Our chapter 13 journey has started

[womanonfire]

1)

2) For PACER, consider adding extra accounts for spouses and pets. Make sure you roll to the spouse and pet accounts if you get close to $30 in a quarter.

7) What is your mortgage interest rate? If it is in the ballpark of 5%, consider a manual underwrite FHA cashout refi to get out of the 13 early since you are in a 100% plan. You cannot get this refi without the 13 since your credit is too trashed to qualify for a mortgage. You need 12 months in the 13 on-time and at least one tradeline which means you need that secured card. Your mortgage FICO score will be important in pricing the mortgage.

Interesting. Why the extra accounts for PACER?

Also what would be the advantage of paying it off early other than the obvious? Am I being stupid by asking this? lols. Mine is 5% but my credit score is TRASHED!

[notreallyme]

Small update this week.
As of 6/1/2022 NDC website has updated to show:
1. Two new creditors submitted claim of proof. Both basically where we estimated the amounts to be
2. NDC now shows the wage withholding from paycheck of 5/27. Yay, was concerned something would go wrong - money not on my check but also not with the trustee. NDC also shows an entry for "TRUSTEE FEE - PLAN RECEIPT" which was 6% of the payment that went in. Thought fees were at disbursement, not payment but no big deal as at the end they will be the same. Interesting that the fee matches the 6% that is on the Trustee's site, not the 8% our lawyer said or the 10% that is built into the plan. But if fees stay at 6% just means more of the plan goes to creditors and payment will be slightly sooner. Not much, but every little bit helps
3. A couple of old creditors show up on the notified list which I found interesting. A lender repossessed a vehicle in 2015 and marked it as a charge-off which we paid in full in 2017. However, still shows up on credit report, so Trustee / Court must be notifying everyone on the credit report so current creditors and old creditors with derogatory notes.

Other items, talked with our lawyer (well emailed back and forth, no actual conversation). Not worth doing an AP for stays - with our judge and court all we would get back is the NSF charges which wouldn't cover the legal expense. On the plus side, he had his paralegal fax these two creditors again and the phone calls ended the next day.

I'm ODC and a spread sheet monkey, so will continue to look at NDC daily so see who has filed even though there is another 56 days before the claims bar date (assuming 70 days from filing date. Hoping for no creditors that I forgot about. Small hope that some I do know about won't file. So far, a little over what I expected but still well below what we submitted in our plan

[flashoflight]

4) Town is strange and hard to find rentals - even rooms in someone's house. Town has a population of 10,000-15,000 but M-F there are over 30,000 workers. Town has: large drug company plant, factory that builds windmills, oil refinery, county hospital, two colleges plus junior college, two large grain elevators, insurance company and many smaller manufacturers. Rent and house values are actually higher than in my suburb of Kansas City. Only one newish apartment complex, others are 40 or more years old and show it. Rooms go quickly and are almost as expansive as the hotels. Luckily I don't mind driving - I grew up in the middle of no where, so the 2.5 hour drive one way isn't that bad. It has the benefit of giving me time to destress.

Keep looking for a room to rent in a house (I would not share an apartment because the math doesn't pencil out if you want the rent as cheap as possible). In California, it's not uncommon to see bunk beds in a 5 bedroom single family home, converted garage, 6+ cars per house using up precious space in the street, driveway, and even the front yard. McDonald's is still able to get people to take jobs at $16/hour in expensive California. This is how fast food workers pay rent and not live in their car.

[notreallyme]

Thank you flashoflight. I like your advice and am going to try to do some of these.

Quick update for 5/27 (these will become less frequent as time goes on, but a lot is happening right now)

Checked NDC - all secured creditors have been notified, no new proof of claims submitted.
First payroll deduction has occurred but doesn't show up yet on NDC
Two creditors - the one that calls everyday and one other both tried to ACH payments out of my bank. So, two more NSF and two more return item fees so $160 dollars I don't have. Long story - that account is negative and the bank won't let me close it until I bring it positive. Switched my direct deposit to a different account at the same bank and will bring this account positive and close it early next week. Didn't want to bring it positive with my direct deposit and then have creditors grab it all before I could get to the bank and close it. Since both creditors that tried to grab funds have been notified - both by me and by the trustee - I now have damages for a stay violation. I will talk to my lawyer about this.

