Does this sound right?

[mountanddo]

My idea of extreme couponing is remembering to take the coupons with me to the store - but I am trying to be better about it. .

LOL

I agree. I don't think there are any brownie points awarded by any Trustee for living below the national standards. You shouldn't have to eat a PBJ every day to be considered a success in your Chapter 13.

I guess my point was that the OP said that there was NO way that she spends $800 on groceries. That statement says that she spends a lot more. When I had money I thought nothing of going to Target a couple of times a month and spending a minimum of $200 on basically stuff that was nice to have but not really needed. I will agree that $800 is probably right but smart shopping could shave money off that amount and spending more than that is bad budgeting and meal planning. If she is forced into a Chapter 13 then she is going to have to stick with that amount. She will have no choice.

[momofthree]

So much depends on the part of the country that you are in and how many stores you have near you. I am lucky in that I live in a largely agricultural area so produce and meat are fairly inexpensive, and I live in the city where there is a lot of competition.

If someone lives somewhere where all their food had to be shipped in from another state, it's going to cost more. If someone lives in a rural area where there is only 1 neighborhood market to choose from, it's going to cost more.

It takes me very little time to go to 5 different stores because they are all within about a mile from each other, so I can literally walk into each store, buy the super sale items, pay and walk out to the next store and do the same thing. It's certainly less convenient, but it's doable. I refuse to pay more than $1/pound for any fruits or veggies. I will not pay more than $2/lb for meats. I buy organic whenever I can and we are dairy/gluten free which costs a bit more. $5 dinners are my specialty--and they're healthy! We eat tons of fresh fruits/veggies and lean meats. I try not to spend more than $450/mo for our family of 5, and most of the time I can accomplish this and we're not lacking.

I have people here in my own town who tell me what I do isn't possible. I'm not an extreme couponer like you see on tv, I just sale shop all the different stores and I homemake all our meals.

So, OP may be like one of my friends where it's possible, but doesn't feel worth the extra work, or she may genuinely be in an area where it's more expensive (like I mentioned in my first sentence) and it simply isn't possible to lower her bill much more.

[shark66]

I have to disagree here. If you are spending more than $800 a month and you are only spending 2-3 nights having meat you are spending WAY too much. Even $800 a month sounds like a lot. That is $200 a week. Even if you didn't use coupons this is still a lot of food. CUB foods recently did a series on making a weeks worth of food for $20. Now that was for 2 people and I have to admit that some of the stuff I wouldn't eat but it all was nutricious and eatable. The government might allocate $757 but do a google search and see how other people are spending around $400 for a family of five for a month.

I could Google, Bing, Yahoo and spend all the time that I don't have on researching how people feed a family of five on $400 a month, I know *for a fact* that we can't do it where we are, unless we agreed to eat rice and beans three times a day, period.

We could get away with $600 a month, but why? To give those extra $200 or whatever the amount is to the unsecured creditors? Heck, no. Let them starve (not that they will, although they're getting 0% in my Ch. 13) and not my kids...

Good luck to us all.

[mountanddo]

We could get away with $600 a month, but why? To give those extra $200 or whatever the amount is to the unsecured creditors? Heck, no. Let them starve (not that they will, although they're getting 0% in my Ch. 13) and not my kids...

You make it sound like they held a gun to your head and made you use that credit card. Not saying that anyone should take money away from their food budget to pay credit off. The OP is spending OVER $800 a month on food. If they end up in a Chapter 13 they are going to have to figure out how to feed five people on $800 a month. You said you could do it for $600. $800 should be enough.

[psirasmom]

Back again. I don't buy pre-made or processed meals whatsoever - everything for our meals is homemade, but for spaghetti sauce, which is only $1/can for the cheap stuff (which we add to). I can't even tell you the last time I saw any form of meat around here for under $2.00/lb. Believe me, we sat down and budgeted, etc. WELL before we decided to file for Chapter 13, and learned to shop much smarter. But in reality, prices keep rising, and our income hasn't. I can't remember the last time I went to Target and spent $200 for things that were nice to have...it just hasn't been an option.

[shark66]

You make it sound like they held a gun to your head and made you use that credit card.

You have *NO* idea why I ended up in Ch. 13 so please refrain from assuming that it was credit card debt that got me to file.

Not saying that anyone should take money away from their food budget to pay credit off. The OP is spending OVER $800 a month on food. If they end up in a Chapter 13 they are going to have to figure out how to feed five people on $800 a month. You said you could do it for $600. $800 should be enough.

Unless you live in the exact same neighborhood as the OP, and are feeding a family of the same size for less, you don't know that. Neither do I in all fairness.

Good luck to us all.

[mountanddo]

Sorry, I'll rephrase. Unsecured debt.

[Resigned2BK]

I'm in Western WA cooking for a family of 4. I know before I started really making a conscious effort to shop sales closely a few years back and try to coupon a certain extent (thanks Extreme Couponing show for making the newspaper coupons really be sucky and meager ever since AND leading many stores to get rid of their allowances on stacking) I was spending about $500/mo consistently and my husband would spend around $100-150/mo getting milk and other incidentals he would feel like getting from time to time on the way home. Then I started couponing and sale shopping and lopped about $100 off that monthly figure. So we're still doing it for only $550ish/mo at that point. Then I broke down and got us signed up for WIC (for the one kid currently covered, that shaves about $50 off the monthly bill) and a lot of headaches and further down the road finally foodstamps at just under $300/mo. And I still work to be more strategic about my shopping all the time that way, but then I again I am underemployed so I have way more time than if I was working a full time job somewhere. Our produce is rarely under a dollar (I'm excited about going to Safeway today to stock up on apples for 79c/lb, usually it's 2-3 times that IN a state that is one of the largest producers of apples!!!) and ground beef is usually $4-5/lb even on sale if I don't want to be picking bones out of our food. And the Winco stores are a lifesaver for a poor person like myself. Namebrands for usually less or equal to the sales on the same namebrands at Safeway and elsewhere. We can't double coupon here except occasional newspaper inserts from Albertsons (and their prices tend to be way way higher than Safeway or Winco).

So I can believe that a family of four could spend $750 or more a month on food around my area. If we were in or near Boston, I imagine it would cost more than here. And my attitude with the BK expense estimations for our Ch 7 is to basically subtract our foodstamp allotment from $750 and consider that our official estimate of what we spend. Our attorney told us to be generous in these estimations and he said there's no way any family is feeding itself for $200/mo.

[jcj112562]

the debt load includes the second mortgage that we are going to attempt to strip. So what happens if the mortgage is stripped?.

I think you do not understand what you are talking about. A Chapter 13 can "strip" the LIEN that goes with the second mortgage, not your obligation to pay it. The holder of the second now has the amount you owe them as unsecured debt, and they will get a pro rata share of all money disbursed to your unsecured creditors. You will be paying your DMI into the Plan for 60 months, if I do not miss my guess. Good luck.

John