Getting closer to filling, Some more questions as always

[Klesko]

I have been following a plan since first of the year on the path to filling. My main goal is to get us into BK7, we were pretty high over the med income and did not pass the means test, (too much money left over).

The plan is to file first of Sept, that is when our income has fallen enough to qualify for BK7. It will still be tight though. If everything goes to plan our income should be about -300 dollars of the median income. Also we should be about -200 to -400 on the means test.

We are discharging about 130k-150k in debt with most of it from credit cards.

I still worry that the trustee will push us into BK13 though. I just fear BK13 the most and its not acceptable to me. We have enough cash saved up to last us until about Nov. After that I am going to need to work more for our expenses. But that would put us back over the med income and such so I want this to go smooth.

Since we are about 2.5 months away from filing I guess I need a refresher on what we should be aware of from this point on?

[JRScott]

Just make sure you can prove all the expenses, borderline median income might draw more scrutiny of your expenses and they might try to challenge them, so be prepared.

If you haven't yet I'd stop paying any debt you plan to discharge now, to help make your money stretch a bit further but keep in mind that you need your savings etc to be within what you can exempt on the date you file. Any extra the Trustee will take, also if you have a checking/savings account with Wells Fargo I'd suggest moving them even if you don't have debt with Wells Fargo. Make sure to move any checking/savings account with any bank/credit union you have debt with that your are discharging to another bank.

[Klesko]

We stopped paying on our debt early this year. Only debt we are paying on now is a student loan and a car loan.

Our savings will be pretty low by the time we file, like 2-3k so I am not worried about that. I know we have a 4k wild card if not more so it should be fine.

Depending on how many hours I work between now and filing date we could be anywhere from -300 to -3000 below the med income and -100 to -600 on our expenses on the means test. All expenses can be proved, in fact when I did the forms most were just the default expenses.

[JRScott]

Well if you have some flexibility I'd get yourself at least a thousand below the median.

However if after bankruptcy you're still -100 to -600 a month you may have trouble reaffirming debts like cars/home. Have you discussed your plan with a lawyer and seen what they think?

[Klesko]

I met with a few in Feb and know the one I am planning on using. Our med income at the time was high because my wife had just finished working. So I was told to wait for her income to fall off using the 6 months period. I plan on retaining the lawyer july and have another meeting with them to go over everything.

I only plan on reaffirming my car, which I am still not 100% sure about, we let our house FC early in the year.