Help! (advice/questions for Pa filers or anyone)

[2ndtimefiler]

I have 22,000 in unsecured debt with interest between 29% and 24%. I previously filed chapter 7 in 2003 and never thought this would happen to me and I would be back in this situation. I could only get high interest credit/loans and now I am so back in debt I can not even begin to make enough to pay more than the minimums to get myself back out of this mess.
I am not here for lectures, another board has given me all the bad flack I can possibly take when I inquired several months ago. I know I have an issue with credit and really believe I can will never touch unsecured debt again after I straigten this out. I do not want to be a serial filer. I am devastate I am even considering it, but with 24%-29% interest on 22,000 I will never get it paid off. My income does not support me paying more than the minimums and the cc's keep raising my interest.
My monthly payments are now at 700 (unsecured loans/ccs) and I can not continue this way, I rob Peter to pay Paul. With the BK laws I can only file chapter 13, i already spoke to a lawyer months ago who advised me that I should consider chapter 13 to get myself back on the right path and then stay totally away from getting any type of credit for unsecured loans.
To make a this very long story short, has anyone filed in PA and have advice, or any poster advice on where do I go from here? How does a chapter 13 work during the plan. What happens to me and my family and our lifestyle. I understand it changes, but how: Am I in touch with the trustee on a regualr basis and do I need to report my spending? What about my living expenses/gas? Can I do things/go places/go out or is that all gone until my plan is done. Is someone watching me? The lawyer i am planning on retaining said I had some very bad impressions of a chapter 13, but until I go in for my ""full consultation" he hasn't explained what happens during the time I file till the end. I am just terrified that I will be considered a serial filer and be turned down, or worse the trustee/lawyer/judge would think I am being fraudelant. I would never go back to the lawyer who did my chapter 7, he was useless, insensitive and mean to me.
Regarding my bank account, do I need to submit my checking/savings statement and is that money removed? I have money in my checking to cover my taxes on my home and i do not want to lose that.
Also, one of my personal loans, 10,000 dollars is less than 1 year old. I consolidated some bills and paid off other cards and a family member. How would this be viewed. I am just terrified that these creditors will say because i filed before that I should not be able to file again and I would be dismissed. All these things are going through my mind and every month I pay more and more from peter to paul to cover my minimums.
Also in reading so of the posts, your monthlys are so high, I could never afford the Chapter 13 if I had to continue to pay the 700. Any ideas what I could expect to pay, and also, how do they determine if you get a 3 or 5 year term?
Thanks for any advice or comments.

[woeisme]

You said that your lawyer says you have a bad impression of CH 13. Well, if it helps in any way, I'll tell you that I think filing CH 13 (Sept 07) was the best thing I've done in forever for my financial outlook. I was drowning in credit card minimum payments, doing what you are saying, spending on one to cover the other. Now I am finally getting out of debt instead of digging deeper. We were probably paying close to $2000 a month on our cards (have about 90K in credit card debt plus another 50K in student loans) and now our CH 13 payments are 1100 a month, which may sound high, but our take-home pay is around $5000 a month, so we still have enough to live on, actually are saving a couple hundred a month so far.

They base your CH 13 payments off of your income vs. expenses. You will fill out a couple of schedules with the lawyer, and that will determine how much "disposable" income you have to fund your CH 13 plan. Be sure to include every possible expense, especially ones that are irregular, like expenses that come up every year, but maybe not every month. There are some good posts on here with suggestions for what to include in your expenses. I was lucky that my attorney also worked hard with me to come up with a livable budget, and that my trustee didn't object to any of the expenses we claimed. They do allow a little bit for entertainment expenses, it would be up to you to scrimp and save from all areas of your budget if you want to spend $ on travel and vacations and such that cost a fair amount of money. Our trustee doesn't take our tax return ($2500 this year), so we plan to use about half of it to take a road trip this summer to either Niagra Falls or Washington DC, we haven't decided yet. Not all trustees allow you to keep tax returns though, it really depends on your district. Nobody keeps track of you once you file, you still make your own choices about how you spend your money, so if you want to move money from one budget item to another, you can, you just have to make sure you can make your trustee payment, that and our morgage is our first priority.

The major thing you want to avoid is taking on any more debt while in CH 13. It is cause for dismissal of your case, then the creditors can all come back at you with added interest and fees and you're right back where you started. My trustee said that any debt caused by anything other than a medical emergency or emergency repair had to be vetted through him first, and anything sale or purchase of anything we have or want to buy over $1000 had to be approved by him first. (So we can't sell one of our vehicles for $1500 to go on a cruise, for instance, since the vehicles are considered part of the BK estate.) But if we needed a new vehicle, and had managed to save enough from tax returns, maybe a gift from my Mom, etc, to purchase say a $5000 car, my lawyer said I could get approval from the trustee pretty easily, I'd just have to explain where the $ came from. Or if my car broke down and I didn't have the money to get a new one, I might be able to petition the trustee to have my montly payments changed so that I could afford a car payment, etc. But it's only for the big stuff that I need to involve the trustee, your normal monthly budget and spending is your choice and they aren't going to monitor it.

How long your plan lasts depends on a few things. The first is whether or not you are above or below the median income for your family size and location. If you are above the median, you have to file a 5 year plan, below the median and you can propose a 3 year plan. If you are above the median, you can only get less than a 5 year plan if you pay 100% back to your creditors I think.

Sorry, don't know anything about PA (I live in OH), but hopefully I answered some of your questions.

[woeisme]

PS. I don't think you'll have to worry too much about them rejecting you because you filed before (although I'm not sure how long you have to wait between a 7 and a 13, but if your lawyer said it was ok that you filed CH 7 in 03 and now want to do a 13, then you should be good.) My husband had filed CH 7 before (although in the early 90's, so about 15 years before our CH 13) and it was never an issue at all. You'll have to take a debt management class first before you file, so even in the unlikely case that they do mention it, you can use their own court ordered debt management class as proof that you are taking action to learn how to manage unsecured debt and your finances now. In CH 13 you don't have to worry as much about creditor objections or being considered fraudulant because you are proposing to repay a portion of the debt, so they have even less standing to object than in a CH 7. The main thing is you have to stop using your credit cards completely if possible, and definitely no big purchases between now and when you file.

[rrockinggramma]

welcome to the club! And don't feel bad. I filed a chapter 7 in 01 and then went through 2 dismissed chapter 13's, divorce and now this chapter 13 that will be done here soon. I am in michigan, not PA but I agree with wooisme. It was the best thing I ever did. It really forces you to examine your life style and make the necessary adjustments. Your priorities change to housing payment, trustee payment, utilities, and then the rest. Advice, make sure you have a good vehicle that will make it 5 years without major repairs. And don't be embarrassed. If the budget is made up correctly, a chapter 13 can work for the entire family.