Having trouble keeping our heads above water.

[rusty95]

Rusty.....part of being on this forum (and this is my opinion) is to help people because I received so much help through my process. I would love to see some more of your information like monthly bills because man with $8,800 a month coming in you can work through $45,000 in credit card debt if you have a sensible budget. Sounds like you have a crazy high mortgage. As far as the exemptions on your check, you don't want a refund. How much are you having to pay on federal?

The interest rates are sick and I would talk to the cards about either lowering them or risk losing you to another card. Is your credit still decent enough to get a credit card with a 0% intro rate?

BK might be the way you have to go, but I think with your income you are likely to be pushed to a 13 and I would not file a 13. Remember, buy food, pay the house (NEVER get behind on your mortgage), pay the lights and water and go back to basics. If there is nothing left for the credit cards right now so be it.

My monthly bills with charge card payments is 7300. My mortgage alone with insurance and taxes is 4400. The 8800 includes overtime which my wife does that can disappear at any time. So subtract about 800 if the OT disappears. Also we claim 11 dependants 3 for myself and 9 for my wife) during the year to have more weekly money. At the end when we do our taxes we claim 3 and had to pay 1800. Th e accountant said we should lower our dependants, if we do that we will pay another 200 a month in more taxes. 8800 sounds like a lot but it isn't going to far. Like I said before if I have to pay more taxes I am done.

My fico score is 650 and my wifes is 675. So I am not getting any discounts on interest.

[backtoschool]

I think with $8800 a month coming in, the OP will have to have very large medical or other irs and bankrupcy court approved expenses to avoid a chapter 13.

[LSUTiger32]

Rusty.....part of being on this forum (and this is my opinion) is to help people because I received so much help through my process. I would love to see some more of your information like monthly bills because man with $8,800 a month coming in you can work through $45,000 in credit card debt if you have a sensible budget. Sounds like you have a crazy high mortgage. As far as the exemptions on your check, you don't want a refund. How much are you having to pay on federal?

The interest rates are sick and I would talk to the cards about either lowering them or risk losing you to another card. Is your credit still decent enough to get a credit card with a 0% intro rate?

BK might be the way you have to go, but I think with your income you are likely to be pushed to a 13 and I would not file a 13. Remember, buy food, pay the house (NEVER get behind on your mortgage), pay the lights and water and go back to basics. If there is nothing left for the credit cards right now so be it.

[rusty95]

Right now we are paying everything on time. But once we lower our weekly dependents so we won't owe taxes at the end of the year we are done.
I found a median family income calculator on the internet and filled it out and we passed it. It appears we make alot of money but we also have alot of debt. Just on a larger scale.

When we got married 17 years ago we accumulated alot of debt, and we declared it 15 years ago and it was discharged. Are there any new laws besides the medium family income calculator.

[BobMango]

...We bring home $8800 a month and our monthly bills come in at $7300 that dosen't include car insurance, water bill and others that come in every 4 months. That leaves us very little for living. We usually have about $250 a week and that goes for food and gas to get to work. We have taken out loans from our 401k's to help pay down some cards but that really dosen't help much. We pay the bills on time to try to keep our credit good.

Well you get the picture. I am sure most of you have been in my shoes. What are my options with bankruptcy?

You certainly can file for bankruptcy, my concern (based on limited information) is that a Chapter 7 might be hard for you. Chapter 13 is not the end of the world, just takes a long time to work through generally. Depending on the size of your family you may be over the median for the means test in your state. Add to that that you have some disposable income (not enough I know) now, you will have quite a bit more after your debt has been discharged, meaning Chapter 13 is the likely option.

Your best move at this point is to schedule a free consult with an attorney, preferably three or more. This will help you understand what your options are and how best to proceed.

[blncd1]

It is getting harder and harder. We have gotten over our heads with charge cards. All of our interest rates have gone up to 29%. And has increased our monthly payments to the point it is hard to pay the cards anymore. We make good salaries, but we have a big mortgage and high taxes where we live. My wife has to declare 9 dependents during the year to bring home enough to pay the bills, I have to declare 3. At the end of the years we get almost no return back. We just did our taxes and this year we owed federal tax. Our accountant told us that next year we will owe again if we don't lower our dependents during the year. We have no savings top speak of.
We owe aprroximatly 45,000 to cards. Anmd I don't know how it got away from us.
We bring home $8800 a month and our monthly bills come in at $7300 that dosen't include car insurance, water bill and others that come in every 4 months. That leaves us very little for living. We usually have about $250 a week and that goes for food and gas to get to work. We have taken out loans from our 401k's to help pay down some cards but that really dosen't help much. We pay the bills on time to try to keep our credit good.

Well you get the picture. I am sure most of you have been in my shoes. What are my options with bankruptcy?

I completely understand. this is a personal decision for you. we decided after exhausting every possible angle, loan mod (grrr, banks...another topic), extra job, cutting out extras and after 2 LONG exhausting years of losing time with my kids because of being obsessed with saving the house, no vacations, no friends over for game night (how can you when you are so down, no money and VERY embarrassed) we are heading towards 7 after only looking at 13 (which was impossible to do). i have cried over losing the house for months and just today began getting a bit excited about living debt free. it will be so emotional and embarrassing to rent again, but as a family we CAN and WILL live again.

[rusty95]

It is getting harder and harder. We have gotten over our heads with charge cards. All of our interest rates have gone up to 29%. And has increased our monthly payments to the point it is hard to pay the cards anymore. We make good salaries, but we have a big mortgage and high taxes where we live. My wife has to declare 9 dependents during the year to bring home enough to pay the bills, I have to declare 3. At the end of the years we get almost no return back. We just did our taxes and this year we owed federal tax. Our accountant told us that next year we will owe again if we don't lower our dependents during the year. We have no savings top speak of.
We owe aprroximatly 45,000 to cards. Anmd I don't know how it got away from us.
We bring home $8800 a month and our monthly bills come in at $7300 that dosen't include car insurance, water bill and others that come in every 4 months. That leaves us very little for living. We usually have about $250 a week and that goes for food and gas to get to work. We have taken out loans from our 401k's to help pay down some cards but that really dosen't help much. We pay the bills on time to try to keep our credit good.

Well you get the picture. I am sure most of you have been in my shoes. What are my options with bankruptcy?