worried forced into 13

[ekelly4200]

I met with a lawyer already and paid them. I want to do 7 and she seemed to agree. One thing I am finding is I was mistaken on was income after expenses. i was including CC payments. Now I realize debts included on a BK are not included when determing disposable income. So now it looks like I have $600 a month free.(and I realize why I was being asked about other expenses and amounts) But we do pass the means test for our state. Only thing secured is our financed car which we want to reaffirm. Lawyer should be calling us in any day now to sign everything so it can be filed so I will ask then but getting real nervous here. Any similar experiences here?

[FoolAndHisMoney]

I met with a lawyer already and paid them. I want to do 7 and she seemed to agree. One thing I am finding is I was mistaken on was income after expenses. i was including CC payments. Now I realize debts included on a BK are not included when determing disposable income. So now it looks like I have $600 a month free.(and I realize why I was being asked about other expenses and amounts) But we do pass the means test for our state. Only thing secured is our financed car which we want to reaffirm. Lawyer should be calling us in any day now to sign everything so it can be filed so I will ask then but getting real nervous here. Any similar experiences here?

I'm just wondering why are you going ahead and filing if it shows you have $600 a month available? If you really do have this much disposable income, then the US Trustee will flag this for sure. Since you passed the means test you are not filing an abusive bankruptcy. You should double check your schedule J and be very certain you listed all of you expenses. As soon as you start amending this form and adding in forgotten expenses they will be all over you for sure.

[ekelly4200]

I'm just wondering why are you going ahead and filing if it shows you have $600 a month available? If you really do have this much disposable income, then the US Trustee will flag this for sure. Since you passed the means test you are not filing an abusive bankruptcy. You should double check your schedule J and be very certain you listed all of you expenses. As soon as you start amending this form and adding in forgotten expenses they will be all over you for sure.

I was on a DMP earlier this year. Even on that we could not make ends meet and MIL was giving us money every week for other things like gas after rent/DMP/utilities were paid. DMP was for $730 but after necessary basics and many cutbacks on dh pay alone it was not enough. $600 a month available is without all the CC/DMP payments. I think I will have to go over the J schedule with lawyer but shouldn't be a problem as we have not filed yet. Lawyer has all bills, papers,etc and setting that up now.

[SinkingFast]

Take a look at this BK Calculator and see if it doesn't jog your memory about some minor or irregular expenses you may have forgotten to include:

http://www.bankruptcyforum.com/showt...ght=calculator

FAHM is right. You're best off to file as accurately as possible the first time. If you go ammending, that will send up red flags and cause the Trustee to dig further into your case.

Possibly why you can't think of expenses is you've been living on the edge too long. Until we quit using CC's, I couldn't tell you how much we spent on toilet paper every month. Go to the Grocery, swipe plastic. Get gas for the car, swipe plastic. When you live like that, you don't really know what you're spendiing on things every month.

Don't forget to include things that pop up once or twice a year. Sit down with a notebook and a pencil and start writing things down. I'd bet before you know it, that $600/mo is gonna disappear.