Last Payment Made!!!

[charmedmom]

We received our paper stopping the wage deduction!!!! Now just to wait for our discharge. So ready to be done. Now to get ready to rebuild our credit.

[andysmom]

Congratulations!!

We're unfortunately in the position on just begining to look for a lawyer to file bk/ not sure if it'll be 7 or 13- income is right on the boderline.
I'm petrified; especially of a chapter 13 from some of the stories I've read.
If you don't mind me asking, was the chapter 13 really that that bad/ very very hard to live with- besides the payment, the extra scrutiny w/ budget etc?
Please, I am so scared & nervous & any insight that you have would be so appreciated.
thanks & congratulations again! I wish I were in your shoes now

[Universal]

Our 13 should be filed Tuesday, 3/9/10. Hopefully it will be filed. Every time we've had to go to the atty.'s office I've been a nervous wreck, totally. I hope living with it won't be as bad as some stories indicate. I try to stick with the more encouraging and helpful information. Attorneys are like all other people. Talk to several and go with the one you are most comfortable with and that you trust. Good luck.

[andysmom]

Hi, universal
I had my 1st consult appointment today & the lawyer didn't show up!
I have another lawyer appointment scheduled for the 18th- hopefully it'll go well.
I'm not so worried about speaking to the lawyer- just want to get it over with. Just have lots of questions & am scared to death if we end up being a 13 of what the payment will be and how the whole process is going to work.
I wish you great success with your plan. I am so looking forward to putting all of these behind us.

[momofthree]

Congratulations!

[JenR]

Andysmom & Universal.... Just wanted to give you both some encouraging words!

My husband and I filed on 1/4/10. We made the decision last August that BK was inevitable and we stopped making payments to our 2nd mortgage and CC's then. We continued to pay our 1st mortgage and car payment (knew we wanted to keep both). We talked to a lawyer at the beginning of September. We were borderline on income, so we could go either way, ch 7 or 13. Because we wanted to keep our house, we decided to go ch 13. By October we'd figured out that our payment plan would be for 36 months, at $505 a month... and it would include our car payment (which was $415 before BK). So the payment came in VERY reasonably

From the moment we found out what our payment plan would be (or what we hoped it would be)... we budgeted for that. It took some getting used to, but by January, when we filed, we were used to it and even managed to save up a bit of money (for those unexpected expenses that inevitably happen).

We had our 341 on 2/11 and despite our fears and nerves... it went SMOOTHLY. Our confirmation hearing is on 3/9 and we're feeling pretty good.

This has been an eye-opening experience, but we're thankful that in 34 more payments we'll be looking pretty good.... with NO debt and a home that we'll ACTUALLY have equity in!

Good luck to both of you!!!

[andysmom]

Thanks so much JenR!
I can only hope that if we are a 13, we get a payment like that. Our cards were current, but that'll end as of this month- there's no way to keep up- we're all tapped out & the minimums even in hardship programs w/some brings our minimums to around $2600! We just don't have it.
We have a house too that we're keeping. Only a small amount of equity which looks like is exempt. We have 2 old cars- no car notes, just lots & lots of credit card bills.
From everything we see on here & other sites, it's hard to determine what might be the payment. Some say they get hit w/ a really really big payment that is almost as bad or more as before they filed. It's hard to know what to think.
We're also boderline on income right now- may be able to get it under by waiting a little bit- my husband works overtime / some is not mandatory.
Just a quick question, is there any reason you chose 13 over 7 if you qualified for 7?
I'm just really really scared & don't want to make the wrong decision, say or do the wrong things.
Thanks so much!

[forgotten]

If you don't mind me asking, was the chapter 13 really that that bad/ very very hard to live with- besides the payment, the extra scrutiny w/ budget etc?

I am not the one you asked... but... I wanted to let you know the 13 has been great. I am almost 9 months in to mine, and I find things are much easier than before!

I was always worried about how to make the next payment, I had a new credit card payment due just about every day... At my worst point I was facing $5000/mo in minimum credit card payment. That was our entire take home pay!

