Beginning my bankruptcy journey today :(

[shark66]

Yes.

Although it likely won't make a big deal in the overall BK situation, any income (especially visible one like a separate check) must be included.

My $0.02 only...

[Mi Bankruptcy]

OH YEH!! Something else I forgot to ask. My husband gets paid (separate check from his paycheck) about $500 in expenses each month. I didn't put this on our form as I've never counted it as income - it's expense reimbursement - mostly mileage, but also cell phone bill and postage used for company, etc. Is this something that should have been counted though?

Yes, this will matter. did you let your attorney know about this during your visits? I would meet with one more attorney and tell him\her about this expense. Then, if you are comfortable chose the attorney your comfortable with. I would hate to see you get pushed into a 13 for forgetting about the extra 500.00. If it is a reimbursement then be prepared to show that it is actually leaving your account as a company expense. Being that I have been reimbursed.. depending on your company you can sometimes to make more on reimbursment checks than you actually spent. LOL.. I know I have

[ssmdem]

Yes, this will matter. did you let your attorney know about this during your visits? I would meet with one more attorney and tell him\her about this expense. Then, if you are comfortable chose the attorney your comfortable with. I would hate to see you get pushed into a 13 for forgetting about the extra 500.00. If it is a reimbursement then be prepared to show that it is actually leaving your account as a company expense. Being that I have been reimbursed.. depending on your company you can sometimes to make more on reimbursment checks than you actually spent. LOL.. I know I have

No, I didn't tell him. But I did find one more attorney that I want to meet with to see if she might be perhaps a little less expensive. The first one is $2000 plus $350 filing fee - which is fine if he's good. But doesn't hurt to just check to make sure.

I will certainly make sure to include it when I talk to the next attorney and update the original one if we do decide to go with him. We are so borderline right now with being under the means test just based on salary alone. I so want to just qualify with just that instead of having to go through and compute expenses and stuff. If my husband's company just started paying the bill directly instead of reimbursing us (they will - that's not a problem) - I guess I would say just that as the explanation for why the income went away. The mileage - I can't help that - and yes, mileage is more than we actually so it's income - I get that. But trying to keep the salary amount down as much as I can for the next few months - seems so backwards to say since we've been killing ourself for years to make as much as we can. We're close - about $300-$400 close to the limit, and I'm sure when we computed the expenses into it, we'd still qualify for Chap 7 - just don't want to take any chances. We absolutely can't afford to do a Chap 13 - we honestly DON'T have any money left over at the end of the month.

[flyinbroke]

Hardship payment plans are not really that great of a deal from what I have seen so far. Often they will go low, but only for 3 or 6 months tops, then it is back to regular programming. All the while, the interest racks up so you make zero progress. Some will knock the interest to zero, but put you on a payment timeframe that is often the same (or more) than you were paying before.

[ssmdem]

Hardship payment plans are not really that great of a deal from what I have seen so far. Often they will go low, but only for 3 or 6 months tops, then it is back to regular programming. All the while, the interest racks up so you make zero progress. Some will knock the interest to zero, but put you on a payment timeframe that is often the same (or more) than you were paying before.

Yeh, it would really only make a substantial difference on one card (about $200 a month) - but my main thing is that I know bankruptcy is inevitable. I'm considering it since it would put off the calls a little while longer - but I don't want to lock myself in automatic withdrawals because I do plan on stopping all payments as soon as we file or a little before then.