New Schedule J..please look and give opinions

[ForumReader]

I feel for you berrymom35, and I don't want to scare you. The trustees are human beings and they don't want to make your kids suffer.

But.... they DO want to get you into a chapter 13 if there is any way possible. That is what they are paid to do. It's their job to try to get you into a chapter 13. If you have ANY expenses that they consider discretionary, they will take that money to fund a chapter 13 plan.

Here is what the trustee most likely would see as discretionary:

premium cable channels.
unlimited cell phone plan, versus pooled minutes plan where the kids cell phone numbers are 9.99 a month
expensive hobbies for you and your kids.
eating out as part of your food budget
a high entertainment budget
Internet bandwidth above the minimum (some service providers charge more per month for more bandwidth)

If those above discretionary items add up to over 100 month, presto you are in a chapter 13.

There are categories of expenses that can easily be backed with receipts and that are not discretionary that you do NOT have on your schedule right now but probably should.

car licenses, pet licenses, registration fees, etc.
all expenses related to your stay-at-home business, just like you claim it on your income taxes.
All insurance expenses including home, health, life, auto, disability, etc.
All expenses for doctors, dentists, optometrists, therapists, and all expenses for over the counter medicines such as advil, allergy medicine, antacids (for all of the stress lol), cough medicine etc. (break this out of your food bill and put it in your medical category).

Just some ideas....

Just out of curiousity, depending on the amount of debt involved, let's say a person makes $40K a year and the unsecured cc debt is let's say over $80K, the trustee will still try to see if the petitioner has to do CH 13 when he or she originally filed for CH 7? How is the petitioner going to be able to make payments through a CH 13 if his or her debt is much higher than what he or she earns? Especially if he or she does not have any assets to pay down the cc? Even if the trustee finds an extra "100.00" from the expense schedule that can go toward the CC, how is the $100.00 going to pay down the $80K in 5 years? I understand it is the trustee's job to represent the creditors, but there are just some things the petitioner would have no way of being able to pay the debt with very little money to work with. Any thoughts on that?

[hereforinfo]

Would they really be heartless and expect me to take my kids out of their activities? I know "technically" they could...but that is not right. It's not their fault that we screwed up and got into trouble with debt...it's just not fair.

No one is going to make you take your kids out of activities. They may decide that some of your expenses are unnecessary and that you could use that money to pay some of your debts. Then the choice is yours to either cut back on activities, cut back on something else, or find another way to pay for those things - like getting a second job.

I would hardly call it heartless for a kid to not have unlimited text messaging and cell phone usage. And we wonder why kids feel such a sense of entitlement nowadays? There are families out there who can't afford to put food on the table for their children. THAT's not fair.

[OhioFiler]

The only things that should be on your schedule J are ACTUAL necessary expenses that you can justify if needed. Putting together a pro forma Schedule J and asking bkforum'ers to scrutinize it will not help you. You need to go over every dime you spent in the last year or two and determine what your real expenses are.

[bkmaggster]

it's just not fair.

I'm going to say this in the hope that it will help you and eventually give you some peace of mind.

You have got to stop this line of thinking. I'm sure your creditors don't think it's "fair" that your kids get to do expensive activities while you have your debt discharged. None of this has anything to do with "fair". This is business and law, and as JustBroke always says, this is the trustee's game.

All of us here have had to give up many things to get bankruptcy relief. The quicker you can get "over it" the happier you will be, I promise.

I don't think anyone here wants to see you or your children treated unfairly, I think we all want to see you succeed!

[backtoschool]

I feel for you berrymom35, and I don't want to scare you. The trustees are human beings and they don't want to make your kids suffer.

But.... they DO want to get you into a chapter 13 if there is any way possible. That is what they are paid to do. It's their job to try to get you into a chapter 13. If you have ANY expenses that they consider discretionary, they will take that money to fund a chapter 13 plan.

