Going back again?

[bbchurch]

Hi I am new here so i have a few questions that I am trying to find the answers too. But first little of our background. I have been working same job for the last 16 years. Been married for 13 years my wife has a chronic medical condition that she was born with hadn't been a big issue till about 6 years ago. She has to be on some expensive medications (copays of over 500 a month for a couple of them) plus has to have occasional hospital stays for IV antibiotics which means we meet our out of pocket max every year on our insurance. Back in june 2004 due to debt overload caused by medical expenses and a house fire that left us with nothing except a huge pile of debt, we had to file for bankruptcy and our attorney talked us into doing a ch 13 because we were upside down in our car (we only have one vehicle). We paid it off and got discharged in January 08.

Everything was fine after that until my wife got too sick to continue working. She quit her job in Dec 08 and got approved for social security disability that started june 09 and also got approved for her teacher retirement disability at the same time. The only drawback is both ss and teacher retirement is about 50% less incomethan she was making. Everything has been going fine up until now.

My health insurance is changing the out of pocket max where we used to be only liable for up to 2k a year in total expenses we will now be liable for 5k a year. We are upside down in our house (a mobile home we owe over 60k on) we really don't like the location anyway. We are not behind on anything at the moment but I can just imagine that adding another 3k to our expenses over the next year is not going to help our situation out any at all.

Our spending right now is as listed:
House taxes insurance and utilites 1250
Credit cards (i know stupid to have) 430
Student loan payment (14k) 150
Medical expenses (5k / 12) 417
Life insurance 50
Car + insurance (60 payments left) 453
Total 2750

With my paychecks being around 1800 and my wife's disability around 1800 a month we have about 800-1000 left to go for food gas clothing and all other necessaties. We have around 14k in credit card debt. We can afford what we got but one emergency and we are screwed. We have no money left at the end of the month to put toward saving and we would really love to save toward adopting a child (we are unable to have kids) It just feels like we are getting no where.

We have already been looking and we could move into an apartment and save ourselves 200 a month right there but that would more than likely mean letting the house go back as we probably can't sell it.
Plus I would love to have 2 cars (have been with one since we got married)but can not afford one as the budget stands.
My first line of thought is go out and buy a second car find an apartment move in then file for bankruptcy as soon as time allows after the car purchase.

So here are my few questions:
1. given the previous bankruptcy when would we be able to file again?
2. Given our income would we be able to qualify for ch 7 bankruptcy?
3. When would be the best time to stop paying cards? house? get apartment?

I know it was stupid on our part to get new credit cards after the ch 13 discharge but we were came out needing a ton of stuff (heating unit for house waterheater clothing you name it we needed it and we turned to credit cards to help get it. And we know it was not good on our part but we have it and have to deal with it.
Sorry this is so long but our situation is a little bit confusing if you don't know the details.

But given the details of our situation what would you think is best thing to do?

[JRScott]

So here are my few questions:
1. given the previous bankruptcy when would we be able to file again?
2. Given our income would we be able to qualify for ch 7 bankruptcy?
3. When would be the best time to stop paying cards? house? get apartment?

1.

A debtor cannot obtain a discharge in a Chapter 7 case if the debtor obtained a discharge in (a) a Chapter 7 case filed within the past 8 years, or (b) a Chapter 13 case filed within the past 6 years. The time periods in either case are measured from the commencement dates of the respective cases. The dates of discharge have no bearing on the disqualification.

A debtor cannot obtain a discharge in a Chapter 13 case if the debtor obtained a discharge in (a) a Chapter 7 case filed within the past 4 years, or (b) a Chapter 13 case filed within the past 2 years. The time periods in either case are measured from the commencement dates of the respective cases. The dates of discharge have no bearing on the disqualification.

So if you filed in June of 04 then the earliest you could hope to file a Chapter 7 would be June of this year, you could file a Chapter 13 now.

2.

Depends on what state you are from. Assuming what you say is correct above then you have a household income of 43,200 gross a year. In some states that is above median, in others its not for 2 people. However with proof of the medical expenses you could still qualify.

3.

Cards if you can't afford them stop now. Home depends really on the foreclosure laws of your state as you'd want to time it to stay in the home as long as you could, also some districts do not allow you to use a home expense on a home you are surrendering. Getting the apartment would depend on the timing you need to use.

I'd highly recommend seeing 3-5 attorneys in your area that handle bankruptcies, ask for a free consultation.