pre-filing exempt purchases -- gift cards?

[Tom_Mi]

Hi all,
Just thought of this....

My wife may need some clothes in the fall.
We have some extra money 200 or 300.
Clothes are exempt...I think.

If I buy a gift-card for say Kohls or Macy's, would that be seen as hoarding assets?

If this were ok, I could use some extra cash for grocery store cards as well (milk doesn't keep as long as a gift-card would)

[CH33 Paralegal]

that's a good question. I'll tell you first hand that I never really ask about gift cards when I do an initial intake or even when discussing assets. It would most likely fly under the radar. If it doesn't however, I'm not sure what the ramifications would be.

one thing to remember is that you do have some exemptable cash available for your case. You could have some money in the bank and still file a 7.

At our firm, we as paralegals are asked to inform the attorney if there is $3000 or more in the bank. That's at our firm though and should be looked at as one firm's policy.

[Tom_Mi]

Thanks for the info, I'll ask our atty at our meeting tomorrow. I only thought of this in case we are forced into CH13.
If we go CH7 I'm not going to try anything cute and risk upsetting anyone.

[Tromploi]

My atty's office told me they can protect up to $21,000 in cash and assets. I had 4K in a paypal account, she said it was fine. I pulled it anyway. (Paranoid). But we also need it to live on now, I put some of it in the checking acct since we have to use the ATM to buy everything now (like gas) instead of a CC.