newbie with ch 13 questions--unemployment, purchasing car, summercamp

[Bulldog77]

Hi everyone,
Ive been lurking around a bit, and have found a lot of useful info here. Thanks to all of you that are so helpful!!

My wife and I are just starting the ch. 13 route. Met with Attorney last week and decided that ch 13 would be best for us. We are 5 months behind on mortgage and want to keep the house. Our total income last year was about 88000. We have two children. Please let me know if you need any other info to give us advice

I have a couple of questions though. My wife has been receving unemployment, but that will be ending before we file. Will this income from the unemployment still be calculated from the past 6 months, since it is ending now? If they figure this into our budget, im Not sure we would be able afford the payments.

Next question. My son and daughter will be needing to go to summer day camp/ child care for about 2 1/2 months every summer. We dont pay for child care when they are in school, as I am home in time to get them off the bus. In the summer this wont be the case. Are able to plan for this in our budget just for the summer months? Or is this something that is budgeted all year long even though the aren't in daycare all year long?

Last question.... I have a car that is 7 years old with a lot of mileage on it. I have about 6 more payments of 230.00 left before its payed off. Ive read a couple posts where it might be advisable to try to get a newer (used) car before we file. The one payment on one of our cars is 360.00 per month. I saw on the means test there is an allowance of 496.00 for a car payments. Is this per car or for total of 2 cars? Im not even sure I could get a loan in any case, my credit being so bad now...

Sorry, one last question. My wife will receive some student loan money back soon. About 2500.00. (the excess amount left over from paying for her masters this semester). Will we be able to keep this in our savings account for emergencies, or will the trustee take this if we dont spend it down?

Thanks so much for any info you can provide us!!! Im trying to keep my head held up high, but its so easy to drop my head in shame every time I think about all this BK stuff. Hopefully by filing, a lot of the stress of past due mortgages and bills will be gone!

On a side note...Go BUTLER!! (final four NCAA tournament for those not following college basketball!!)

[momofthree]

#1. If the unemployment benefits have expired, then you should be able to use the Lanning decision (see stickies if you don't know what this is) to exclude it from the income calculations.

#2. You will have a difficult time justifying the child care expense if your wife is unemployed. If your wife finds employment, then the childcare expense will be averaged out over the year as are all annual expenses. It will be up to you to be vigilant enough to save this money each month so that you have the cash available when the expense arises each summer.

#3. The $496/mo is for each vehicle. So you could actually buy 2 new vehicles if you needed to and have the monthly dmi to do so. This would simply decrease the amount of money that your unsecured creditors receive.

#4. You may have an exemption that will cover the $2500 in cash, but even if you don't you can keep it as a non-exempt asset as long as you pay at least $2500 towards your unsecured creditors over the life of the plan. This would be at least $69/mo over 36 months or $42/mo over 60 months. The rule of ch.13 is that your unsecured creditors must receive at least as much as they would if you filed ch.7 and all your assets were liquidated.