Rent Before 341 Meeting?

[TooBrokeToJoke]

Ok, I bet this has been answered somewhere, but I can't find it, sorry.

My husband is in Texas (I'm in Michigan), he is staying with his cousin for the moment. He wants out and to get an apartment. We will be filing for bankruptcy when we get our stimulus check, so we can pay the attorney, and I don't know if we can get in trouble for this.

The attorney told us to stop payment on the house and the cc's, so we started that, his income is extremely low, $10.50/hr, but he doesn't qualify for low-incoe apartments down there! What a crock is that, how do you take care of a family of 3 on $10.50!

Anyways, should we wait till after the 341 meeting? Will it matter? I thought if I waited till after the meeting, that maybe then we couldn't get in trouble, or have someone come after us for the money he uses on rent... does anybody have experience with this?

Thank you.

[keepmine]

I'll say it again, you're jumping the gun here. Nobody can support a family on $10.50/hour. Until you get your finances stabilized, don't file. Why are you scared of creditor phone calls or lawsuits? You have nothing for them to take and any legal action would be months if not years down the road.They can't eat you.
Time to toughen up and start fighting back and stop being a victum. Take your lawyers advice and stop paying all debt you are going to discharge. Then, use the money you're saving plus the stimulus check and move to Tx. and get yourself a job. He needs to stay with his cousin as long as possible and cut his expenses to the bone. You can file bk in Tx. You just use Mi.'s exemptions. Since you have nothing, where you file won't really matter.
What you don't want to happen is, you file and then, get sick or be in an accident with huge medical bills that can't be discharged since you'd already filed.
Get situated. One of you needs a job with health care benefits before you even think about filing.
You need to really understand something here. Filing bk is the easy part.In 90-120 days, it's all over. Then comes the tough part-supporting yourself. If you can't make it on $10.50/hour before you file, how will you make on $10.50 after you file?
Just slow down and think this through to a logical conclusion.

[easyone]

Hi
I left my condo and rented a place before I even actually filed. I had my 341 today the trustee said nothing. If your letting your home go, you obviously need to rent somewhere along the line. I think it may be easier to rent before you even file, because their will be no BK on your credit report yet. Once your in BK it will be much harder to rent.JMO.

[TooBrokeToJoke]

It may seem "logical" to move to texas and just be with him... but even if i got a job, i CAN'T get childcare for my daughter, and we don't qualify for low-income housing, and the lady at the place for food stamps already told him he doesn't make enough. Somewhere along the line people are surviving on less than $10.50. Because if we don't qualify there are those less fortunate. I of course agree it will be tough, we couldn't survive on $15, because we had too many bills we shouldn't have had, and we are spenders, its a bad habit we're breaking, and plus we've been scammed, we've lost darn near $5,000 just by being scammed.

I would like to think it would be that easy, all 3 lawyers i talked to today told me we would have to come back for the 341 meeting, and the plane ticket money isn't just gonna fall from the sky.

I've come up with a budget, and I know we'll be ok when this is over. I know that we have nothing to lose, thats not why I'm stressing, I'm stressed and scared because I don't know how it works. I don't know what to do once the process has begun. I've gone over the future bills and with us both working... and me only making a projected $7 (based on minimum wage), and working part-time if need be, we'll be able to live more comfortably than we are now. If I can get full time, for more money, well, thats just that much more that we can save for emergencies. The job offers insurance after 120 days, I can't make that come any quicker, and the other ob offer he got he would have had to wait 60 days, but the pay was only $7.50, so i'd say he picked the better of the 2. The best paying job that he had experience for, was $12.50... so it's not like he's gonna make any difference finding another job. If we see something better, he'll go for it, but for now, he has a job, and thats enough.

I'm not worried about after all of this, with the house and credit cards gone, thats over $1,500 a month gone! And the only bill we have is our phones, he found an apartment, under $500, that is less than 4 miles from his job, so his gas would be minimal, which is a huge change from here where he drove 36 miles one way to work. Our house payment is $700 here, so a $200 difference is huge, and it includes some of the utilities, and that was a total of about $600 a month with gas, electric, water, phones, cable, internet, and trash pickup. The savings will be huge in that aspect in the apt as well, considering the space is about a 3rd of what we own now. Our credit cards come out to about $500 a month, without those, it will be a great pressure lifted off our shoulders.

Things will be ok, I know you say bankruptcy is the easy part, but, even if we failed afterwards, at least then we might qualify for assistance, if not, well, there is always something that can be done, I will find out what it is.

Thanks for trying to tell me what we need to be doing other than the bk, but I'm actually not one bit worried about after it.

[keepmine]

You really need to think about this some more.
Here's a snippet from your first post on this site.

He has not gotten his first check yet, the house payment is due, the utilities have been shut off, except water, the lot rent is due, 2 credit cards are due and I am living in a home with my daughter with no car, no money and my parents a few steps away to at least feed us. His paychecks when they come will not cover the bills, even without the utilities.

