Newbie to the board and to bankruptcy - preparing to file Chapter 13

[andy158]

Something that helped us was to get things like our car insurance deducted form our checking account every month. Two of our utilities are bi-monthly and we set up automatic withdrawals for those as well each month. The only thing we put money aside for budget wise is our property taxes every six months. We don't get any "surprise" bills. In fact our mailbox is almost always empty

I cannot stress enough to get an emergency fund started immediately. You definately need that. We depleted ours and restored it three times already. That was the one thing that scared us was no cc's to fall back on in an emergency. Been a year now and we are doing fine. A lifestyle change is a must and we have learned to live without a lot of unnecesary things.

We still shop on line using PayPal and MoneyPax instead of cc's. You have to have the cash before you can buy. A good way to set limits.

We are not "scraping" by, but living like we should have been all along. Our plan payments are very livable and when it is finally over, the payments we are making now will make a nice savings each month for big ticket items to be paid for in cash.

[cspa522]

Something that helped us was to get things like our car insurance deducted form our checking account every month. Two of our utilities are bi-monthly and we set up automatic withdrawals for those as well each month. The only thing we put money aside for budget wise is our property taxes every six months. We don't get any "surprise" bills. In fact our mailbox is almost always empty

I cannot stress enough to get an emergency fund started immediately. You definately need that. We depleted ours and restored it three times already. That was the one thing that scared us was no cc's to fall back on in an emergency. Been a year now and we are doing fine. A lifestyle change is a must and we have learned to live without a lot of unnecesary things.

We still shop on line using PayPal and MoneyPax instead of cc's. You have to have the cash before you can buy. A good way to set limits.

We are not "scraping" by, but living like we should have been all along. Our plan payments are very livable and when it is finally over, the payments we are making now will make a nice savings each month for big ticket items to be paid for in cash.

I will say that one encouraging thing for me is that we have gone 15 months without using credit cards, with the only exceptions being at Christmas when we used a Kohl's charge and a JCPenney's charge here and there. But that's IT. Nothing else. So living without them will not take any getting used to. Though I will deeply miss my Kohl's charge and the great coupons you can only use if you have their charge card!!

Another thing we've discussed is taking the money we save and converting it to prepaid Visa's or Visa gift cards simply so that if we need to get a repair done we can use that instead of cash. You can get those at our neighborhood Walgreens, and makes me feel safer than having a ton of cash lying about the house.

I'm really trying to find information about how much people are paying to the trustee each month. I think that would give me more peace of mind to know it's not going to be $5000 or something insane.

[needanswers]

Have you taken an online means test to get an idea? We went to our attorney interview prepared with our monthly expenses and paycheck stubs and we got a ballpark figure.

http://www.legalconsumer.com/bankruptcy/nolo/

I'm really trying to find information about how much people are paying to the trustee each month. I think that would give me more peace of mind to know it's not going to be $5000 or something insane.

[cspa522]

Have you taken an online means test to get an idea? We went to our attorney interview prepared with our monthly expenses and paycheck stubs and we got a ballpark figure.
http://www.legalconsumer.com/bankruptcy/nolo/

Yes, I have. I passed the first time, failed the 2nd time. We are submitting our information to our attorney on Monday and should have a "quote" on Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm probably just freaking out for no reason, but until we get our offer I'll be a wreck! Thanks for everyone who has responded. Keep the advice coming. It's been so helpful!

[andy158]

I'm really trying to find information about how much people are paying to the trustee each month. I think that would give me more peace of mind to know it's not going to be $5000 or something insane.

The amount is different for everyone depending on yearly income, amount of debt owed, disposable monthly income determined with the means test and other factors you need to discuss with an attorney. Everyone's percent payback is different. Some very little and some substantial. The idea of bk13 is the creditors get something and it is not a magic wand to erase all your debt. It is a reorganiziation of your total debt over a three to five year period within your ability to repay any or all of your debt.

Our monthly payment is $1,050. Our yearly income is $80k. We have a crammed down car payment in our plan and our unsecured creditors will get 63% of what was owed.

[momofthree]

Our plan payment is $610, with $511 (or is it $512?) going to our car payment, the rest goes to attorney & trustee fees. We're in 0% payback, but we are $20k below the median for a family of 5.

Like pp mentioned, you really can't go off of other people's payback though. There are just too many factors. Income varies from plan to plan, as does what is included in the plan. For example, someone who is paying all their secured debt into their plan, including mortgages, is going to seem like they have a super high payment to someone who pays their secured debts outside the plan. Also, some people are choosing to keep non-exempt assets, or have mortgage arrears, or IRS debt, and therefore have a minimum that they have to pay in. It's quite complex, really.