What do most of you do with the money you saved after your Ch13...??

[tn09]

Been reading this forum and it has been great! Just wondering what people do with the money they saved after their CH13 filing? For example, someone who was paying $1000 in credit cards and after they filed Ch13, they only pay $300 into the monthly plan.

If you build a huge saving with the difference, will your trustee have a say in the amount of money that is in your savings account?

Another question would be, let say you have two years remaining on your auto loan and you are already in Ch13 and have been making the necessary monthly payment. Two years later, you paid off your auto loan and X-amount is now available since there is no more car loan payment. Will the trustee take this available income and change your monthly payment into CH13?

It would make the most sense to have a rainy day savings account and build yourself a nice emergency fund with this additional money.

Just like to hear back from people who is going though CH13 and what they do with their money that they saved.

[kornellred]

There are not too many Chapter 13 filers who have that much money left over on a monthly basis. When you have that much unsecured debt and you are paying over $1000 per month just to maintain that debt, the chances are very good that you are using credit cards to pay for necessities such as food, fuel, insurance, car repairs. etc., simply because you have to - you are using your money to maintain the unsecured debt. Once you are in a Chapter 13 payment plan, you no longer have access to unsecured credit and you are forced to pay cash. You will be surprised how much it costs to maintain a lifestyle that you are accustomed to when you have no credit cards.
Nevertheless, there are some Chapter 13 filers who do have cash left over each month - perhaps more than they actually should have. The DMI (disposable monthly income) is calculated according to a mathematical formula, but the factors being plugged in to the formula are subject to wide variations. That's where bankruptcy attorneys come into play.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that the majority of Chapter 13 filers have lots of excess money to play with each month. Most do not.

[Flamingo]

You are still paying debt back but at a lesser scale and as the other poster stated, you were maintaining that debt previously. Now you are on a budget with a stated payment and your disposable income is all taken into account as to the Plan. A plan should not be stringent and there should be some "wiggle room" but you will not have the difference between paying, as your example, $1,000 per month on credit card payments and the difference between whatever your Plan payment is. The strain of trying to maintain that debt, however, will be gone and that is priceless as many can state.

By budgeting and budgeting some more during your plan, you will be able to figure out how to save some cash each month and that will be necessary to do just to be able have funds on hand for car repairs, house maintenance, etc. - things will occur (just think of the cost of four new tires).

[jange]

I agree with kornellred, I do have money left over, but it is because I do not spend the allotted money on clothing or entertainment that we planned for or I have saved money from food shopping etc. I put money into my savings account every month, I use an automatic deduction, otherwise I wouldn't move it. You need to save for emergencies, there is no credit to fall back on. Right after filing we had a huge car repair bill, then the water heater went. This year, I had to get the sunroof in my car fixed as it had dropped down and wouldn't close. All of these things we paid cash for. Prior to bk, we would have charged it because of would have had no other way to pay for them. You get used to saving for things and paying cash. but you have to have money saved.
Plus when your costs for food, electricity, gas etc goes up, your payment to the trustee doesn't go down, you need to adjust what you are spending.

As for the car loan being paid off, it really depends on the trustee and what was set up in your plan.

19 payments done!

[BKchapter13]

We save every penny we get, we dont do anything to spend money on because we save, save, save, since we are at the end of our chapter 13 and looking forward to seeing the hard copy of our discharge we splurged on simple things we needed like some kitchen tools that wore out and new towels but nothing major in the way of spending. since our case was closed we are putting the money that was taken from our checks and then some and putting it right into our savings. Sure we dont do anything and life is boring but when we save enough we will be rewarded with what we really want, a home of our own so thats the trade off. Suffer now so we have a little ground to plant on that is our own and wait for retirment days. Chapter 13 is and was very hard to accomplish but in the end you think differently, I am fruggle, very thrifty and I have the edge to make it through this hard economy with all I learned. Good luck to all and keep strong and steady.