You are not paying any of those bills anyway so, how can you claim to be saving money? Your budget is worthless until you actually put the checks in the bank and then pay the bills.
You're forgetting things like food and auto insurance, gas and auto maintence, clothing,etc. Does he know how much the health insurances premiums will be?
Do as you please but, there is no real rush to file except in your own mind.
I just think you need to lose the "I can't mentality". Yesterday, you felt you couldn't stay with your parents for long. Now, you can leave and get a job because of childcare issues.
Have you talked with your parents about a compromise? Maybe they keep the child overnight for 6 months while you try and find a 2nd or 3rd shift job and bank as much money as you can. At the end of 6 months, see where you stand.
One other thing you need to change your mindset about-failure post bk just can't be an option. You don't want to spend your life in poverty.

[Cali]

I am sorry, but that whole "I can't", "victim" thing is getting old already. If you want to get out of this mess, you need to get your mindset into doing that.

You don't know if you can't find childcare, you don't know if you can't find a job..the reason you don't know is because you haven't tried.

There are many people worse off than you and they are making it, they have found daycare, they are working 2-3 jobs to make it..so it can be done.

You need to get tough skin, move, get a job and then file. Because like keepmine said, filing isn't going to help you one bit if you can't pay your bills after you file.

And I am sorry if this sounds harsh, but this is one thing that really irks me.

It may seem "logical" to move to texas and just be with him... but even if i got a job, i CAN'T get childcare for my daughter, and we don't qualify for low-income housing, and the lady at the place for food stamps already told him he doesn't make enough. Somewhere along the line people are surviving on less than $10.50. Because if we don't qualify there are those less fortunate. I of course agree it will be tough, we couldn't survive on $15, because we had too many bills we shouldn't have had, and we are spenders, its a bad habit we're breaking, and plus we've been scammed, we've lost darn near $5,000 just by being scammed.

I would like to think it would be that easy, all 3 lawyers i talked to today told me we would have to come back for the 341 meeting, and the plane ticket money isn't just gonna fall from the sky.

I've come up with a budget, and I know we'll be ok when this is over. I know that we have nothing to lose, thats not why I'm stressing, I'm stressed and scared because I don't know how it works. I don't know what to do once the process has begun. I've gone over the future bills and with us both working... and me only making a projected $7 (based on minimum wage), and working part-time if need be, we'll be able to live more comfortably than we are now. If I can get full time, for more money, well, thats just that much more that we can save for emergencies. The job offers insurance after 120 days, I can't make that come any quicker, and the other ob offer he got he would have had to wait 60 days, but the pay was only $7.50, so i'd say he picked the better of the 2. The best paying job that he had experience for, was $12.50... so it's not like he's gonna make any difference finding another job. If we see something better, he'll go for it, but for now, he has a job, and thats enough.

I'm not worried about after all of this, with the house and credit cards gone, thats over $1,500 a month gone! And the only bill we have is our phones, he found an apartment, under $500, that is less than 4 miles from his job, so his gas would be minimal, which is a huge change from here where he drove 36 miles one way to work. Our house payment is $700 here, so a $200 difference is huge, and it includes some of the utilities, and that was a total of about $600 a month with gas, electric, water, phones, cable, internet, and trash pickup. The savings will be huge in that aspect in the apt as well, considering the space is about a 3rd of what we own now. Our credit cards come out to about $500 a month, without those, it will be a great pressure lifted off our shoulders.

Things will be ok, I know you say bankruptcy is the easy part, but, even if we failed afterwards, at least then we might qualify for assistance, if not, well, there is always something that can be done, I will find out what it is.

Thanks for trying to tell me what we need to be doing other than the bk, but I'm actually not one bit worried about after it.

[TX Bluebonnet]

... we don't qualify for low-income housing, and the lady at the place for food stamps already told him he doesn't make enough.

(Did you mean to say he makes too much?)

I've come up with a budget, and I know we'll be ok when this is over.

Well then no reason to be upset for not having a lower income and qualifying for government assistance.

I don't know what part of Texas he's in, but $10.50/hour with no state income tax taken out, and a place to live for $500/month doesn't seem too shabby to me. As you yourself pointed out, there are plenty of people living on less.

I would like to think it would be that easy, all 3 lawyers i talked to today told me we would have to come back for the 341 meeting, and the plane ticket money isn't just gonna fall from the sky.

From everything I've read in your posts, it still seems the most logical thing would be to move to Texas to be with your husband, and filing there instead of taking time off from his new job to fly back for the 341, not to mention the added expense of it all.

Our credit cards come out to about $500 a month, without those, it will be a great pressure lifted off our shoulders.

Are you still paying on your credit cards? The only reason I ask is that you say it "will be" a great pressure lifted, not that it "is" already.

Things will be ok, I know you say bankruptcy is the easy part, but, even if we failed afterwards, at least then we might qualify for assistance, if not, well, there is always something that can be done, I will find out what it is.

I truly hope things do work out for you. My husband and I are spenders, too. Or at least we were until our financial situation finally got so bad we couldn't ignore the obvious any longer. Our style was the more we made the more we spent. Now we're both in our late 40's with barely 10,000 in IRAs. Our priorities were all bass akwards to say the least. So at this point in our lives our post bankruptcy goal is to make our retirement fund our #1 priority for the next 20 or so years. That means being much more aware and selective on how we spend our money from now on. It's a lifestyle adjustment, not the end of the world. It is doable. It can be done. Best wishes to you and yours.