On your recommendations:

1) I have been taking screen shots of the call log and texts. I just started emailing the voicemail to myself and then saving it on my pc. I only saved the ones from the last couple of days, but have screen shots to show they have been leaving two a day.
2) Will set up pacer accounts for myself and my wife and start looking at it closer to the 341 meeting
3) Going to open up an open sky secured card as soon as confirmation hearing is completed. I don't think this is technically applying for more credit since it is based on a deposit, but don't want to do anything that might cause dismissal
4) Town is strange and hard to find rentals - even rooms in someone's house. Town has a population of 10,000-15,000 but M-F there are over 30,000 workers. Town has: large drug company plant, factory that builds windmills, oil refinery, county hospital, two colleges plus junior college, two large grain elevators, insurance company and many smaller manufacturers. Rent and house values are actually higher than in my suburb of Kansas City. Only one newish apartment complex, others are 40 or more years old and show it. Rooms go quickly and are almost as expansive as the hotels. Luckily I don't mind driving - I grew up in the middle of no where, so the 2.5 hour drive one way isn't that bad. It has the benefit of giving me time to destress.
5) wasn't sure how mortgage payments were handled - I have seen different answers - so seeing an answer from someone who knows what they are talking about is helpful. I'll just keep tracking NDC and wait for the confirmation hearing.
6) I agree - we have cut our budget to the bone. Hoping creditors don't file or at least no new ones show up. If only the ones we know about file, monthly payments can go down. So far 2 new ones have shown up but six others have filed slightly below what we estimated. Net increase of $1,000 but that still leaves us below the original plan estimate.
7) First mortgage is at 3.25% HELOC is at 4.25%. FHA loan won't work for us - if we combine the first and second we would be near the limit for our county even before we take out cash.

As long as we can make it through the end of this year, plan will get easier. Plan doesn't require me to turn in profit share bonus in March. This year, I think I will need some for Federal taxes. Usually I try to break even, but this year I will owe a couple of thousand. But still should be able to add a little to our emergency fund. Also, when school starts back up, my wife is going to pick up extra hours which will help. It won't change our payment as we are in a 100% plan.

[flashoflight]

1) You should record the voicemail messages to your own MP3 file now. You won't have access to the voicemails for very long. Save the call logs to another device like a JPG on a computer as well. It was not easy to extract payment from the automatic stay violators since an adversary is required in my area. I had to prove actual monetary damage via paystubs and medical documentation. Your lawyer needs to make another effort or two or three to get them to stop before you even think about harsher action. Mere annoyance is not worth anything. I was able to get a nice settlement from the creditor in the end.

2) For PACER, consider adding extra accounts for spouses and pets. Make sure you roll to the spouse and pet accounts if you get close to $30 in a quarter.

3) It sounds like you need a secured credit card now. You can get unsecured later when somebody offers you one with no annual fee. It's possible to get an unsecured card with less than a year in BK, but you will need to be lucky with the BK not showing up on the credit report or a surviving open tradeline with zero balance.

4) If you are at the office 2-3 times a week, you should rent a room in somebody's house instead. It is almost always going to be a lot cheaper. You will likely have to share a bathroom in the hallway, but you should be able to rent a bedroom with no roommates in it.

5) Conduit mortgage payments will not be paid until after confirmation.

6) The best time to cut your household budget is after filing and especially after confirmation. Cut it to the bone. It will be hard the first year and you need every dollar you can find. Sometimes 100% plans are easy because the debt isn't too much or there isn't too much non-exempt property. But if you have a lot of debt or non-exempt assets, it can be very hard.

7) What is your mortgage interest rate? If it is in the ballpark of 5%, consider a manual underwrite FHA cashout refi to get out of the 13 early since you are in a 100% plan. You cannot get this refi without the 13 since your credit is too trashed to qualify for a mortgage. You need 12 months in the 13 on-time and at least one tradeline which means you need that secured card. Your mortgage FICO score will be important in pricing the mortgage.

[Carmella]

Sounds like you have a good plan and when I read quickly I didn't catch the hotel could be just a night or two so $500 could work I agree holding off until the 341/confirmation because you don't want to take credit out now!

We were totally clueless when we filed for BK. Luckily, the attorney firm we have is excellent with BK. I found this forum after we filed. If I had thought of looking for a BK forum prior we probably would not have procrastinated and our stress would have been lower! This is truly a wonderful forum with lots of good information.

[notreallyme]

Thanks for the tips. Laughing at the $500 isn't much for a hotel. Apparently you haven't been in west / central Kansas. The most expensive hotels are either the holiday inn or the fairfield. They alternate who is the most expensive, but right now they are both about $115 a night, before taxes. The best western runs $85. The motels and dumps run about $50.

