monthly expenses????monthly income??

[justplaintired]

I was wondering, when figuring our income, first of all it varies from month to month. O/T some weeks, none other weeks, some months I work more hours at my part time job, some months I work less. Some months, I have more work on my self employed job, some months I don't even work. So our income jumps around quite a bit. I take it when we turn in our income for past 6 months, they go on the average income, correct?

Also when figuring income, this is gross, not net. I wish we had our gross income to live on, but ofcourse we don't. They base our income on net or gross?

Also, when figuring expenses, which will a trustee use, actual or federal allowances? I keep going over our actual and because we have charged for so long, I am having trouble figuring this all out. We net $3100 for a family of 4 for a month. This puts us considerable below median for Indiana. But to me this seems like alot of money. I just can't wrap my mind around what exactly we can claim as expenses. This time of year we have huge heating bills, but in the summer we have huge electric bills. We have normal expenses, cell, dish, phone, water, sewage..... We don't have a car payment, but with 3 older cars, we have repairs. I just don't completely understand how to work our expenses. We took the means test, even though with our income claimed on our 2007 taxes we fell way below the median income, and according to federal allowances we need 4100 to live on every month , now I know their is no way we can spend that much. We shop Goodwills and Garage sales, I grocery shop by the ads, we just don't spend that much. Ofcourse since we quit paying cards, we really have gotten cheap. I mean cheap. We all need haircuts, we all need some decent clothes, 1 car needs work.


Help! I am so totally confused. I don't want to bring attention to our expenses, but how in the world do I figure what is fair??

[Cali]

1. Average of 6 months
2. Gross NOT net
3. I think they look at both actual and federal.

You think 3100$ for a family of 4 is a lot of money?

[JRScott]

If your actual exceeds the federal guidelines be prepared to show proof in the form of receipts. You can get higher approved if you can show it is actual.

You'd want to schedule 3-5 appointments with local bankruptcy attorneys. Should be free first session, and see what the options are. They can also look at your expense and tell you how it lines up with what they normally see.

[diviaruba]

If you are below the median, you will be using actual expenses on your Schedule J, not the IRS standards.

[seanf12]

What if you don't normally keep receipts? Granted we haven't purchased anything major in over a year, but we don't normally keep receipts for everyday expenses. 99% of the time we use our debit card, so would our bank statements suffice as receipts if necessary?

Thanks

[Teddy]

Hi -

Later on, I will post what I did with my budget. I had about the same income (3200 I think) and you can see how I did mine.

I filed with a family of 4 and my attorney said everything looked ok. I just filed it yesterday.

I wish I had the expense calculator link handy - someone had posted a really good one.

Will you have $3300 after you file? Or is that now? We have $3200 after I get rid of my cc debt.

You have to average your utility bills for the year - you could call the elec/gas companies and ask them what your budget plan would be and then just use that number for your planning.

I think - and I could be wrong - that if your expenses are in line, the judge isn't going to want receipts.

Here is the calculator I liked - but make sure that when you enter an amount in the Amount per Period, that the amount reflects correctly on Monthly Amount. I was doing something wrong and my monthly amounts weren't showing on some lines - just make sure it's all correct.

http://www.goainc.com/fraley/calculators/expense_calculator.html

[justplaintired]

1. Average of 6 months
2. Gross NOT net
3. I think they look at both actual and federal.

You think 3100$ for a family of 4 is a lot of money?

LOL well after living on so little cause of cc debt, to think we actually have that much a month, yeah it does seem like alot. We have been spending all our left over income after mortgage to pay cc, so basically we have not had any cash to speak of. I know it's not alot by some people's standards and I know in this economy, it's not much, it's just funny that we actually net that much a month.

[justplaintired]

Hi -

Later on, I will post what I did with my budget. I had about the same income (3200 I think) and you can see how I did mine.

I filed with a family of 4 and my attorney said everything looked ok. I just filed it yesterday.

I wish I had the expense calculator link handy - someone had posted a really good one.

Will you have $3300 after you file? Or is that now? We have $3200 after I get rid of my cc debt.

You have to average your utility bills for the year - you could call the elec/gas companies and ask them what your budget plan would be and then just use that number for your planning.

I think - and I could be wrong - that if your expenses are in line, the judge isn't going to want receipts.

Here is the calculator I liked - but make sure that when you enter an amount in the Amount per Period, that the amount reflects correctly on Monthly Amount. I was doing something wrong and my monthly amounts weren't showing on some lines - just make sure it's all correct.

http://www.goainc.com/fraley/calcula...alculator.html

Teddy is this your net or gross? This is our net, we gross slightly more before taxes and insurance and expenses for 1099Misc.

