Savings and cash

[SimpleSimon]

We have our Chapter-13 341 meeting on 4/1 - April fools day, how fitting - and I have some questions:

ISSUE #1: I received a $5,300 bonus in mid-January. My wife thought that we didn't have to keep paying our car payments when we decided to go down this parth and we found out rather late that if we wanted to keep the cars we had to be current on our payments. We made three payments on my car - about $1,320 total - and two payments on here car - about $450 total - whick left us with about $3,500 which I withdrew from our savings and am sitting on. We used some more of the money to pay car insurance which was about $500 which leaves us at about $3,000. Her car needs about $1,000 worth of work and mine needs about $500 - which we plan on having done this week or next - which would leave us at about $1,500 which I have at home - in cash.

QUESTION: Will the trustee be aware of the $5,300 deposit and will we be asked about it at the 341 meeting? My wife swears that our lawyer never asked for checking or savings account info - just paycheck stubs - and thinks we should just keep quiet but I don't want to get blindsided and turn what should be a fairly simple and short meeting into a disaster.

ISSUE 2: I'm receiving a profit sharing bonus this Friday of about $3,000. It will be issued to me in the form of a check and not a direct deposit like my normal payroll checks.

QUESTION: If I decide to hold onto this for a few weeks before cashing it am I doing something illegal and will the Trustee or government be watching our checking and savings accounts for this type of activity?

I imagine that there are many people like us that try to tuck cash away for emergencies since we won't have credit cards to fall back on but I don't want this to blow up in our faces. I travel about 25% of the time for work and I'm going to need to have enough cash on hand to cover my expenses. I do get reimbursed for my work expenses but that can take up to two weeks.

My wife has handled all of the interaction with the lawyer up to this point so I'm trying to get up to speed as we come down the stretch. Our lawyer seems like a "tool" and when I ask her questions it seems like he hasn't provided her with much info.

Thank you for your help!!

[SMinGA]

Your petition should have included balances at time of filing for checking/savings/cash. And as assets, these balances would need to be covered by exemptions or you may lose them. What does your petition say for these balances? (Assuming you reviewed before signing and have a copy.)

[NoTomatoCan]

Will the trustee be aware of the $5,300? Dunno. Can the trustee ask questions at your 341that require you, under oath, to truthfully divulge if you have made or received any payments over $600 in the past 3 months? Yes.

You are taking a pretty big risk if you try to hide that $3k check. Is the trustee or government "watching" you and your financial movements? No, it doesn't really work like that. However, it will, in some format, likely show up on some document that your trustee gets their hand on. For example... What if the trustee asks for up to date pay stubs at your 341?

Either way, you would sort of be starting off on the wrong foot.

Not sure what state you are in, but a quick talk with your attorney could tell you if maybe some (or all) of that money could be exempted.

Also, risking issues with the trustee over $3k hardly seems worth it. I bet you could find a bunch of legitimate expenses to spend that money on. For example - those car repairs would be allowed. What about home/rental insurance? Auto insurance?

Your financial house is under the control of the trustee while in a CH13. The trustees have seen it all... So if you think you are trying to pull a fast one by not disclosing something like a $3k payment from your employer, I would be prepared for some harsh consequences.

[Peasey]

Unfortunately, the only person that can really help is your Atty. It's best to be completely honest with him/her about your income. It may not matter a bit, but it may bite you in the rear later if you choose not to say anything.

We had our 341 last week and we had to bring our bank statements covering the time between filing and the 341. No one looked at them and I don't expect anything to come of it. FWIW - We are in a 100% plan so we ae able to keep all of our income outside of the plan payment and I only have to report a salary increase if it's over 12 or 13% ( I wish).

Good luck!!
B

[BKchapter13]

disposable income.. if its your savings and it was from you saving money not from your job or work place then it is disposable income, my hubbys vacation pay and bonuses are paid to the trustee, we have electronic pay with our trustee so she gets her pick from it first so it works out just fine for us. so if it sounds disposable, looks disposable it is disposable. We all had an opportunity to save in the beginning and by revising your daily lives, cutting this, cutting that we should be able to save something. good luck, its hard to see bk through but its a fresh start, keep up the good work.

[SimpleSimon]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I've emailed our lawyer with these issues and hope to hear back from him quickly.

With the amount that we're going to be paying each month I'm finding it really hard to not hold on to some cash. If all we can keep is $1,000 it would only take one emergency and we lose the house. I'm sure that we'll be able to save a little but being able to build our savings up quick enough to cover an unforseen emergency seems almost impossible.

Thanks again.