[Single Filers] How is it that you can exempt ~$12k cash in the bank but still declare bankruptcy?

[Vball]

Maybe I'm missing something, but if I recall correctly, just because one has an expensive rent/mortgage well beyond the "allowance", that does not preclude them from being able to justify the higher amount.

That may be so, but my trustee wouldn't budge. When my payment was set at $1050/mo, I had to borrow $300 from my mom just to pay for my tags. I literally didn't have ANY extra money.

On a side note, I think it's ironic that they won't let us use any money we pay towards tuition as an allowance, yet we don't get any more consideration for a Pell Grant (which we make too much for). So on one hand the government is saying I can't use my funds to pay for college, and oh we aren't going to help you either.

[shipo]

While I can sympathize on the college funding thing, I rather doubt there is much you can do about that. The whole cost of living thing is, from my amateur perspective, absurd.

[flashoflight]

I think there might be a lot of bad lawyers. Because I looked into it all before I filed, and found that there are IRS tables for all expenditures. Maybe some lawyers aren't using those? It makes no sense that some people don't have enough money for basic expenditures and others do.

(My plan would have been around $1800 a month if my house and taxes were paid by the lawyer - but they let me pay for those myself).

Every BK lawyer knows about the IRS tables.

The lawyer can't tell you to just fill in the blanks with the IRS values. You sign on the penalty of perjury that you actually spend those amounts. That is why none of us got a cheat sheet with the IRS amounts. Besides, you need to back every line in the budget with receipts so referring to the IRS values isn't that helpful. Incurring the expense with receipts is helpful. That's also why the lawyer doesn't want to tell you to finance a new car pre-petition because you could actually be low DMI and make your plan infeasible unless you give up your new wheels. Malpractice is bad and so is telling your clients to lie.

The way you do it as a lawyer is to tell your client to do the most detailed budget in his life and use bank statements and receipts to account for every single expense. That will reveal issues that the lawyer can address like pet expenses which are not listed anywhere. That's why you won't have a lawyer suggest you to buy a goldfish or a cat to suck up more DMI. That would not be ethical of course. But ask the same question here, I'd get a dog rather than pay Citibank.

[bbeagle]

The lawyer can't tell you to just fill in the blanks with the IRS values. You sign on the penalty of perjury that you actually spend those amounts. That is why none of us got a cheat sheet with the IRS amounts. Besides, you need to back every line in the budget with receipts so referring to the IRS values isn't that helpful. Incurring the expense with receipts is helpful. That's also why the lawyer doesn't want to tell you to finance a new car pre-petition because you could actually be low DMI and make your plan infeasible unless you give up your new wheels. Malpractice is bad and so is telling your clients to lie.

The way you do it as a lawyer is to tell your client to do the most detailed budget in his life and use bank statements and receipts to account for every single expense. That will reveal issues that the lawyer can address like pet expenses which are not listed anywhere. That's why you won't have a lawyer suggest you to buy a goldfish or a cat to suck up more DMI. That would not be ethical of course. But ask the same question here, I'd get a dog rather than pay Citibank.

Well, I guess reading these forums helped me.

I maxed my credit cards and couldn't pay one off with another (i.e. balance transfers for one), so I just couldn't pay my bills anymore - not enough money. Then I financed a new car. Then I stopped paying the credit cards. Then I lived reasonably for 3 months (within the IRS charts) before I talked to my lawyer for the first time. So, my expenses were correct when I filed.

If I didn't do this, I guess I would be stuck in a Chapter 13 I couldn't afford?