Here is what the trustee most likely would see as discretionary:

premium cable channels.
unlimited cell phone plan, versus pooled minutes plan where the kids cell phone numbers are 9.99 a month
expensive hobbies for you and your kids.
eating out as part of your food budget
a high entertainment budget
Internet bandwidth above the minimum (some service providers charge more per month for more bandwidth)

If those above discretionary items add up to over 100 month, presto you are in a chapter 13.

There are categories of expenses that can easily be backed with receipts and that are not discretionary that you do NOT have on your schedule right now but probably should.

car licenses, pet licenses, registration fees, etc.
all expenses related to your stay-at-home business, just like you claim it on your income taxes.
All insurance expenses including home, health, life, auto, disability, etc.
All expenses for doctors, dentists, optometrists, therapists, and all expenses for over the counter medicines such as advil, allergy medicine, antacids (for all of the stress lol), cough medicine etc. (break this out of your food bill and put it in your medical category).

Just some ideas....

[mom2three09]

The IRS website states...these are the allowable expenses..without being questioned...then why are we questioned about them? Legally I could claim $300 per month in medical expenses..and it says..not to be questioned...but I'm sure this tt wold question it...it just does not seem right...we are $1000 per month UNDER THE MEDIAN..and I can't believe we are having to go through this!!!!!!

I did cut down food to 1,000 per month....
I also cut cheer to 80
I upped school unches to 60
I upped office supplies to 75
And about taxes...we did have $290 per month...which included my self employment taxes and the tt was all over it...I'm not sure if she realized it included my self employment taxes...even though they just take it out in the way of whatever return we would have...I'm still paying it....our returns used to be $5,000 per year...then I started working for myslef and our last return was 1,800...seems my taxes were around 3,000 which would be 300 per month! I'm just afraid to put that on there

I totally see your dilemma... it really does stink that your expenses are being scrutinized the way they are I take it that if you lowered your amounts at all in schedule J then you would have $$ left to fund a chpt 13, correct? What is your attorney saying you should do to change your expenses to meet the trustees approval? He/she should really be helping you here.

I am just really afraid that you're going to be put into a chpt 13 because the trustee isn't going to allow the amounts you have listed

[Tbornetun]

As bkmaggster pointed out. You can include the cell phone contract in the bankruptcy. You are out of the contract, it is as simple as that.

[berrymom35]

Also, the cell bill is high, I agree, but it is what it is and were in a contract....we did contact our DSL/Phone carrier and they do not do DSL without a phone line...we tried to get it turned off because we use our cells almost exclusively.

Would they really be heartless and expect me to take my kids out of their activities? I know "technically" they could...but that is not right. It's not their fault that we screwed up and got into trouble with debt...it's just not fair.

Oh, and our mortgage of 688....it does not include taxes/insurance...with that it would probably be around $900..also, it's a 100 year old house that the couple who is owner financing us redid and sold to us for 112,000. They felt sorry for us when we lost our house and agreed to owner finance us for five years at 6.75 percent interest...they are angels.

[berrymom35]

The IRS website states...these are the allowable expenses..without being questioned...then why are we questioned about them? Legally I could claim $300 per month in medical expenses..and it says..not to be questioned...but I'm sure this tt wold question it...it just does not seem right...we are $1000 per month UNDER THE MEDIAN..and I can't believe we are having to go through this!!!!!!

I did cut down food to 1,000 per month....
I also cut cheer to 80
I upped school unches to 60
I upped office supplies to 75
And about taxes...we did have $290 per month...which included my self employment taxes and the tt was all over it...I'm not sure if she realized it included my self employment taxes...even though they just take it out in the way of whatever return we would have...I'm still paying it....our returns used to be $5,000 per year...then I started working for myslef and our last return was 1,800...seems my taxes were around 3,000 which would be 300 per month! I'm just afraid to put that on there

[backtoschool]

Berrymom35, your trustee sounds tough, and she is trying to put you into a chap 13 plan. That is her ultimate goal. If you have too many entertainment and discretionary expenses, she will cut them and use them to fund a chap 13 plan.