I can now pay all my bills as soon as they show up, I just have the money! Yes, I have to stick with a budget... No more buying stuff just because I want, eat at home most of the time instead of eating out, limit going out, etc. but I am so much happier not always worried about all my debt.

I would have obviously prefered a chapter 7. I am not protecting any assets and have no priority debt, if it wasn't for the 13 I could finally be saving. But for me chapter 13 hasn't been hell, its been a relief!

[espo1357]

I am not the one you asked... but... I wanted to let you know the 13 has been great. I am almost 9 months in to mine, and I find things are much easier than before!

I was always worried about how to make the next payment, I had a new credit card payment due just about every day... At my worst point I was facing $5000/mo in minimum credit card payment. That was our entire take home pay!

I can now pay all my bills as soon as they show up, I just have the money! Yes, I have to stick with a budget... No more buying stuff just because I want, eat at home most of the time instead of eating out, limit going out, etc. but I am so much happier not always worried about all my debt.

I would have obviously prefered a chapter 7. I am not protecting any assets and have no priority debt, if it wasn't for the 13 I could finally be saving. But for me chapter 13 hasn't been hell, its been a relief!

So, you make too much to do the 7? I had to do a 13 because I wanted to strip the second mortgage even though I just qualifed for the 7.

by the way, thanks for the encouraging post. It is great to hear that you are doing good, and thanks for the reminder of the benefits of living debt free and living with financial freedom. Good for you!

[charmedmom]

Ours was great but I think part of the key is a great lawyer. He told us our payment and it never changed. Our payment was only about a hundred over our car payment which was included in plan. When I made our budget I just kinda put my numbers to fit that payment so i only left the 310 at the end. I don't know if it is really done that way but it worked for us. I added it into stuff like clothing etc. So my first advice is to find a great lawyer. We actually went with the only one we met but he was really nice with us and did not seem to demean us cuz we were having to file.

Other then that you just have to learn to decide what is a want and what is a need. We took part of our clothing allowance and started a christmas club so when christmas came around we were not missing the credit cards.

[BnkrptcyLwyr]

The tricks to survival in a 13 are ... make the right decisions from the beginning (this is not about keeping the expensive home, cars, toys) ... get on the budget and stick to it. In a 13 you are paying back creditors something ... so you must pay them. If you don't have the money for the frills, then either don't spend the money, or cut back elsewhere. It's not up to the trustee, the judge, your creditors, to understand why you must spend $3k on Johnny's graduation party, and darn it, you just can't save up because they keep taking the money out of your paycheck (darn creditors). Sure, you would like to do that, but somethings gotta give. Suck it up and realize that you're pretty much on an austerity plan. Once clients learn to budget, and realize that Suzie doesn't need $100.00 sneakers every 6 months, and they learn to do with less for the 3-5 years they're in the plan, then they find that they can sometimes actually save money. A good attorney should be able to put together a budget you can live on.

The clients that fail are the ones who don't make the necessary adjustments to their lifestyles. (Of course, there are also the ones that have something unexpected and unfortunate happen as well ... not to paint with too broad a brush).

Here's what I recommend to my clients (and I almost never hear that they're having trouble with the budget I put together). Eating, heat and electricity, necessities, those come first before keeping your house and car. If I take the basics, at what you actually spend, and I cannot afford the house, or the car, or whatever it is your trying to keep ... then you better let it go. Your kids can't eat the house ... but you can live in a more modest place if that's what you have to do ... or you can give up the car payment and buy a cheap used car outright. You need to do what you have to do to live ... and it that means you cut back on those items, then you do it. Again, I'm pretty sure that's why my clients are doing pretty well for the most part.

[JenR]

charmedmom is absolutely correct.... the KEY is finding a GREAT lawyer!

We choose ch 13 over 7 because we have two small kids and we wanted to keep them in the home they know (plus after crunching numbers we came to realize in three years when the ch 13 is over we'd actually have a good amount of equity in the home). I know a home is just a material thing that in the end doesn't matter as long as we have a roof over our head, but this is what worked best for us and our situation.