I think I will use this calculator and send it to our attorney. He honestly felt we would definitely fall in fine on our expenses. I mean today we went and had to put gas in our truck and go to the grocery store and there went 125.00 real quick and not much groceries to show for it either! Depressing isn't it! No wonder we're filing bk, the cost of living is killing us!

Lucky you to have already filed. I sure hope we do this next week, if not then the following week. Our attorney is actually swamped right now, his paralegal said it's unbelievable the amount of people who are coming in. She told me lots are planning on using their rebate checks to file!! Wonder what our president would think of that???? Oh yeah that's right, he did admit the economy had slowed down!! LMAO He should have asked some of us about that a long time ago, we could have told him it is way past slow, it's stopped!

Are you in the southern district when you file? We are.

[Teddy]

Hi - that is my/our net income. I filed alone (am married) but had to use husbands income too (he's on disability so he doesn't bring in a whole lot). I can send you a breakdown if you want - when I got done with it, I thought every figure looked very much in line.

$125 goes fast at the store and of course gas is insane! I put down $400/month in gas on my budget. I drive 25-30 miles to work.

My attorney said he's doing lots of cases too, but I called them one day and said I wanted to file and she did my whole case within a day. It was fast.

I'm in the Northern district. Up by South Bend.

Yeah, what would they think of rebate checks to file bk, that's funny (not funny that so many people are filing, but still).

If you want my breakdown, just let me know - it might give you something to compare to.

[justplaintired]

Thanks Teddy, I sent you a private message, first time for that. I would love to have a break down. I am sure I underestimated by a long shot. Still in using cc mode. It's been almost 2 months since we gave them up and after having used them for so long for groceries, gas.... it's hard to get back into the cash mode again.


As much as I hate to admit this, I had quit watching what we spent, we were in so deep, it didn't seem to matter anymore. I am not saying we were buying luxury items, just using cc for everything, so we could keep those stupid cc paid on time, even though it was only the min. atleast they were never late! Now I am back to watching my grocery bill. Watching every dime we spend, like I should have been all along.

Thanks Teddy!!

[Teddy]

Hi - I'm sending my breakdown to you via PM.

[tay666]

As much as I hate to admit this, I had quit watching what we spent, we were in so deep, it didn't seem to matter anymore. I am not saying we were buying luxury items, just using cc for everything, so we could keep those stupid cc paid on time, even though it was only the min. atleast they were never late! Now I am back to watching my grocery bill. Watching every dime we spend, like I should have been all along.

Thanks Teddy!!

Don't feel too bad. I think most of us have been through that phase.
I know I went through it.
Not nearly enough coming in to pay all the bills, so used cash advances to keep things going. Hoping that something would change and we could turn the corner.
For me though, when things changed they took a turn for even worse, instead of better. So I threw in the towl and quit paying all the unsecutreds and have just been paying what really needs to be paid for the past year.

And if we are taking a poll, I think $3100 a month is a lot.
Then again, we are living off $1512 gross a month. And that is with a house payment and 2 teens.

[justplaintired]

$1512 Wow, you must be good at budgeting.

I have redone our budget and redone our budget. When I saw federal standards and compared them to what we make, according to the fed. we shouldn't even be making it! We do though, it's tight, broke right now as we speak and have 2 days til payday!! Our heat bills this winter have been tough, Indiana has had a rough winter. Course with heat bills comes high electric bills to run the furnace. All our utilities have gone up, they approved an increase for all of them. Don't you just love that! Like things aren't tight enough, rich utilities need more money too!

Thanks for the help. I called our attorney today and actually spoke with him and he noted our acct. and let me know he would tell the paralegal to contact us regarding our expenses. I told him I believe I undershot them. I had our expenses with everything at about 2800 and federal said I was at 4100, so I did some comparisons and I allowed 40 for clothes for the month for a family of 4?? Not even close. The list goes on and on, won't bore you with all of that.

Thanks everyone, I really do appreciate all your help with all my questions.

[tay666]

I hear you on the heating bills.
NE Ohio here, on the shores of Lake Erie, so I know what this winter has been like. My gas bills are about 2.5 times what they were just a couple years ago.
If it wasn't for the tax return, our gas would probably been shut off by now.

When we actually get to the point of filing, I will probably have a little trouble figuring what to use as well.
With things as slim as they are now, our budget is totally out of whack.
No money for clothing, or eating out, or entertainment, or just about anything other than house payment, utilites, food, and gas for the cars. And of course the $120 a month co-pays for my wife's meds.

Hope everything works out for you.

[2muchcc]

As I read - Just plain tired's post - that is exactly what we did. Hind site - we should have called the cc and work out a payment plan- now it is too little to late. We were so concerned about the credit score.