19 months and counting

[Carmella]

If I did my math right we have 19 months left of our Chapter 13.

I am back to work at my second job (nursing home, which during Covid-19 did not allow people who worked at different nursing homes to come in the building to avoid cross contamination; oddly enough our last break out on my full time job was "we think" caused by a guy who worked in two different nursing homes, he caught it there and then brought it to our place almost every patient he saw caught it).

Anyway financially things are better with my second job. My husband had overtime during the pandemic, but it was still less than my second job income. Right now he is getting sporadic over time which is nice as well (grocery store, they still need more employees, but now their profits are down since people are getting out and not buying food and experimenting with cooking new things at home as when they were locked down).

We are still car sharing . That's my nice way of saying I am driving my husband to and from work and flexing my schedule around his and while I am thankful we can share one car it's really taking a toll on me especially now that I am back to the second job. At least when I was off on the weekends there were times he used the car and I just stayed home and enjoyed doing home projects. It's an adjustment to go back to two jobs.

I am temped to start the process to get another car loan following the guidelines from the attorney who then needs to get it approved. But I hear used cars and in demand and the prices are higher. And now with Covid Delta Variant rearing it's ugly head I am worried that I could possibly be put on hold from the second job again. I went to it today and they had an employee case a few days ago, but all employees and patients were negative after a whole house testing. They will continue testing twice a week for a total of two weeks to make sure no one else caught it. They still let me in, but it's worrisome.

I am preparing for my full time job to come down with cases and just hope the vaccines help prevent the same awfulness we saw during Covid-19. we have many unvaccinated employees and I hope none of them get very sick. We "only" had one employee who was deathly ill from Covid-19 and she needs to have another surgery soon which is life threatening, but if she doesn't have it she's in a life threatening situation. I hope that doesn't happen to anyone else. We did have patients die and don't want to see that again, too many of them dying and some younger ones with medical conditions (younger meaning in their 50's).

It's very stressful to think about. I have a friend who works in ICU and sees the worst of the worst. The hospital when from no ICU covid cases for months to having 3 vented and proned this week. Looking at the map of Ohio there are emerging cases in the counties to our western, southern and eastern border. The lake is on the northern border so I guess that's why there's not a significant amount here yet.

The financial stress is bad enough, but now I feel like I shouldn't make any big purchases like a car even though it's really dragging me down. And my husband would like his freedom to drive back. It makes more logistical sense for me to drive him otherwise I would let him drive me around no problem.

I see I have more anxiety than I realized as I write this! I guess I ought to stock up on some Clorox wipes when I go shopping tomorrow and toilet paper LOL.

[sophieanne]

Hi Carmella..I was smiling in happiness as I read the beginning of your note and in tears as I continued reading. I want you to know I think of you and continuously wish for you and your husband’s wellbeing as this pandemic continues. I hope the coming 19 months go smoothly for you and you make it to the finish line without any negative events.

[Zombie13]

Hey Carmella , You Got This! Go with your gut instinct; if a big purchase doesn't feel right, don't do it. Yes working with one car is rough; we've been there, though it sounds like you have flexibility in your schedule to make it happen. When we had one car, my company seemed to give me a hard time about it... but hey ... pro tip big company... if it's a problem, buy us one, yeah? No? Oh ok... I think we're done here. LOL! Anyway. You are over the halfway mark. Also, thank you for your hard work in medicine.

[flashoflight]

I went to my favorite used car dealership this weekend to help a friend shop for cars and the dealer's cupboards are bare with a bunch of customers in the lobby circling like locusts to pay full price on the few remaining cars on the lot.

My suggestion is to do anything to avoid interaction with the trustee especially if your income and expenses are more favorable to you today than at confirmation. That means saving up for a cash car while gutting through the 1-car lifestyle. I already did a plan modification for a mortgage refinance and suffered through having my budget requestioned all over again and the trustee discovering additional income along the way. I remember my parents suffered through life with a single car in a 4-person family and it sucked real bad. But we survived many years on a single car.

[Carmella]

Thanks everyone.

flashoflight our income hasn't gone up. It was less last year than at confirmation due to my second job being on hold plus I got a 2% pay cut (see what they do to healthcare workers put fancy signs outside to thank us and then cut our pay). Even with me working both jobs at the moment and my husband getting sporadic overtime (mostly due to people taking vacations) our income next year will probably be around the same as it is now.

The process to get a car includes finding a dealership that WILL finance a car and I think finding the car as well BEFORE you even ask for permission and you have to write a plan out saying how you expect to pay for it. I guess the biggest difference is that our first mortgage is paid off so it might look like more disposable income, but we were so tight to begin a lot of the mortgage payment is absorbed in the budget for example the HEL went from interest only to a full payment which meant that it tripled (it was only $40 so it isn't a huge number around $115 to $120, but still an increase) and of course we need to set aside over $200 a month for property taxes and then there's the other increases in bills as well as my 2% pay cut...

