Questions RE Expenses

[wrinkleigh]

OK -- met with the lawyer last night (2nd meeting), very nice guy and really on top of things. He talked to us for over 2 hours about our paperwork, and answering questions. Very patient.

He did the means test and Sched I and J while we were in the office! He jumped right on it.

We passes the Means test with flying colors because out income was 30000 under the median.

My concern is -- he "tweaked" our income and expenses. The expenses I listed were "real" because I had been tracking them for 3 months and averaged them. They were way over what our standard 40 hour workweek income was. My DH has lots of overtime right now, but it is strictly seasonal.


Guess I always thought the more expenses the better.

Any insight????????

[SinkingFast]

When you are reaffirming debt, your attny is basically stating to the Court that he/she has reviewed your situation and the Reaffirmation(s) will not pose an undue financial burden on you. Then, the Court has to agree. So bringing your income and outgo closer together does make sense that way.

Plus too,........ Our Schedule J wasn't an accurate picture of our expenses. Some categories, the attny left alone. Like transportation expenses, auto insurance, and such. But our attny did whack what we spend on food. He upped our $$$ amount for clothes and something else. I forget all the changes he made. At the end, he brought us in +$11/month.

I think about all BK attnys tweak Schedule J in some way. They know what the Court is and isn't used to seeing based on the number and ages of people in a family.

[BKTango]

Same thing with us, below median income some overtime here and there. Our lawyer did the same thing, he upped my husbands tool expense for his job. I had very little on groceries for a family of three and he upped that and jokingly told me to make sure we start eating better. Same thing with the clothes, I left that out as we do not buy ourselves clothes just the kid for school so he added that in for all of us. Like SF said they will tweak it a bit as they know what the standards more or less are. By making ours more to what it would normally be if we hadn't been so used to spending so very little because of the cc and DMP payments he brought us to +8 a month and he told us the same thing in regards to reaffirming our mortgage.