Buying a Car with Exempted Cash BEFORE Discharge

[freedomnow7]

I live in California where our wildcard exemption is about 20k, give or take a thousand. I turned in my leased car before filing BK. I currently don't have transportation.

I had been saving to buy a car with cash (no financing). I recently found one that I can afford. It's about $5500 cash (which I included in my exemptions). It's worth about 6k. My total exemptions came to about 8k.

I called my Trustee's office this morning and they only require Tax returns, not bank statements. I filed this past Wednesday, 7-7-10. My 341 meeting is August 19th.

My question: Should I wait until the discharge to buy this car, or can I buy it now?

[BobMango]

I'd probably wait until my 341 was concluded and got the trustee's declaration of no asset before I spent any money that I was exempting. Worst case is that you buy the car, the trustee decides the money you exempted is not actually exempt and wants it. Then you have to figure out how to pay the trustee.

But I do like your approach to the car, no reason to go spend $20-25K for a financed vehicle.