Budget Questions for Forms

[StaciMM]

That is a shirt, and I haven't had the chance to send my Sim to buy new clothes lately as she has been busy making the dean's list and avoiding her stalker.

by the looks of your picture it seems that you only by bras and lipstick lol

[SinkingFast]

I think you have to look for a common ground somewhere between what you need, and what you want. Saying you are limited on funds because you have to buy 4 semi-formal dresses each year might not go over well. And, if teenagers want to pay $75-85 for a pair of shoes, they need to find ways to help earn it.

***Disclaimer-I have not bought items for a teenager lately, so realize my sense of cost may be out of whack. Even so-kids need shoes & jeans. They don't NEED name brand items for $60-85 a pair that are going to be out of style and sitting in the back of a closet in a few months.

Part of the peer pressure of being a teen today. Clothes are a huge thing they all look at. High school is wicked. Especially when you happen to live in an area of extremely wealthy people. Hubby's job change not only relocated us to a different state, we change socio-economic classes as well. Our "poor" daughters carry purses and bags bought at dept stores while lots of their friends have Coach, Prada, Gucci, etc. One guy took one of my daughters and several other friends out the other night to the local Sushi Bar. We have a major university here that attracts a huge number of Asian students. The Sushi Bar is one of the Hot spots and expensive, so I've heard. The kid paid for everybody in the group. The bill was huge but Dad's a doctor and the kid has his own CC to use at will.

I can assure you that everything they own doesn't come from the name stores. When we started into the "keeping up with the kids at school" teenage thing, Mom played a little game with the kids. Get a few of the name things to fill in the wardrobe, so the other kids see the "right" logos. The A/F, A/E, Hollister's, etc, things they do get are bought on sale. Carefully selected so the colors are neutral and/or work with lots of things in the existing wardrobes. One daughter found a pair of camo pants at Wet Seal back in October that she fell in love with, priced at a "mere" $89.99. Beg. Beg. Beg. The answer was, "No!" of course. We also make them use their money for some of the purchases so they are aware of how much it costs to get that name/logo on their pocket/shirt. Do I get 2-3 of this or one of that? kind of thing. Over the Christmas break, she bought her dream pants, on clearance, with Christmas gift money, for less than $30.

And most of the fancy dresses we've bought have either come from consignment/2nd hand shops or been caught on clearance at sales. The semi-formal last fall cost less than $100 each for the night. That was dresses, jewelry, shoes (BOGO at Payless is great at a time like that!), tickets for the dance ($15 each), dinner before the dance with the group at Olive Garden (about $15 each), out for a midnight snack and to a movie ($8 each) afterward.

That's kinda why I posted what GF told me. What she said didn't quite jive with what we spend. I'm glad I did post 'cause I didn't realize the "politics" involved when filing BK. How you don't wanna send up any red flags.

[StaciMM]

Can I take a long vacation, starting in about 8 years? At that time, my kids will be 15, 13, and 12 and I am so NOT ready for that decade!

[SinkingFast]

We have 3, 2 years apart in age. A son and twin daughters.

When we were buying diapers and formula and baby food, I thought if we can just get to being potty trained and eating table food, it'll be cheaper. And it was, for a while. But each time they took a leap in clothes sizes, like from toddlers to kids, or kids to teens, the clothes and shoes also took a leap in prices.

Last year was the most expensive school year I think we've ever had. Son's senior year. We ordered the announcements and cap and gown thru the school. We did our own pictures because they were so expensive to have professionally done. Son got a really nice turkey during hunting season and we took pics of him with his bird. Scanned them onto a CD. Took the disk to a Kodak booth and made copies to send out in the announcements. Everyone commented how much they liked those pics over the posed professional ones they've seen. Senior football players' parents host a weekly pasta feed during the season so we had a "small" dinner party at our house one Thursday night. Imagine the cost to feed 80 hungry teenage boys and football coaches??!! The team won the State Championship so there were pics and patches and such to buy for that. In our case, double, 'cause one daughter was a Student Athletic Trainer for the football team. As such, she was a member of the team as well. Meanwhile, the girls were getting their letter jackets. We ordered those before Hubby got laid off. $300 each. They also got their senior rings. Another $200 or so each. I price shopped those too. Thought maybe we'd get a better deal somewhere else than the vendor at the school. Nope. All of the companies charge about the same.

