Considering filing for bk Prose

[confusedinVA]

Hello, I am new to this forum. I contacted a few attorneys a few months ago about filing for bk but am having no luck saving up the money to pay for it.

I am seriously considering trying this myself. My husband and I together are not even making 30,000 per year. We have 4 children. Our rent and utilities run us about 1800 per month. Needless to say, we dont have much left over at the end of the month.

I want to go back to school to be a massage therapist and cant get a pell grant as the community colleges here dont offer this class. I would have to go to a massage therapy school. Anyway, I cant even get a loan to be able to go to school to increase our income.

I have about 3 pages of collections and he has about 2 and soon to be more due to medical reasons.

Where do I begin?

ConfusedinVA

[miss puff]

Welcome Confused. I am in the exact same boat as you are right now. We talked with an attorney a couple of months ago and we just can't seem to scrimp and save the $1,300 he charges. We are looking into filing pro se. I took the recommendation (and the coupon code) and got the Nolo's how to file chapter 7 bankruptcy book and I have had my nose and my highliter in that book for days. I would recommend reading as many posts on this board that you can and getting the book. It offers step by step instructions. Good luck

[confusedinVA]

Thanks miss Puff

Do we have to take a credit course 180 days prior to filing or just within 180 days?

Thanks so much

[krobin02]

Within 180days. You can take it the day before if you wanted and could get the documentation right away.

[confusedinVA]

Thanks again

Ok, so I need to sign up for a credit counseling course 1st, then I need to start getting my credit reports, then file the petition correct? I am going to get that Nolo book as well, Im sure it will be beneficial.

When you attempt to file Chapter 7, is there a free test that you can take somehow to determine if you qualify? im sure we do, but want to see what the income per month verses what are bills are. Also, when determining bills, do you include the bills that you are not currently paying such as car repo, credit cards etc? The only things we are able to pay are current bills such as, rent and utilities, we are paying nothing extra. Our van is paid off so we dont even have payments for that.

Thanks again so much.
SHirley

[miss puff]

The Nolo book gives you what the median income is which will tell you if your income qualifies you. It also has some worksheets on your monthly expenditures that will give you a better picture if you are an asset case or no asset case. Pretty much the book tells you everything you need to know as well as what the exemptions are per state or if your state allows you to choose the federal exemptions.

[confusedinVA]

Thanks again,

Will the book also tell me how to set it up so that the creditors can not keep our income taxes, state and federal?

Thanks