My husband really wants to have a car and I do not blame him. It's no fun for him to wait on me and at least now his co-workers don't tease him or keep asking why he doesn't have a car yet. I told him to tell people my response. He is retiring in about 3 yrs (about a year and half after our BK is finished). We don't want any debt once he retires so we are putting money into our bills and saving up to prepare. People seem to like that reply it's really none of their business, but people are annoying and nosey.

This sounds kind of insulting, but it was intended that way. One of his coworkers envied my husband being driven around saying "I wish my b*tch would drive me around" Again not insulting just some slang words...He works with one guy who has an intellectual disability and that guy always repeats himself so my husband hears it several times "your girlfriend is here to pick you up!" The guy is trying to be funny, but he's pretty much stopped except on occasion. We know the guy can't help it due to the disability, but it gets old!

And yes it's hard to find used cars and I hear the prices are sky high so I will probably use that to plead my case with my husband. I know people who have had trouble finding decent prices on used cars and prices for rentals are sky high and hard to get (not that we would rent--it's just the state of automobiles post covid). A coworker just got a car for her daughter who is commuting almost an hour away to college and they got really lucky because they went to a few lots and this car was just brought it and they bought it immediately.

We will just keep on keepin on and counting down!

[Zombie13]

If I did my math right we have 19 months left of our Chapter 13.

Hey Carmella , Yes! Check, then check again, and just to be sure, check again and often, your numbers, as you go. I have calculated, and compared, repeatedly, our posted payments, and to-do payments, to reassure us, that we will meet the plan requirements as described in the confirmed/re-confirmed order. We will overpay by $8.00. Funny thing... we have to pay on time every time (we pay early by golly!), but let's see... Just How Long... it will take, to get a refund. Maybe we'll just say, "keep the change, kid". Oh, So, NOT! We come close to obsessive-compulsively checking our bank account daily as well.
We've been a one car family in the past as well; yeah it's stressful. I can see why the repetition from your husband's coworker stings. At one of my previous jobs, my manager asked me, 'why can't your wife take herself to the doctor', and 'doesn't she have any friends to take her?'. Fortunately I kept my job by learning how to hold my tongue while saying, 'yeah, I can see why you're no longer married, but hey, what do I know, right?'. Buuuut I digress... Hope you get a laugh outta that.
Ok; gotta go for now. You're gonna Crush This.

[Carmella]

You are correct Zombie13 to check and re-check. I just didn't take the time to look it back up and again estimated. When we are under a year I am sure I will be like you checking and double checking. Our payments are all automatic paycheck deductions so they are all paid on time. I wish I could figure out if some creditors did not file. I think some did not including Chase and maybe Citibank which would leave us with a nice refund because I believe it was calculated into the payments. I have trouble reading the stuff on PACER and knowing which documents are the best ones to look at. It really doesn't matter since we are paying what we are paying and any refund even $8 is a windfall at this point!

And why are people so nosey about stuff like driving your wife. So what if you want to drive your wife. I know people give others crap about that I left work early one day (planned and approved time off) to drive my adult daughter to get a tattoo. I drove her walked in with her and didn't want to stick around so I left and then came back. People were asking me "can't she drive herself?, can't her boyfriend take her?" Seriously, If I want to drive her and by the way having a tattoo on your shoulder blade can be a bit painful and you might not want to deal with driving. Anyway I am just saying it's our business what we do and that example had nothing to do with BK or having only one car since my daughter has her own car. Too bad you can't just say, I love my wife and want to drive her, chivalry is not dead. I now at work we gotta say what we gotta say. I am just glad that my job is flexible to drive him and now when I pick him up I have it down so I can leave work in be back / clocked in within 57 to 62 minutes which means it's really adding only 30 minutes to my day since I use my 30 min unpaid break plus 30 minutes. The morning is different since I drive him and return home and then go to work, but that can be only a 30 min trip total time since in the early a.m. there's no traffic.

Right now I am holding off on the car and hope that my husband really understands. Though using the thought that if covid hits again I might not have work on the second job is a very good and understandable reason. I went to my second job yesterday and had over 8 hours of work which is very unusual (usually no more than 4 hours) , but very welcome since we have a property tax bill which we are paying late, but still within the grace period, we get a fine for paying late, but they don't start any collections, etc until after the grace period. We are also making payments to the IRS.