Then there's the jump in auto insurance rates. Our rates more than doubled in price with 2 teenage drivers on our policy. One of the girls hasn't been too interested, hasn't gotten her license, and we aren't pushing either. That's with no wrecks or tickets by anyone <<knock on wood>> and it's still unreal.

Our kids' friends have always had things our kids didn't have. Trampolines, 4 wheelers, swimming pools. I can't count the times they came home from somebody elses house and mentioned all the things those kids had at home that we didn't have. Our kids got a Nintendo as a freebie, hand-me-down from someone who'd upgraded to a newer model. They got a Play Station 2 about a year ago. One of the girls bought a raffle ticket at a little winter fair and she was the lucky winner.

One day, right before hubby got laid off, as I was walking back to the house from the mailbox with that day's bills that had come, I was thinking, "If we can just make it until the girls graduate from high school, we can start catching up." No such luck.

[Anj]

our lawyer gave us $40/month for a family of 5 - that's about $500 a year - so not too far off base. BUT I am a yard sale junkie and my kids are little...
I threw out 150/wk on groceries and they accepted that
They gave us 150/month on entertainment
I think they gave us 55/month on misc because they didn't have anywhere else to put it - this was trustee approved
We got 100/month home maint.
we got 100/month car main (or something like that)
I didn't get a cleaning supplies budget

I think my lawyer was as generous as possible to help us succeed. Gosh knows we have no choice but to succeed.

A

[bkfiler]

what about clothes? utilities? cable, tv, internet? grooming?

[SinkingFast]

I think some expenses are regional or area specific.

We have hard water here so almost everbody has a water softener. Most people rent theirs. I wouldn't have thought to add that one, $35/mo, until I saw it on other people's BK's at PACER.

You can't get TV here w/o cable or a dish. We don't live close enough to a major metro city. I wouldn't have thought to add for the cable bill til I saw someone else had. They had Basic service, so they expensed a lower amount. Basic gets you ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and PBS. That's what I was gonna do, but I found another BK where they claimed the next level up, which is what we have. So that's another $45/mo I wouldn't have thought of.

Part of why our grocery bill is higher is we have to buy bottled water. Our softened water is full of salt. That's how it's softened. Mom and I have high blood pressure, and Hubby's had problems with kidney stones before, so we have to watch our sodium intake. We buy jugs of water to make coffee, tea, kool-aid, etc. We also buy ice. I don't have enough freezer space to make cubes, and a couple bags of ice/week costs about the same as the extra water to make ice would cost.

People do file for grooming costs here. I've seen $30/mo, and more, on several expense sheets to allow for hair cuts and such.

I wondered about "home maintenance" for people who rent. I know we don't have house repairs to think about, but things do break or wear out and need to be replaced. We just had to buy a new coffee maker yesterday 'cause the old one quit. I bought new sheets and 3 electric blankets for the kids, plus some other new linens last year. Where do renters get to account for those types of expenses??

Seeing another attny this afternoon. Will be interesting to see what she has to say.

[bkfiler]

you need to try to 'add' for everything you pay for. otherwise if you go into a chap 13 then you wont have money to pay for the things you didnt add. this is why most people do not succeed in chap 13. they dont make a realistic budget, and then they dont stick to the budget agreed too.

household maint can be cleaning supplies too.

[bkfiler]

use this and see if it jogs your memory. i found it on the net. there are a lot of stuff out there about what to try to include. with the new laws its limited but let the attorney deal with that.

http://www.ca-bankruptcy-attorneys.com/calculators/expense_calculator.html

[SinkingFast]

TY TY TY BK.

I completely forgot about the cat!!

That's part of the reason our Food sounded so high in another post. That's groceries, laundry products, cat food, litter, you name it. I just went thru and added up all my Walmart receipts. That's the cheapest place to grocery shop near us. Plus I had some additional, non regular expenses this month. We had to do drinks for the teams, ours and the visitors, at a co-ed meet. We had to buy cases of pop (fruit punch and lemonade, sodas are taboo), water, and Gatorade for the swimmers, coaches, and officials for one meet.

