1st meeting Friday!

[beachgirl]

We've made the 1st appointment w/an attorney...my mind is racing! We're trying to get together our income and expenses. When figuring our expenses, how do we give an accurate average? Should we average our last year and go from there? Also, our electric and gas bill varies depending on the season. Summer our electric is way high, winter is lower. Winter our gas is way high, summer is low. How do we give an estimate? What about clothes? We buy alot at the beginning of school, and around the 1st of winter. My husband has certain things (like steel toe boots) he needs every year. It's so hard to estimate! What else can I use as expenses, utilities, cell phone, clothing, household supplies, fuel, insurance, car tags, school expenses???? Please help!!!

[annikasaunt]

Whooo...slow down!!! We took an average of what we spent on our expenses for a year and then divided by 12 to get a monthly expense on our bills that changed with the seasons! You would do this for car upkeep and household repairs as well. We were able to include, cell phone, phone, cable, gas (house and car), electric,car upkeep expenses, newspaper/mag subscription, medicine, doctor visits, pet supplies, haircuts, my gym memb, entertainment. You name it...if you look back at your checkbook, etc and make a list you will be all set. They had a form at the attys office that made it really easy to remember everything! Don't forget your mortgage/rent, car payment, etc...anything you spend on a regular basis can be added as an expense. It will all fall into place...you'll be surprised!

[beachgirl]

What about extracurricular activities? Entertainment? Are you allowed anything like that? School supplies, yearbooks, lunch money, etc.?

[SinkingFast]

I didn't think we'd be allowed to deduct school book rental but the paralegal wrote it down. I thought all school kids in the new State rented books. We'd never had to deal with that before. Come here and POOF, gotta fork over $300 to rent school books.

We were able to take for extra curricular activities. It cost us $20/mo to pay for High School swimming. That's activity fee, suits, etc, that were required for the Swim Team.

We also got to list out school lunches. $100/month for lunch money. Hubby eats lunch out a few times each month and they wrote down $50 for that.

Entertainment is a local thing. What the Court expects to see. It varies Court to Court. We were able to take $100/mo. But that's the max here. I had seen that on PACER for filings here, and got the same thing from every attny we Consulted with.

Don't forget haircuts, license plates for your vehicles, newspaper and magazine subscriptions, paper and ink cartridges for you printer, other annual subscriptions you may have like anti-virus software. Do you buy firewood?? That's one.