give is that some months will be better than other months, just like jane taylor said. We go through a bad month where we spend more than we should and then we spend another bad month trying to recover. But for every bad month, we have good months where we stay on our budget and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The other thing you will find relief from is the harassing phone calls from creditors! I am no longer afraid when my phone rings!!!!!!!!