My second job has had 5 cases of covid in the past two weeks. One employee had it one week, caught it outside of work and the next week there are two more employee cases (1 of those was traced back to the employee the other was outside of work) and there were two patients (nursing home) that caught it traced back to the 1st employee who had it. They are very proactive and enforce the rules so I think they won't let it get too far out of control. They are all mild cases and the older people were vaccinated so that's good because otherwise they could be deathly ill. I am so over this covid, but covid's not letting up on us nursing home workers and patients.

[JellyBeany]

It's good you have a plan. You're getting closer and closer to the finish line!

I have the same issue with PACER. It's not intuitive at all and I don't really understand it the few times I have looked at it.

I signed up with National Data Center NDC.org and it's MUCH easier to navigate. The dashboard is very straightforward and it's made it much simpler for me to track my case. Perhaps it would work for you, too.

[flashoflight]

Carmella One of the reasons I did my refinance while in bankruptcy was to avoid the spike in my HELOC payment from interest only to full amortization over 20 years at a high interest rate ranging from 4.25% to 6.25%. I rode it on interest only to 6.25% before BK and that was already rough with a 50% increase in payment. That was the biggest risk in my plan and I got rid of it in exchange for a post-petition mortgage with no bad debtor status. Full online access to statements, autopay, shows up on my credit report, etc. I had to pay a little bit more to unsecured creditors in exchange but I thought it was worth it.

So on to Murphy...

Today, I had a plumbing scare. Leak in my backyard patio. Medium size puddle. And it was opposite the kitchen sink area. Fortunately it was an easy and cheap fix easily funded by my cash warchest. But I started thinking how bad it would be if it was a major plumbing emergency. So I took a credit card offer for $3k that had an annual fee. I think $3k is real good for a non-discharged BK on my CR. I don't use credit cards anymore, run my household like Dave Ramsey, and I have a small cash warchest, but it's not enough for the most major plumbing emergencies that involve digging. Trustee, please forgive me if I end up using the card someday without asking for permission beforehand. I'll ask for forgiveness instead.

So these are the struggles of a 13. Honestly, it's a lot easier to deal with Murphy today than before I filed when I had many of my creditors trying to sue me to hell and get into my paycheck and bank account.

[Carmella]

flashoflight I am glad your plumbing scare wasn't too scary! I haven't even tried to get any credit cards for myself or my husband. I wouldn't mind having one that could be used for something like a huge home owner type of expense. But I don't want to cross that bridge or deal with credit and have to deal with the attorney.

We have had a ton of rain here over the last several weeks and 80 mph winds one day that caused several power outages. We didn't have any damage or outages, but yesterday the battery light in my car flashed a few times. I looked it up and it said it can indicate electrical problems, alternator or loose wires. I know it's not the battery (it shouldn't be) since it is less than a year old. I HOPE it's just that there was some moisture where it shouldn't have been the light hasn't come on today. Fingers crossed.

1-2 weeks ago I had a flat tire. Luckily it was covered under the road hazard since the tires are fairly new. I have AAA so I had the tired changed and then went to the dealership--no cost to me. That reminds me I need to pay for the AAA membership it is expiring. The flat tire was totally unexpected. I ran over something that I did not see in the street. I am good at watching the road so it was surprising. They didn't know what it was since it had exited the tire. I did hear a klunk and stopped the car didn't find anything, drove again and heard another clunk then nothing then after driving a little further my low tire light came on. They told me if could be a screw, piece of metal, piece of glass--basically anything. It had to be something small or flat enough not to be visible on the road.

It's always something and you are right it is easier to deal with Murphy today than it was before filing BK. I was even thinking of getting estimates to repair the bathroom fan and then to get the tubshower covered (whatever that is called) It is such a dumpy bathroom, our only bathroom. Now that I have my second job back and my daughter is better off we do not help as much as when she first moved out on her own and had a pay cut.

I might get estimates just to know the ball park. I am not sure if we can really afford to save up for it, but I feel more comfortable finding out!

[Zombie13]

And why are people so nosey about stuff like driving your wife. So what if you want to drive your wife. I know people give others crap about that I left work early one day (planned and approved time off) to drive my adult daughter to get a tattoo. I drove her walked in with her and didn't want to stick around so I left and then came back. People were asking me "can't she drive herself?, can't her boyfriend take her?" Seriously, If I want to drive her and by the way having a tattoo on your shoulder blade can be a bit painful and you might not want to deal with driving. Anyway I am just saying it's our business what we do and that example had nothing to do with BK or having only one car since my daughter has her own car. Too bad you can't just say, I love my wife and want to drive her, chivalry is not dead. I now at work we gotta say what we gotta say. I am just glad that my job is flexible to drive him and now when I pick him up I have it down so I can leave work in be back / clocked in within 57 to 62 minutes which means it's really adding only 30 minutes to my day since I use my 30 min unpaid break plus 30 minutes. The morning is different since I drive him and return home and then go to work, but that can be only a 30 min trip total time since in the early a.m. there's no traffic.