I was thinking the same as you on extra payments. I want to get my plan payment as low as possible but it will still need to be 100% over the 60 months. I want to start saving until I am back to having two months of expenses saved away. Then might consider extra payments. Luckily plan doesn't require profit share, if any that the company pays so that will help a bit next year. The wage withholdings as they are currently set up more than pay the plan. Income taxes I generally play with the w4 to break even. Have gotten good on state - it has been +/- 200 for the last five years. Federal I still keep adjusting too much - going from $4,000 return to owing $4,000. Luckily tax season is also profit share season so the year we owed we were able to use the extra money to make the tax payment. Hopefully I nailed it this year. I don't want a refund because I can use the money now, but also don't want a surprise bill in the spring.

On the credit cards, I was thinking of secured non-reward cards like open sky who don't pull credit. I think they allow you to secure up to $3,000. They never graduate, but it might be possible for me to get one. I'll read through my filing and see if credit cards are mentioned. Again, will hold off until confirmation and even then will still check with my lawyer first. Don't want to be one of the 50% or more who are dismissed.

I'll take a log at pacer and Mrs. notreallyme and I will set up an account. I'll test my skills by looking for the withholding order and the 341 hearing notice to see if I can find documents.

That's one of the things I liked about this site when I was researching bankruptcy. Members are helpful and someone has probably gone through the same situation.

[Carmella]

Your BK paperwork will include if are allowed to get a credit card/debt. Ours allowed us $500 each, not much for a hotel. On the board I have seen some people say they were not allowed any credit. The other question is will someone give you a credit card being fresh in BK with poor credit rating.

I would recommend as soon as you can, after confirmation, put extra in your bank account so your debit card has a reserve of cash that way if there is a hold on the card it will not be a problem.

I also recommend once in the plan if you have extra money put it into savings or even a safe cash stash at home. I would not pay extra on the BK payments / voluntary payments. You may need cash in the next 5 yrs and it's very difficult if you do not have cash or credit when a pipe springs a leak, when the refrigerator dies, when car needs a repair or new tires or hopefully no unexpected expenses, like my car that was totaled by no fault of my own. It's been hard on us when the property taxes and income taxes are due to have the money to pay it. The property taxes give 60 day grace period so we have paid late, but within the 60 days so the taxes are up to date. We have had to make voluntary payments to our post BK income taxes since there just is not enough money to pay it at once.

PACER, yes sign up for it. It's basically free. You can view many pages at no cost per month. You could even set up an account under your and your spouses name and get double the amount for free. I don't remember the amount of free pages to view, but I know it's quite generous . The first time going on it's a bit confusing. I would keep track, download or print things you might want to look at again so you are not getting charged for the same document more than once. You might read things on PACER before your attorney notifies you. We didn't have a lot to look at over the past 4 yrs, but when my car was totaled it was helpful to look at PACER to see when the court approved my new car loan and now near the end I will probably look at it more.

NDC is good, but not as quickly up to date. I have looked at NDC more often than PACER.

Paystubs we had to keep printing them until the day of the 341 and we had to bring the paystubs the attorney didn't have to the 341 meeting. I actually brought a file with all the info they needed, everything I submitted to the attorney just in case. I know that is extreme, but I tend to over prepare for most things!

[notreallyme]

I am starting this thread to record our journey through chapter 13. This thread has two purposes – first to keep us motivated to stick to our plan by being able to see major milestones as we hit them and secondly to provide entertainment or information to others who are contemplating filing. Sorry for how long this post is.

Won’t provide a lot of backstory, but basically took out some high interest personal loans after making some bad financial decisions last year. Then had to take out more loans to pay of the first. By the time we realized we were trapped, we had killed our credit scores. Spent four months this year trying to find a lender to either refinance either our mortgage or HELOC or get a third mortgage. We have 40% equity in our house but our credit scores were too low by the time we tried. Also tried to work with the creditors to just freeze the interest for a few months so we could catch up. So, instead of an interest freeze of a couple of months, they will now have an interest freeze of 60 months. Their loss. During this time, we went through all of our reserves, and then some, keeping up with payments.