And we've bought firewood. We've supplemented our heating with firewood to keep the cost of propane down.

I didn't think about vehicle registrations/plates.

That was a great link!! Even tho I had a list already prepared the other night for that first attny, I've added lots to my list and adjusted amounts for this next visit to the attny.

[bkfiler]

trust us, we know. we have been through it. there is still plenty you left off.

the problem is with teh new laws it gets restrictive. irs sets things to a limit.

let the attorney figure that out though. you create the expenses for him to decide.

[Anj]

car registration and fees are included in my "maint" portion of the budget

He also let me budget separately - personal property tax (a MO treat) & Home association dues

I can realistically get by on 100/week on groceries - so I've got 50/wk of built in fluff for supplies and stuff if needed.

[bkfiler]

list everything as truth. dont try to say one category is higher so i can use it elsewhere, etc.

if the trustee objects to one category and you try to say 'well i let the number go cuz it also has my xxx expenses included in it' it wont fly very well. dont try to get the 'i can leave super cheap' award. it doesnt get you anywhere. let the attorney handle the flags. ask him what should be changed.

[StaciMM]

Tip-for groceries, list only edible items. You can list cleaning supplies, etc. under home maintenance, and personal care items (soap, shampoo, etc.) I think went under 'misc'. Regarding the water-sounds very reasonable to have to buy it based on what you said. Might even want to break out the water and itemize that under 'misc' also.

For 'home maintenance' I approximated-I tried to consider that we do buy fertilizer, weed killer, etc. for the yard here & there, and things like light bulbs, a/c filters, and other odds & ends. Never even thought about sheets, etc.-I guess 'home maintenance' is the only area that even makes sense!

[SinkingFast]

We met with another attny yest afternoon. She is daylight to dark different than the first one.

She asked if son contributed his income to the support of the family. We said Nope. He uses it to go to college. Not an issue to be included in the BK. She asked if Mom had any income other than Soc Sec. Nope. Does she spend all her SS on insurance, drugs, and doctor's bills? Yep. Then she doesn't contribute anything to the support of the household, is that correct? Yep, no contribution. Then her income is not a factor in the BK. The attny is gonna have to check to see if Mom can be included as a dependent for purposes of the BK in the Means Test. Her thinking was, if you can claim them as a dependent on your income tax then they should be considered a dependent for the Means Test/income purposes in a BK. But she's gonna double check just to be on the safe side.

She said she'd have to run the Means Test first. See where we fall on that. Just because you pass or fail doesn't really mean anything. You can be below the Median and still not be a candidate for a particular type of BK filing. There are other stages to determining income to expenses. She made it quite clear that she hopes to take our BK in as a 7 if the numbers will support it. She said there are areas where the new law is vague and subject to interpretation. How it's written and how it's gonna be applied may depend on several factors. The individual filing, their situation/factors, how the law is written, her basis for claiming something, and if the Court agrees with her arguement. I asked her if she would "fight" for us with the Court. She said if I think I have basis, I most certainly will. From our chat with her, we got the feeling that no BK cases have gone thru the Court here under the new law.

I mentioned we were consulting with other attnys and told her a bit about our Consult the other night. Something he had told us didn't set right with her. Shock all over her face, her body stiffened a bit, then she recovered immediately. And I said, "Well, he's a bit of an odd character, in his own ball park." Hubby said, "On another planet." And she said, "Smith! You met with Smith!" (not his real name) We said Yep. Then she switched gears immediately and said he was really a very good attny. Represents his clients well. Tends to work on the safe side. Not a risk taker. (Duh, gee, didn't we already figure that out.) But she called him an esteemed collegue and said she has the utmost respect for him. I thought showed class on her part.

She didn't go thru and summarily lop amounts off any of our expenses. She didn't see a problem with the cell bill or the auto insurance amounts. But, she did say, she may have to trim some things here and there to bring them in line with what she knows the Court will want to see. How you actually live may not be the same as the how the Court thinks you should live. Already knew that from you guys. She said write down everything, keep receipts, etc. She will take care of where/how it get's listed. The only problem she saw immediately was the vehicles. She said with the equity we have in the one, the Court will probably want us to "redeem" some of the value of the vehicles (what' not allowed by exemptions) or possibly give the one up for sale.