Chapter 13 Filed, freaking out

[Zacharge]

Hello,

After a long process of working with the attorney and my case turning from Ch7 to Ch13 my case has been filed as of 1/31. I got the notice that I have a payment due to the trustee on 3/1 of X amount and that my 341 meeting will take place within 6 weeks over zoom and not much more information.

I have roughly 60k in unsecured debt's and make over the median income in Texas. I am concerned about what to expect in the coming months, what my final payments will be like, and what else to expect through this process. I am thankfully in a much better financial situation now and have a steady income that had I been getting a few years ago would have saved me from all this.

Using online calculators the average of expected payments is 1350 ish dollars, which after rent and utilities still leaves with me a 1500-1700 dollar a month surplus so I am expecting a 100% payment plan but don't know for sure.

Does anyone have any tips for at the start, with making payments (would like to use TFS but the period between scheduling and trustee getting it worries me) and organizing things or anything else helpful?

Thanks!

[flashoflight]

Your lawyer came up with a payment amount already. You need to pay whatever that amount is unless told otherwise by your lawyer. Use TFS if permitted by your trustee. Do it about 10 days before the due date on the 1st. TFS takes a week if there is no holiday. If you do TFS at Walmart, it still takes a week but the trustee might feel better about it because Walmart received guaranteed funds. I wouldn't do Walmart unless there is a special reason. Don't mail the payment. The lockbox service is slow and so is the USPS. If you pay a little late, it usually doesn't matter but let your lawyer know. It usually takes 2-3 months behind to get a trustee motion to dismiss for delinquency unless you are on strict compliance from previous arrears. You got this.

[Carmella]

Did the lawyer tell you the amount to pay? If so pay it timely. We were able to make our first payment online and then the rest of the payments were taken out of my paycheck. We were not given an option to pay it ourselves, but I know some places allow people to pay on their own.

[Zacharge]

First off, thank you for the encouraging words. At this point I have come to terms with the whole situation and look forward to putting this behind me. Realizing I won't have to completely end my personal life and eat ramen for 5 years has helped substantially and now it's just the stress of figuring out the month to month.

The lawyer in an email (I went with a larger firm when I started this when it was supposed to be a simpler process, pre ch13) stated my case had been filed along with the payment amount. I setup TFS to be drawn out sooner than need be so I could monitor how it could go this time to plan accordingly.

I am hoping to be able to continue to use this method as opposed to having them come straight out of my paycheck. I work for a smaller company where everyone knows everyone and gossip happens, the last thing I want is this getting to our HR and accounting teams that I work with often and spreading around.

[Carmella]

First off, thank you for the encouraging words. At this point I have come to terms with the whole situation and look forward to putting this behind me. Realizing I won't have to completely end my personal life and eat ramen for 5 years has helped substantially and now it's just the stress of figuring out the month to month.

The lawyer in an email (I went with a larger firm when I started this when it was supposed to be a simpler process, pre ch13) stated my case had been filed along with the payment amount. I setup TFS to be drawn out sooner than need be so I could monitor how it could go this time to plan accordingly.

I am hoping to be able to continue to use this method as opposed to having them come straight out of my paycheck. I work for a smaller company where everyone knows everyone and gossip happens, the last thing I want is this getting to our HR and accounting teams that I work with often and spreading around.

Definitely ask if it's an option so you can go that route. I hope it is an option for you. I was worried about mine not staying confidential and I got lucky since our payroll had just recently moved out our little building to a different department in our corporate offices. If it went through payroll when it was still in our building, I hate to think who would know about it.

[alaska708]

$1,350 a month payment? God help me! I’m in Texas too and in the same situation, have to file a ch 13 but live paycheck to paycheck. I’ll be lucky to be able to pay $100-200 a month as cost of living, food, rent and a recent new car purchase ….

[alaska708]

I assume you make a lot more than I do! Make only $80K a year but no way will I be able to make any sort of a payment like yours!

[shipo]

Monthly Chapter 13 payments vary by one's assets and income. Said another way, two people could have the exact same income and owe the exact same amount of debt, but Person A could end up with a monthly payment of $200 while Person B could end up with a payment of $1,200.

