Help !! same ole problem but need new solution

[sunshine mary]

My DH is self employed. He has been for 6 years, his income fluctuates and I realize now this was a large contributor to our BK...We don't know how much we have to spend monthly and we obviously spent way more than we made!! My set bring home pay is 2700.00 per month. His is anywhere from 0-6000.00 when we filed BK he averaged 1700.00 a month for the 6 month look back but business had been slow and it seems to be picking up now **crosses fingers that continues but you never know it could also take a nose dive**

Anyway,
Our set monthly expenses are 4400.00 per month which is about what we make give or take. It's really hard to have a budget when your flying by the seat of your pants, sort of speak. I guess my question for you all is if any of you are in a similar situation how do you deal with the fluctuating income ?????? How do you realistically make a budget?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I really want to find a way for this to work for us. And I should add he did look for a part time job just to have something every week but no luck so far :/

[BK2008]

I would use a minimal amout that you expect him to pull in for the month for budget purposes, and work with that against your expenses.

If he makes more, then you can pay down debt even further, or stash it in your emergency fund.

[lrprn]

As you are getting this new budget started, you MUST stash any extra money away for the lean months with lower income that are bound to come.

In essence you are going to be living on a Ch 13 plan for awhile . Many Ch 13 filers have incomes that fluctuate from month to month. That's the only way we 13ers can survive for 3-5 years - save the flush months' leftover income to use during the lean ones.

Once you get a good emergency fund built up, then you can consider taking the extra money to pay down more debt. Hopefully since you are post-filing, you've learned your lesson and there will never again be a high amount of non-secured debt in your lives that requires more than 1-2 months to pay down ever again.

[sunshine mary]

Thank you, I appreciate your responses We are working on the emergency fund now but it's slow I guess slow is better than never ;)

I will never, ever have unsecured debt ever again !!! I can't afford it with nada left over most months as it is !!! I really don't understand people post BK who get CC's immediately after discharge ! I really don't see the need.