How long should we wait?

[Rain2674]

Hello everyone!
We have been contemplating BK for a while now, and every time we come close, something pops up and we have to swipe the credit card again, because we are always short for either groceries, bills or home repairs.
We had two cars and one credit card intertwined thru our credit union, cross-collateral and all three tied to each other.
After reading thru all the membership agreements, i realized that we wont be able to discharge CC debt without losing both vehicles. My husband traded his in November, and i traded mine just a week ago, so now we are down to having only a credit card balance with our credit union. The problem is that we used that card as down payment on the new car, and put additional 3500 on top of the balance of 1500 we already had.
All other cards we have haven't been touched for at least 90 days, no activity whatsoever, some of them even longer than that, because i closed them last year, but we still have balances on those however.
We meant to do BK around April or May. I was wondering if that will be sufficient time to do it, considering we don't touch this credit card ever again after this? I am thinking it's gonna be 4 or 5 months after last transaction, but i am concerned with the large sum we withdrew. How likely would our credit union be to object?
Thanks to all of you in advance, and Happy New Year!

[scorpion35]

what u did is fraud .u knew u were going to file bk and yet u used your card to purchase non essencial items like a down payment on a car
How likely would our credit union be to object?VERY LIKELY and i don't blame them

[Rain2674]

I don't think it's a fraud. That's why i asked how long we should wait before we file, and most likely before we even file, we will pay the big chunk of those 3000 off. It was either purchase another car, and lose the car we already had with our credit union. They never advised us about cross colateral clause, and i knew nothing about it until i came accross this forum.
I mean, how many people on this forum gained enormous ammounts of credit card debts by losing their jobs and having no income whatsover? If you search thru BK attorney web sites, they also mention using credit cards while unemployed as commiting the fraud.
We have never done anything of the sort. We did fell on hard times by having our hours cut, but we were current on our bills, and we are STILL current on all bills. We blew 17,000 from our savings account making sure that all our bills are paid on time, and currently we are down to 287.00 in our savings account. In 20 years we have been married we never once paid our bills late. Only reason we have to do BK now is my husband's health insurance kicking in and weekly payments will start being due in February, at which point we won't be able to budget all we have to pay.
I figured if we use credit card to pay for down payment and pay our bill for 5-6 months before we file, we will pay most of what we took off.
I would thin that it's far worse to live of your credit cards while being unemployed, because it's logical that you can't pay them off any time soon and have no income to support the payment. That's a fraud.
And thousands of people are doing exactly that, thinking that they can always file for BK as last resort.
But thanks for your reply.

[HHM]

Have you been making minimum payment to the credit union credit card. The thing is, credit unions are the most hostile and aggressive toward BK (next to PayDay loan places).

I do agree, what you did is a form of BK fraud. Sorry, but you took out credit with the express intent of filing BK on that debt. No way to "rationalize" around that fact. However, will anyone care. Not likely once you hit the 6 month mark from that charge.

[Rain2674]

Sorry, i made mistake when i said that we charged 3500, i just called my husband and he told me that down payment on the car was a 1000, so that brought our balance on Credit union card to 2400. The rest of 1400 that we had before this transaction is small purchases that accumulated over last 10 years since we had account with them. My husband told me that he asked the bank about allowing us to keep my car after we file for BK, but they didn't budge, and they said that they will reclaim the car. The fact that i owned a 07 Pt cruiser convertible didn't help, because it's highly sought vehicle in AZ and it would be sold very easily, plus i owed only 5K on it.
The thousand that we put down on new car was absolutely needed to make a deal, and we had no other sources. Our credit card with credit union is a bit different, it's tied into our checking and savings account, and it's also used as overdraft protection, if that matters. If we need quick cash we just log in our online account and transfer the money. There are no statements for it at all, other than online, and at this point we don't even have an actual card. We paid cash for a down payment. Also we didn't purchase an expenssive car, my new monthly payment is few bucks lower than the old one, and i financed only 10K total.
I was told that Toyota Motors originally wanted 3500 down payment, but i apparantly my husband worked out a new deal with only a grand down.
We have been paying more than minimum payments on ALL credit cards we have, always. Since i grew up and got married i can't think of single time of us missing one payment on any bill. My husband was laid off for a while, and we blew entire savings making sure everyone is paid on time, even if it meant us not having groceries that month.
I can hardly see us a people commiting a fraud. Besides, if my husband gets a raise that's proposed by the union, we might not even file for BK. If you see my previous posts, you can tell we planned on BK before, but always tried everything humanly possible to avoid it.
This time around, we might have to, due to health insurance costs and union dues. It's going to make a dent in our monthly budget, but it is something that is needed, especially having children.

[tcreegan]

Hi Rain,

Just wanted to throw in the idea that a BK is a business decision, nothing personal. Its numbers on paper and decisions to protect your financial position. Doesn't imply character flaws, good intentions don't factor into the equation.

Paying bills on time for your whole life is laudable, but no help in a BK. Using a credit card to get a car to take your kids to school and get you to work and back is completely understandable, but won't help if the credit union decides to recover the money. It will be X dollars of credit with Y payments made Z days before filing BK.

Waiting 6 months after credit card use and making payments will help.
Waiting until you find out if your husbands income will change will help.
Downloading form B-22A from http://www.uscourts.gov/FormsAndFees...ptcyForms.aspx and filling it out will help.
Getting the NOLO book (www.nolo.com) will help.
Posting questions here will help, even if they raise your hackles there are kernels of information you can use.

Times are tough, hang in there!

Tom in Colo