My husband and I filed ch. 13 August, 07 and was confirmed in January, 08. Here is my question. My husband has the chance to work a "one-time only" overtime shift that would pay roughly $35.00 per hr. after taxes. His employer has told him that he could work as much or as little for the next 14 weeks for this "one time only" opportunity. His exact words were "a person could easily make several thousands of dollars by doing this". When we got confirmed we received a ch. 13 handbook from the trustee and there is a certain paragraph that is entitled PAYING MORE THAN REQUIRED: This is exactly what it says: If you are ever in a position where you wish to increase your payments to the trustee, even if only by a few dollars a week, this will have a big impact of finishing your plan ahead of time. Paying a little more than required will reduce interests costs and administrative expenses and will cause the payroll deductions to stop that much sooner. If you ever wish to increase your plan payments, then contact your lawyer. If you wish to make a single extra payment, then you may do that be sending a money order or a cashier's check to the trustee. This will also cause your plan to be shorter. Even if you pay more than is required per month, you are still required to make the minimum payments each month thereafter.
My question is does anyone out there really think that if my husband was to say make $1,000.00 from this overtime and apply it to the plan that the trustee would really put it towards our base plan or just increase our base plan? We only owe roughly $9,500.00 more on our base plan so by paying an extra $1,000.00 that could shorten our plan possibly 7 to 9 months. We only pay $155.00 per month to unsecured debt. Our home and cars are both outside the plan. The reason for the low payment is because we have so much monthly debt. We originally filed for ch. 7 and then I realized my attorney didn't put the child support ($336.00) per month I had been receiving up until July 07. Once I realized the mistake that was made I informed my attorney and he was like "owe well that puts you in a 13". I could have died. Had I found this wonderful forum and educated myself on the fact that I should have waited to file in January 08 (six months after receiving child support) I would have waited. The child support stopped in July, 07 because my son graduated high school. Oh and by the way my attorney did know about the child support I had received. I gave him print-outs of all payments my ex had made and he said "no problem, it will just be considered a "flow-thru". The paralegal forgot to put it in the petition, my fault for not looking at the petition more thoroughly, boy did I learn my lesson. Anyway I apologize for this post being so long and winded but as you can tell I do not have alot of faith in my attorney or his staff to ask this question. I did ask it back in February, 08 to the paralegal about one-time payments or paying a little more to shorten the plan and his response was "don't do anything that will draw attention to your plan, just pay the ordered monthly payment". So again I'm lost as to what we should do. Should my husband bust his a-- for the next 14 weeks to make this great money to pay off the plan quicker , if that is how it really works, or just turn the overtime down? Thank you to anyone that has taken the time to read my post, again I know it's very long and windy.
My question is does anyone out there really think that if my husband was to say make $1,000.00 from this overtime and apply it to the plan that the trustee would really put it towards our base plan or just increase our base plan? We only owe roughly $9,500.00 more on our base plan so by paying an extra $1,000.00 that could shorten our plan possibly 7 to 9 months. We only pay $155.00 per month to unsecured debt. Our home and cars are both outside the plan. The reason for the low payment is because we have so much monthly debt. We originally filed for ch. 7 and then I realized my attorney didn't put the child support ($336.00) per month I had been receiving up until July 07. Once I realized the mistake that was made I informed my attorney and he was like "owe well that puts you in a 13". I could have died. Had I found this wonderful forum and educated myself on the fact that I should have waited to file in January 08 (six months after receiving child support) I would have waited. The child support stopped in July, 07 because my son graduated high school. Oh and by the way my attorney did know about the child support I had received. I gave him print-outs of all payments my ex had made and he said "no problem, it will just be considered a "flow-thru". The paralegal forgot to put it in the petition, my fault for not looking at the petition more thoroughly, boy did I learn my lesson. Anyway I apologize for this post being so long and winded but as you can tell I do not have alot of faith in my attorney or his staff to ask this question. I did ask it back in February, 08 to the paralegal about one-time payments or paying a little more to shorten the plan and his response was "don't do anything that will draw attention to your plan, just pay the ordered monthly payment". So again I'm lost as to what we should do. Should my husband bust his a-- for the next 14 weeks to make this great money to pay off the plan quicker , if that is how it really works, or just turn the overtime down? Thank you to anyone that has taken the time to read my post, again I know it's very long and windy.
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