OK - should I?

[jeb]

The facts -

68 years old

A real estate agent in FL - like being retired http://www.bkforum.com/images/smilies/sad.gif- went non-active 6 months ago because could not keep up with expensives.

Income - 1842.40/mo - SS, small VA benefit, 460.00/mo company retirement
Expensives - 2200+/mo - NOT including food, gas, other "normal" items.

369.05/mo auto payment
878.00/mo credit card payments

Debt -

55,000.00+ Credit card debt (6.49 highest interest)
15,000.00+ auto

Older mobile home in a personal trust

2000.00 in savings - burning through it fast now.

And would you believe, 28,000.00+ in available CCard credit!!!

Never missed a payment on anything in my life. Maybe 4-5 late payments by mistake in my life.

At my age, I don't intend to make another major purchase so credit report not that important.

Can I/should I use Ch. 7?

Tks and have a great day - jb

[TEW]

by all means file start enjoying your retirment

[relief13035]

Go for it!

[epiphany]

Would do it were I you.

ep

[DaisyMae]

Do you think you NEED to file BK?

I'd say maybe you are judgment proof, meaning even if you were sued (which could be years away, anyway if at all), what would the creditor be awarded, and would it be worth their whiles? I'd just stop paying the unsecured debt, and see what happens in a year, or few. No reason to spend the time or money to file if your are judgment proof. You can always file in the future.

[TEW]

I'd say maybe you are judgment proof, meaning even if you were sued (which could be years away, anyway if at all), what would the creditor be awarded, and would it be worth their whiles? I'd just stop paying the unsecured debt, and see what happens in a year, or few. No reason to spend the time or money to file if your are judgment proof. You can always file in the future.

[jeb]

I'd say maybe you are judgment proof, meaning even if you were sued (which could be years away, anyway if at all), what would the creditor be awarded, and would it be worth their whiles? I'd just stop paying the unsecured debt, and see what happens in a year, or few. No reason to spend the time or money to file if your are judgment proof. You can always file in the future.

Here is what I don't understand -

I have talked to an Attorney and to several debt settlement people. In both cases, I stop making payments.

I am only $300.00 or so short of making all my payments. If I stop making payments I will be putting almost $1,000.00/month in my account from the payments I didn't make.

How can you file bankruptcy if you are keeping that much in your account every month? After 4 months I would have about $5,000.00 in the account.

Can you get a ruling that discharges only the $300.00 or so I am short and, if so, who does the ruling go against as far as the individual companies I owe is concerned?


Also, which of the three incomes I have could someone go after if they wanted to do so - SS, VA benefit, $460.00 company retirement?

Thanks and have a great day - jb

[ready2puke]

The BK is a snapshot of the day you file so maybe you can keep paying as much as you can, time the filing on the day that you have next to nothing in your account (all checks cleared) and hit the file button. Thats what Ive been reading folks are doing on the board.
Also keep enough to live on and pay your attorney fees..

[jeb]

I guess I can't get my head around this bankruptcy thing.

My thinking was that someone had nothing, no income and owed bills they couldn't pay.

I am in the position that I have cut my living down to virtually nothing - and I do mean nothing.

My car goes as much as 2 weeks without being moved and my total food cost for the month is somewhere in the area of $150.00. I would love to trade it on something less expensive but I owe more than it is worth.

My ele. bill averages about $50.00/mo - summer and winter - there is no way to reduce any more but I still come up a few hundred short every month.

I CAN pay some of the bills but which ones do I not pay?

Do I rotate paying them or what?

But how can one go Chapter 7 when they can pay most of the bills?

Again, tks for your input. - jb

[Keebler]

I guess I can't get my head around this bankruptcy thing.

My thinking was that someone had nothing, no income and owed bills they couldn't pay.

I am in the position that I have cut my living down to virtually nothing - and I do mean nothing.

My car goes as much as 2 weeks without being moved and my total food cost for the month is somewhere in the area of $150.00. I would love to trade it on something less expensive but I owe more than it is worth.

My ele. bill averages about $50.00/mo - summer and winter - there is no way to reduce any more but I still come up a few hundred short every month.

I CAN pay some of the bills but which ones do I not pay?

Do I rotate paying them or what?

But how can one go Chapter 7 when they can pay most of the bills?

Again, tks for your input. - jb

All of this was equally confusing for me in the beginning but became crystal clear with time.

You need to make sure that your expenses match or exceed your income AFTER your debts are discharged. The budget that gets included with your bankruptcy doesn't include payments and debts that ultimately get discharged. If discharging your obligations leaves money left over you'll be pushed in to a Chapter 13 instead.

One thing that helped us was to stop paying the credit cards and unsecured debts months before we filed. We stopped using credit of any kind and started following a budget and tracking expenses closely. We lived paycheck to paycheck and for all practicle purposes, we were living on our post-Bankruptcy budget for months before we filed.

By the time we filed, we had months of history with legitimate expenses matching our income exactly and showing nothing left over. We learned a lot about our spending and we learned how to budget better at the same time we were collecting good records and receipts to be used when we filed. In a sense, this was our trial period to see if Bankruptcy would fix our problems. It souned lots easier than it turned out to be and we're thankful that we chose to do it this way.

If you were to live this way and started accumulating cash in the bank, you're actually admitting that you have money to spend and you should be repaying some of your debts in Chapter 13 instead. On the other hand, you might be able to spend some money on home maintenance and other legitimate expenses that you're skipping now.

The down-side to this approach is the months of collection calls and the abuse your credit score takes in addition to the Bankruptcy itself. In our case, the calls weren't too hard to deal wtih and we had already decided that credit was not our friend and we didn't care how damaged it was going to get.

[jeb]

Tks Keebler and all - you guys and gals are really great.

I have been living like a prisoner for months now - spending absolutely nothing that I did not have to - and taking $400.00 or so out of savings every month to cover things.

I have some 1800.00 left in savings so am on a death spiral so if I stop all CCard payments I would have about $400.00 month "extra" left over.

However, if I went to what might be considered a "normal" life style it would eat up the $400.00 plus.

Tks to all for the help - a great group of people.