Plz Help--Questions about Ch7 in TX

[JEM]

Hi nickifan,
Thx for the insight! I was under the impression your vehicle would be exempt...since most people need a vehicle for their livelihood. ??
Is it financed or do you own it outright?

I'm trying to take deep breaths and actually get more than 4 hours of sleep at night. We have all of our available CCs about maxed anyway, due to having to rely on them so much these past 5 months for our household bills. So we won't be using them anymore. Will try to make what payments we can this month, perhaps next...but we have nothing in savings and our checking account is completely depleted at the end of each pay period. So if (when) it comes down to making a CC payment or paying the electric bill, gas, etc....the matter is going to be out of my hands. We will do what we have to do. If my hubby's salary is not restored within the next couple of months, then we will have to use inc tax refund to hire an attorney and file BK. Best of luck to you..this is so stressful. I really wonder what toll it will take on me & my DH.

[tlcabk]

I am by no means an expert, but had similar experience.

My husband got laid off in February and we went and saw BK attny end of May to free consult. He advised us of the following:

90 days before you file DO NOT USE CREDIT CARDS FOR ANYTHING other wise the credit cards companies could claim fraud.

We had made minimum payments on cards already for 90 days with no use, so we were advised to immeditately stop making payments on all credit cards and anything we did not intend to keep after BK, (In our case we had 3 vehichles and we knew we could not afford 1 of them after BK so we quit making that payment). Dr's bills etc.

The money we would pay credit cards and Truck payments instead went to gas and groceries etc.

We did not file until October.

[Overmihead]

I am by no means an expert, but had similar experience.

My husband got laid off in February and we went and saw BK attny end of May to free consult. He advised us of the following:

90 days before you file DO NOT USE CREDIT CARDS FOR ANYTHING other wise the credit cards companies could claim fraud.

We had made minimum payments on cards already for 90 days with no use, so we were advised to immeditately stop making payments on all credit cards and anything we did not intend to keep after BK, (In our case we had 3 vehichles and we knew we could not afford 1 of them after BK so we quit making that payment). Dr's bills etc.

The money we would pay credit cards and Truck payments instead went to gas and groceries etc.

We did not file until October.

Do you mind me asking why you waited so long to file?

[JEM]

Do you mind me asking why you waited so long to file?

Many people wait longer to file to let extra income "fall off"--as one reason or Extra time between larger charges on CC's.

I know for us, we stopped paying CC's mid November I guess it was--and we probably won't be filing until late March-April. My husband has been working lots of OT because they've been short on employees---this kind of OT won't last--so it's not "typical" of our income. We're going to give it a little extra time for his income to go "back to normal".

Does that help? Sometimes I ramble.

[Overmihead]

Many people wait longer to file to let extra income "fall off"--as one reason or Extra time between larger charges on CC's.

I know for us, we stopped paying CC's mid November I guess it was--and we probably won't be filing until late March-April. My husband has been working lots of OT because they've been short on employees---this kind of OT won't last--so it's not "typical" of our income. We're going to give it a little extra time for his income to go "back to normal".

Does that help? Sometimes I ramble.

Yes, that's a big help

With the reduced income we've been on since Oct, we are below the "magic" number for income for our family size. When it does go back to normal, we are over it....still qualify if we do the means test, but I'm sure that makes the whole process considerably more difficult (and maybe more expensive, with the atty?) We just quit using CCs and are waiting until April/May to A) Have a few months of no CC use and B) Have our income tax refund to hire atty and buy all household necessities. But don't want to wait longer than we have to because of the stress of it all and also in case the salary goes back up and makes the process more difficult.

Thx for the help, again!

[JEM]

Yes, that's a big help

With the reduced income we've been on since Oct, we are below the "magic" number for income for our family size. When it does go back to normal, we are over it....still qualify if we do the means test, but I'm sure that makes the whole process considerably more difficult (and maybe more expensive, with the atty?) We just quit using CCs and are waiting until April/May to A) Have a few months of no CC use and B) Have our income tax refund to hire atty and buy all household necessities. But don't want to wait longer than we have to because of the stress of it all and also in case the salary goes back up and makes the process more difficult.

Thx for the help, again!

I will say, as far as the stress--it seems the more I learn about the process from reading here...the less stressed I get. And the less urgent it seems to file NOW. I know we have a little time to do things right vs. right away.