When I was at my attorney's office filling out the expense forms, I didn't realize how much it would really directly reflect what my monthly payments would be-- I they would just take a rough estimate of expenses, compare that with your income and then figure out how much you can pay. What ended up happening was they added up my expenses that I wrote down, and subtracted it from my income, and that was the exact payment that I had to make. So that means, if I put $120 for gas instead of $80, I would only be paying $40 less per month!! If I also listed my "entertainment" expense and $80 instead of $50, than I would be paying $70 less a month! Is this how it was for everybody else? If I knew this when I was there filling out the papers I would've put a little more in expenses so I would have to pay less -- I listed my expenses kind of low because I didn't know what to expect when I came up for the creditors meeting, so I made it look like I was living on a bare minimum budget. I didn't want to be questioned about why am I spending so much for food, or is cable tv necessary, or how come you spend that much on clothes and so on. But it turned out they don't even ask for proof of expenses, like your past electricity bills or your cable bills.
Anyway this is the part I don't understand. My payments came out to $340/mo. This is the exact difference on the worksheet that my lawyer did where he subtracted the two amounts (expenses and income). The difference was $340-- now what I what I don't get is the default plan 4 years? How come he didn't take that $340 and make my payback plan 3 or 5 years? I asked him what if I wanted to finish this in 3 years, and basically my payment would have gone up proportionally. If I asked for 5 years it would've come down a little. I just thought it was a little weird that they took the EXACT amount of the differnce between income and expense and made that amount into the 4 year plan that I requested. What i'm wondering about is if I told him 3 years beforehand, would this amount be the same because there is no place on the worksheet where he figured everything out where you take the length of the plan into consideration.
If anything I'm hoping to help you guys who are thinking about filing for ch. 13 to not make the same mistakes I did when filing out the expenses. Don't be embarassed or think it might make you look bad if you're actually paying $100 for digital cable. List it down, and if they have a problem with it then you might have to do something about it but list everything down since it makes a big difference in payments.
Anyway this is the part I don't understand. My payments came out to $340/mo. This is the exact difference on the worksheet that my lawyer did where he subtracted the two amounts (expenses and income). The difference was $340-- now what I what I don't get is the default plan 4 years? How come he didn't take that $340 and make my payback plan 3 or 5 years? I asked him what if I wanted to finish this in 3 years, and basically my payment would have gone up proportionally. If I asked for 5 years it would've come down a little. I just thought it was a little weird that they took the EXACT amount of the differnce between income and expense and made that amount into the 4 year plan that I requested. What i'm wondering about is if I told him 3 years beforehand, would this amount be the same because there is no place on the worksheet where he figured everything out where you take the length of the plan into consideration.
If anything I'm hoping to help you guys who are thinking about filing for ch. 13 to not make the same mistakes I did when filing out the expenses. Don't be embarassed or think it might make you look bad if you're actually paying $100 for digital cable. List it down, and if they have a problem with it then you might have to do something about it but list everything down since it makes a big difference in payments.
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