Yup, exactly! In that particular case, regarding why that individual, and group, would ask the question - "misogyny" comes to mind. I could always have Barbisi explain it to them firsthand if they wish but trust me, they *really* don't want that. Seriously.

[Barbisi]

Ha,Ha my lesser half beat me to a response, @Carmella!
You really do seem to understand why we haven't embraced the "bankruptcy is such a great financial tool" school of appreciation.
For us, like you, we really had no other choice (except never buying that investor shack in the first place! )but that doesn't lessen just how unpleasant and stressful these last four and a half years have been!(Actually since Oct. 2014, when we chose to make the worst mistake of our lives -buying the absolute worst fixer upper we could have!)
Not a day goes by that I don't regret that ill-fated decision and wish I could leave this toxic environment behind(Colorado has recorded at least one day as the worst air quality in the world this last week, as well as 50+(so far) high ozone action days (meaning the air is really bad for one's lungs).
I think hating my surroundings makes the day to day BK13 reality far worse that in others" cases.
Cheer up with this in mind - at least you love Ohio and plan to remain there!
For us the real struggle begins when this BK13 ends : scrambling to get out here and making a better life for ourselves and hopefully never falling back into another BK13 trap again!
You are bound to succeed and 19 months is a while but once you're done, you can enjoy your home, your state, your life!
We're rooting for you , hang in there!

[Carmella]

Thanks Barbisi !

Murphy stopped in again. My tooth broke. I go to the dentist next week as that is when they could see me. I know it's beyond repair. There is no pain so that's a plus. I have other bad teeth as well so I want an exam and to find out the "bad news." I will chip away (no pun intended) at these teeth to get them in better shape/repaired, etc. Without credit I will have to have money upfront which makes it tougher, but at least now I do have my second job back and my husband is getting overtime again. They cannot find people to hire or they don't work out--just like so many jobs I hear about nowadays and at my work it's the "unskilled" positions as well as some nurses that they can't find people to hire.

Oh well. A friend told me about dentists that have their own plans. This dentist does. I have haven't gone there before, but my daughter has/likes it. I will look into the dentist's plan if it is better for me since I will need several procedures over time and we all know that insurance pays partly for usually one procedure outside of routine cleanings and fillings. I might be better off buying his plan and then paying a lower rate for the procedures. It's only $200 a year for family (though I could go with only myself) you get regular cleanings and reduced rates on other procedures. I have to find out more about how it works. My friend who lives out of state loves her dentist's plan much better than insurance.

[Clay3007]

Ha,Ha my lesser half beat me to a response, @Carmella!
You really do seem to understand why we haven't embraced the "bankruptcy is such a great financial tool" school of appreciation.
For us, like you, we really had no other choice (except never buying that investor shack in the first place! )but that doesn't lessen just how unpleasant and stressful these last four and a half years have been!(Actually since Oct. 2014, when we chose to make the worst mistake of our lives -buying the absolute worst fixer upper we could have!)
Not a day goes by that I don't regret that ill-fated decision and wish I could leave this toxic environment behind(Colorado has recorded at least one day as the worst air quality in the world this last week, as well as 50+(so far) high ozone action days (meaning the air is really bad for one's lungs).
I think hating my surroundings makes the day to day BK13 reality far worse that in others" cases.
Cheer up with this in mind - at least you love Ohio and plan to remain there!
For us the real struggle begins when this BK13 ends : scrambling to get out here and making a better life for ourselves and hopefully never falling back into another BK13 trap again!
You are bound to succeed and 19 months is a while but once you're done, you can enjoy your home, your state, your life!
We're rooting for you , hang in there!

I live around people that hate ohio also, i always say another day in paradise so when i do get out of ohio it really is. Lol but ohio is not horrible

[Carmella]

I live around people that hate ohio also, i always say another day in paradise so when i do get out of ohio it really is. Lol but ohio is not horrible

Yep there's that whole "Stuck in Ohio" mentality and actually it's not a bad place. There's so much the state has to offer and in Northeast Ohio there's a lot of culture and it's easy enough to drive to other parts of the state that are more rural. I have also found I have been exposed to so much more than other people I have met online when it comes to people of different cultures. I am in my mid 50's and have known people of different races/cultures my whole life and even different sexual orientations. We were talking about this recently and when I was a kid I just knew people were from different parts of the world and different skin colors tan, brown, black etc were just traits from wherever their ancestors hailed from and it was also great to be able to taste foods from all different cultures

I know this isn't the experience of everyone in Ohio, but it's been a good place for me and my family.