Another question. Regarding bank account balances.

[mslaw]

So we met with our attorney two weeks ago and have been compiling documents to take to her tomorrow. So she advised us to stop paying our mortgage (not reaffirming this and is the main reason we are filing) and to stop paying CC's. Now it stands to reason if we are not paying these things, we will have more money in our bank account. Isn't this going to be a problem for the trustee?

[memama]

Hi mslaw,
There are a few recommendations that *I* was given...

Take the mother of all grocery shopping trips. In my state we're allowed to exempt a 12 month stockpile of food and I'll bet that there are similar rules in whatever state you're in.

Also, we were told to prepay whatever we could. I prepaid my utilities in the house we're surrendering (since it'll take awhile to get out of our names due to the slow foreclosure process), and I also prepaid things like auto insurance/renters insurance for our new place.

We purchased clothes for our kids, as well. With four kids age 7 and under, we needed these items. We *did* list the clothing under the assets in our schedules, but it was exempted anyway.

We had vehicle maintenance done. Unfortunately the result of one of these "maintenance" fiasco's was my husband's wheel falling off on the highway. That put a kink in our plans, but the trustee ultimately let us keep the money they were going to pay us for the repairs to his vehicle. Still worth it

Because my husband had moved over to a new state, we needed some household items for him so we went ahead and used some money for that. We also reported these under our assets on our schedules so everything was kosher. Initially we didn't do that because we thought they'd take it from us or question it, but when my attorney found out that my husband was staying in a one bedroom apartment with a futon and two side tables (yeah...that's ALL the furniture he had), he said that we needed to fix that situation and suggested some modest furniture.

And of course, a significant portion of our money was used for the attorney. We also put first, last, and deposit on a rental so when we move to where my husband is at, we'll have a place. The trustee asked no questions.

[ValleYum]

You can use federal exemptions in Kentucky. If you aren't protecting a lot of home equity, you can use the homestead wildcard to protect cash and other items you may not have enough exemptions for. This wildcard is $10,825 and is doubled if you are both filing.

[mslaw]

Thanks you all are an awesome resource!