[justbroke]

What most people find is that what is actually included in their Chapter 13 payment, is not what they expected. For example, some people would believe that their payment excludes their car and home payment, where -- in many cases -- the payment to the Trustee does include those payments.

Each Chapter 13 payment is individually designed based on a variety of factors and certainly differs based on property that the debtor owns and is keeping. It is also influenced by the size of the family and other varying expenses that are allowed. My $7,500/month Chapter 13 payment would shock many people. But my factors are different and that amount didn't scare me at all. Yes, money was tight, but I had a workable budget that proved to be good for my situation.

[Zacharge]

$1,350 a month payment? God help me! I’m in Texas too and in the same situation, have to file a ch 13 but live paycheck to paycheck. I’ll be lucky to be able to pay $100-200 a month as cost of living, food, rent and a recent new car purchase ….

I thankfully make decent money (high 60's but then also receive VA disability, that combined with splitting rent and car payment with my longtime girlfriend (would be fiancee but that's been on hold due to this) I make more than enough to live off of these days.

When I started this process I was recently seperated from the military and either not working only doing school or working for a job that paid extremely low to get some experience in my field. Since then I have moved to a steady job that pays well and does quarterly profit sharing, benefits etc.

My math might have been completely off when punching numbers into the online calc's. I used my total debt from my credit report since all is included with the BK and then added on an extra 15% or so for trustees and additional lawyer fees to get an estimate. Hopefully my payment is around those ammounts if at 100% because in that case I end up with that surplus. If not then I'll have to re-evaluate.

[shipo]

In my humble opinion, "online calculators" are utterly and completely worthless. I tried one back before I started getting deep into the weeds with my attorney; it came up with a number of X. When my attorney finished her work I was stunned to end up with a number which was X/3 (i.e. a third of what the online calculator said). Long story short, if you're looking into a Chapter 13, hire an attorney; what you pay them will most likely be recovered within the first few months of filing.

[Zacharge]

Monthly Chapter 13 payments vary by one's assets and income. Said another way, two people could have the exact same income and owe the exact same amount of debt, but Person A could end up with a monthly payment of $200 while Person B could end up with a payment of $1,200.

Thank you for this information, I am still learning a lot about Ch13, I learned as much as I could regarding Ch7 and then I found out the switch happened during an extremly trying time during my work life (working 100+ hr weeks for a few months) and now trying to learn on the fly.

To confirm what I believe is correct, given all things equal you don't usually end up paying more than 100% of debt's plus trustee/additional legal fees, correct?

[shipo]

In my humble opinion, "online calculators" are utterly and completely worthless. I tried a few back before I started getting deep into the weeds with my attorney and they showed a monthly number very close to X, once she finished her work I was stunned to end up X/3 (i.e. a third of what the online calculators said). Long story short, if you're looking into a Chapter 13, hire an attorney; what you pay them will most likely be recovered within the first few months of filing.

[Zacharge]

In my humble opinion, "online calculators" are utterly and completely worthless. I tried a few back before I started getting deep into the weeds with my attorney and they showed a monthly number very close to X, once she finished her work I was stunned to end up X/3 (i.e. a third of what the online calculators said). Long story short, if you're looking into a Chapter 13, hire an attorney; what you pay them will most likely be recovered within the first few months of filing.

That is good to hear! I luckily already was working with an attorny and used them to file.

The payment scheme is still the hardest part for me to wrap my head around, I'm currently hourly and changing to salary soon, receive a variable profit sharing every quarter, and received fixed VA disability. Seeing the stories of people who have x payment, get a raise or have year where bonus's are higher than usual and their CH13 payments go up because they were on a sub 100% plan is the most stressful part to me. For now it sound's like I'm stuck waiting until the trustee meeting to here back on when my 341 is and go from there.

[shipo]

During my five year Chapter 13 I got one promotion, six raises and seven bonuses, no one change was more than 9% (10% seems to be a common trigger point), and over the course of the bankruptcy, my income increased roughly 40%, even still, my payment didn't change. The only time the Trustee got more than the plan was when I got a large tax return and he asked for everything over $1,250.