New job - help calculating income

[sunshineMN]

We've been in our 13 since March, and things have been going well for the most part. Got very nervous when my husband quit his job a week ago due to changes he was not willing to put up with (long story).

Anyway, we got EXTREMELY lucky that he was hired for a new job on Friday.
(Yes, sometimes Friday the 13th can be lucky!!!) Funny thing is that he didn't get the job he applied for....they hired him for another position --which pays MORE!!!

I know we're going to have to contact our lawyer (and possibly the trustee) because he's going to be making significantly more per hour than when we filed for BK. We have some increased expenses for the new job, but not enough to call it a wash.

Where I need some help/advice is that this job will more than likely be seasonal. He'll probably be laid off December - April. Yes, he'll get to collect unemployment, but that's only a fraction of what he'd normally be making.
The other factor is that he's paid hourly with no set hours each week. There could be some weeks with overtime, and others with none.

So, can anyone help me out on how to figure out our "monthly" income vs. expenses in this situation??? I'm hoping that we are allowed to save some of the extra income during the months he is working to help off set the lower unemployment income during the time he's laid off.

Any input would be greatly appreciated!!

[lrprn]

First, congrats on hubby's new job! Hopefully you already alerted your lawyer about your husband's decision to quit his job, so he/she will be relieved to know your husband already has a new job with income coming in.

The complicator is that your husband's income may be higher some months then much lower for months at a time. That makes calculating your new DMI harder until you've gone through a cycle to see what the highs and lows will be.

In essence you are in a very similar situation to someone who is self-employed and can't reliably predict what their average income will be every month over a year. Your bk lawyer is going to give you the best advice about how to best proceed in your up-then-down Ch 13 income situation inside your local court's and trustee's practices.

[sunshineMN]

So I e-mailed our lawyer all the info I have regarding my husband's new job and the substantial change in income. I also advised about the potential for overtime as well as lay offs over the winter. I asked what we should do as I'm sure it will effect our ch 13 plan.

I got a call back today and they told me to do NOTHING! They said that basically we'll just wait and if the trustee asks for our tax returns and sees the increase that "we'll deal with it at that time".

Maybe this is how things work in my area...but I don't feel real easy about this advise. I just don't want to do anything that could have the potential of dismissing our case.

The lawyer I'm dealing with has been doing BKs in my area for many many many years, so I'm sure they know the trustee much better than I do....but still, I'm not so sure.

Anyone else have any experience with this situation???
(I'm in Minnesota by the way)

[SMinGA]

No personal experience, but I say if you're operating from your atty's advice you should be fine. Just save that email.

[Billssuck]

SunshineMN...oh your situation sounds ever so familiar to me! My husband got laid off last October, was on unemployement until March and got another job making significantly less than what he made before (less commissions). Anyway, he has just started exceeding his base salary and getting the commission but it is not anything we can count on and Jan-Mar are always low sale months. Plus to add in more topsy-turvey income, I'm part-time but am on-call 6 days a week. Some months are good paying months for me and others are not. So...needless to say..our income is always unpredictable from month to month.

So when my husband's job loss occurred and he got another job, I too got in touch with my lawyer (we ended up surrendering our home due to the lower income and modified our ch13 for that). I asked him about calculating increases/decreases in income and how to do that. He stated his answer, "If you exceed a 10 percent increase, let me know." I said, how do I do that with our varied income, and he repeated the same answer to me like that is the answer he has to give me "legally speaking" without saying anything else. Now earlier in our conversation, he had said that if we make our payments "on time" to the trustee and lay low, we will be fine. But I too don't feel real comfortable with that answer and if I find myself with a few good months in a row, I will contact him again. But then...you know how that goes...we will follow those good months with poor ones and won't be able to afford the stick to throw at him...lol! BTW...our trustee doesn't ask for tax returns yearly but can ask for them if he wants to at anytime. However, our attorney says that he monitors over 25,000 cases and the chances of that happening are rare.

If you find out more, let me know and good luck to you!