Right now you have 150 for entertainment, 100 for cheerleading, 105 for sports, 240 for an unlimited cell plan, and 1200 for food. If the trustee told you to get a plan that was minutes instead of unlimited that would save 100 month. If she cut your food allowance to 800 a month, and cut out the kids hobbies, suddenly you have 700 a month to fund a chapter 13 plan. Trustees can tell you to downgrade. HBO is not a necessity to a trustee, neither is unlimited cell phone minutes.

I am NOT judging the expenses. I am simply saying that the trustee's goal is to get you into a chapter 13 plan, and these expenses are not protecting you from that in my opinion.

[bkmaggster]

Once you get done with your BK and don't need the expense for your schedules, you may want to recheck your DSL situation. A few years back it was true that you needed to have the phone service, but an FCC ruling mandated that carriers make dry or naked DSL available to residential addresses.

I have DSL with no phone. $29.99/month. Also, prepaid cellphones are a lot cheaper than cellphone plans. Include your cellphone plans in the BK and you won't have to worry about termination fees.

To echo what others have said, your telecom, kids and recreation, transportation and utilities seem high. You said your utilities were based off of winter, but I believe you are supposed to average it over the year.

Be careful about putting money out on the table for the trustee to take in a 13.

[LuciluS]

IF you have 12 months worth of utility bills & averaged them, I don't think the TT could object to them. A family of 5 in an 1800 sq. ft. home is about right. Dang cheap mortgage payment. We have 1430 sq. ft. and our mortgage payment is $905.16 a month.

Your Taxes don't seem high enough for what you stated including house/personal property AND self-employment taxes. Double check that.

Also did you include vehicle registration (license plates) anywhere.

The commute, again if you have the receipts so be it. How can any one person know that gasoline will not go as high as it did last year?

Cell phones? Isn't there a place for business expenses? Sorry it's been awhile since I looked at a Schedule J. If there is, then break your cell phone bill out and show your's as business expenses.

Dh is an over the road truck driver & our BK Attorney did not tell me until Jan. that he needed dh's weekly receipts. So I've got those for only 7 mths, but Attorney said that was okay. Also when Dh buys groceries on the weekends he takes a lot of food products with him in the truck. He has marked the grocery receipt what is home and what is business food.

[mom2three09]

I see what you're saying as far as what's allowed. But since you've already been questioned on your expenses I would just be a little worried if I were throwing amounts in just because they are allowed and not because I have proof to back them up. That's just me tho ;)

[jadams]

Telephone and Internet: 130
Cellphones (3): 240.00
Cable: 90.00
Recreation: 150.00
Son's (2) activities: 105 (karate/football/baseball)
Daughter's activities: 102 (competitve cheer)

None of those seem bad by themselves, but all together that's $820 on random entertainment type stuff.

I would be concerned that it's very easy for a trustee to question one or two of those and suddenly you have income to fund a CH 13.

The telecom expenses seem really high.

Edit to Ad:

Saw your post above. Once you get done with your BK and don't need the expense for your schedules, you may want to recheck your DSL situation. A few years back it was true that you needed to have the phone service, but an FCC ruling mandated that carriers make dry or naked DSL available to residential addresses.

[Lookadat]

It was a never ending battle trying to fine tune the schedule for me. I'd cut where I thought I could, and underestimated other items. You gotta run this thing like a military ship and leave room for the unexpected. Very tough to stick to the plan each month, as a result you will keep making changes. I was on my third budget plan which was different from the one I supplied the courts when I got audited. You don't need an audit. It's like being guilty until you prove you are innocent. Do not exaggerate or short change yourself, as this is your one chance to live they way you needed to live before you got into this mess. Like the bumper sticker says "Act Your Wage". Good luck.