My wife and I had always made decent money but definitely relied on our credit to carry us thru those tight times, as well as buying a few nice things every now and then. We were typically able to pay all of our bills on time and sometimes had a few bucks left over at the end of the month, but we were continuously having to strategically pay certain bills on certain days when we knew we would have enough to cover the check. We attempted to tighten our budget, but unfortunately when your already so far into the hole it is something just short of impossible to stick to a budget because you are always trying to do the right thing to pay a little extra on whatever credit card had the highest balance at that time. So a brief snapshot at our pre filing finances(roughly)
Credit card debt $45,000
3 cars $25,000
First Mortgage $180,000
2nd Mortgage $35,000
Our income average annual income came in at just over $100k a year between both my wife and I, the median family income for our area was around $85k a year. We knew that we didnt want to reaffirm our home loans, but we did want to re affirm our cars. After a few meetings with our attorney we decided that we would go with the stay and pay route on the house. It was explained to us upfront that we were extremely close to the edge between a 7 and 13, but our attorney felt that it was worth a shot. We filed that same day, and I proceeded to stress out every day until our 341 meeting. We were in the first set of cases to be heard that morning, and the trustee asked only 3 questions
1 Do we own any other property other than what is listed on our paperwork
2 Had we ever filed BK before
3 Were we anticipating any inheritances, or settlements.
We were able to answer no to each question. After the meeting was over we met with our attorney and he felt it went well and was of the opinion that we were good to go. The sixty day clock started off well, we made sure to pay our filing fee right out of the gate and then proceeded with getting the re affirmation paper work turned in for all three cars. Day 57 we were notified that one of the credit cards had filed an AP. The suit was because we had used the card within the 60 day window prior to filing, there was a balance of 4600 of which they were disputing 2700. After some haggling we were able to settle for $2000 over 20 months. We received our discharge after the holidays and our case closed just after the discharge. In hindsight we wished we would have filed sooner, the thought of filing was far worse than reality and most of my stress was self induced.
Credit card debt $45,000
3 cars $25,000
First Mortgage $180,000
2nd Mortgage $35,000
Our income average annual income came in at just over $100k a year between both my wife and I, the median family income for our area was around $85k a year. We knew that we didnt want to reaffirm our home loans, but we did want to re affirm our cars. After a few meetings with our attorney we decided that we would go with the stay and pay route on the house. It was explained to us upfront that we were extremely close to the edge between a 7 and 13, but our attorney felt that it was worth a shot. We filed that same day, and I proceeded to stress out every day until our 341 meeting. We were in the first set of cases to be heard that morning, and the trustee asked only 3 questions
1 Do we own any other property other than what is listed on our paperwork
2 Had we ever filed BK before
3 Were we anticipating any inheritances, or settlements.
We were able to answer no to each question. After the meeting was over we met with our attorney and he felt it went well and was of the opinion that we were good to go. The sixty day clock started off well, we made sure to pay our filing fee right out of the gate and then proceeded with getting the re affirmation paper work turned in for all three cars. Day 57 we were notified that one of the credit cards had filed an AP. The suit was because we had used the card within the 60 day window prior to filing, there was a balance of 4600 of which they were disputing 2700. After some haggling we were able to settle for $2000 over 20 months. We received our discharge after the holidays and our case closed just after the discharge. In hindsight we wished we would have filed sooner, the thought of filing was far worse than reality and most of my stress was self induced.
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