Our filing is in Kansas (Kansas City area trustee). 100% plan for 60 months. Including mortgage, HELOC and two cars in the plan. Cars have between 20 and 24 payments remaining on their loans. The plan that was submitted took the entire auto loan balance and spread it over the 60 months. I don’t think any adjustment was made for the TILL rate. For the mortgages, the plan included the missed April and May payments spread over 60 months and adds the current monthly payments to keep us current.

Timeline:

End of April, beginning of May contacted an attorney and discussed filing. Put some pressure on the attorney to see if we could get filed by 5/13/2022 if possible. This was my next pay date and wanted to get the automatic stay, if possible, so I could stop ACHs before they hit our bank. Came close, but missed it a little bit.
5/8/2022 – provided lawyer with all of the debts that we knew about – lender name, amount, website and account information
5/11/2022 – we did the first required credit counseling
5/17/2022 – case filed
5/18/2022 – signed up with TFS incase wage order wasn’t in place – didn’t want to miss the 6/17/2022 (might have been 6/16/2022 – not sure how they count from filing) deadline for first month’s payment and get dismissed before we even started
5/18/2022 – also signed up at ndc.org so we could track our case.
5/20/2022 – “BNC” wage order issued
5/24/2022 – I could see the wage order in our HR / payroll system – will monitor on 5/27/2022 to see if it actually comes off from the paycheck
5/25/2022 – first creditors appear on NDC with additional ones showing up on 5/26/2022.

As I said in another thread, our initial proposed payment looks high – our filing listed all creditors that our lawyer found, but four were duplicate entries for about $10,000. So far, from the creditors that have submitted two small surprises – Verizon submitted for phones that we were paying through our monthly bill. This should end up being a wash as our monthly bill should then decrease. Also, a really old medical debt from our daughter’s visit to an emergency room showed up. I had totally forgot about this, so $1,200 that wasn’t in our plan showed up between the two. On the plus side the other 6 that have submitted are about 200 lower than we had in our plan. So, $1,000 of the original $10,000 overstatement has disappeared.

Speaking with our lawyer, it should be possible to true up the payment before our confirmation hearing after all of the proof of claims have been filed. Obviously, if more debt comes in than what we listed, the trustee will want the payment increased. If it is lower, we will want the payment decreased. If we get our reserves built back up, we can start to make voluntary payments if we want to end early, but for now I would prefer the additional money monthly and use the full 60 months to pay of the unsecured debt

Some questions that I don’t know the answer to yet:

What is the true fee – our lawyer said 8%, paperwork says up to 10% and our trustee’s site has this:

Current Trustee Fees and Discount Rates of Interest
Month: Discount Rate: Trustee Fee:
March 17 2020 4.75% 6%
June 1 2020 4.75% 8%
August 1 2021 4.75% 1%
October 1 2021 4.75% 6%

Is PACER necessary – I see several of the members of this board track things in PACER. We are enrolled for email notifications of orders and hearings. And at least so far, our lawyer and his paralegal have been very responsive.

Can I get a credit card - secured or unsecured doesn't matter. I mostly work remotely, but need to be in the office 2-3 days a week. Work is 180 miles from home, so it is more convenient to stay overnight in a hotel. Cost doesn't change, but if I pay with a debit card, an additional $150 hold is placed on my account. The hold is eventually released, but our plan payments are going to keep our bank accounts pretty low for the next few months. Paying with a credit card would be much easier.

Do we continue to send in paystubs each pay period or just until our plan is confirmed? I know this is a question for our lawyer, but I wanted to write it down somewhere so I don’t forget.

Does trustee make mortgage payments even before plan is confirmed? Again a question for our lawyer. I want to get all of my questions together and send his paralegal just one email with all of the questions rather than bombard him with a thousand emails.

When to make a complaint about violating the automatic stay. As some creditors have already submitted claims, I know the notice has been sent out to creditors. There is one creditor I have spoken to twice and gave them the case number and our lawyer’s information. They still call five times a day 8:00, 10:00, 12:00, 2:00 and 4;00 leaving messages at the 8:00 and 4:00 call. I have taken a screen shot at the end of each day showing the call history. They also text and email once a day. One other also calls three times a day 9:15, 2:15 and 6:15 but use a fake phone number and don’t leave a message. Once I know everyone has been notified, I will answer the call and see who they are.

Does our community know of other things I should keep an eye on between now and our 341 hearing (scheduled for 6/22/2022)? Or other things I should clarify with our lawyer.

Sorry for being long winded – it’s a character flaw of mine. My wife says when someone asks me what time it is, I tell them how to build a watch.