keep house & car if both upside down?

[PoorAnnie]

We want to keep our house and our mini van mostly because I can not imagine trying to buy/rent another house or car. We are upside down on them both. Also, even though we want to keep them we *desparately* need money to pay for the bk lawyer and thought one way to get it would be to skip just *one* house payment and *one* van payment and then we would have the money. Can we do this or if we miss one payment then we loose the chance to keep them?

[JRScott]

What is your gross monthly household income?

What is the monthly mortgage payment?

What is the monthly vehicle payment?

[keepmine]

And, how much negative equity do you have in the house and car plus, what sort of financing?

[PoorAnnie]

What is your gross monthly household income?

What is the monthly mortgage payment?

What is the monthly vehicle payment?

GROSS income $4300

Home $1115

Van $276

[PoorAnnie]

And, how much negative equity do you have in the house and car plus, what sort of financing?

The house is negative about $16,000 and is a fixed 50 yr! and is VA

The van is negative about $4-5,000 not sure what you mean by financing--but is through Wells Fargo

[keepmine]

Those numbers are not too horribly negative.
By finqancing, I meant what sort of interest rate? Is the rate reasonable and not prone to any sort of adjustment?
The thing you need to ask yourself is, the mortgage affordable post bk? If your mortgage is pushing 35% of your takehome, you're in a danger zone.

[PoorAnnie]

rate is 10%
and yes it will be pushing it even after the bankruptcy but we need somewhere to live and I don't see how we could move or find another place rental or buy with how things are now. We have 5 kids and we need a home.

[JRScott]

Actually your house is about 26% of your income, that is reasonable, and in the current climate it is unlikely you can beat that interest rate. You might do best to keep the house.

Also the van is only 6% of your gross, again very reasonable.

What other debts do you have or will have post bankruptcy that you see these two being tough to make?

[PoorAnnie]

Monthly:
Home 1115
Van 276
Electric 200
Cell Phone 50
Phone/Cable/Internet 110
Fee for child in sports 108
Car/Home/Lance Life Insurance 122
School Lunches: 25
Water 60
Food: 800 (that is us skimping on food)
Gas: 275
Medications:150 (sometimes more)

We have 5 kids so that adds and one has a life long illness that requires a lot of dr visits/medications and that is always changing depending how sick he is and I know we will have more hospital/dr. bills after the bankruptcy because he will get sick.

When I list my GROSS income it sounds so doable but when you look at take home after health insurance(automatically taken out) and taxes our NET income is only $3500 and changes month to month since some months it may be only $3000 NET since I have a small biz and it is not always steady.

Thank you for your replies, I appreciate the feedback.

[Cali]

Poor Annie - you can make it on 800$ month for food? Our groceries is more than that and it's only 4 of us.

[PoorAnnie]

We don't eat meat so that helps. We eat A LOT of pasta, canned fruit and veggies, cereal, oatmeal, and pbj and cheese sandwhiches. But really, no, we can't survive on $800 mth for food but that is what we do and it sucks.

[Cali]

Well hopefully when you get things going in the right direction you can get back on track with the food and everything.

We don't eat meat so that helps. We eat A LOT of pasta, canned fruit and veggies, cereal, oatmeal, and pbj and cheese sandwhiches. But really, no, we can't survive on $800 mth for food but that is what we do and it sucks.

[JRScott]

Okay looking at that you would be so so on 3500 months and short on 3000 months.

Have you ever looked into Angel Food Ministries, it has been mentioned by many here.

http://www.angelfoodministries.com/menu.asp

I'm not sure if they are in your area but wouldn't hurt to check.

Though their box is designed for a family of 4 you might could stretch it for 5 or supplement it a little. A box of food is only 30 dollars and meant to feed 4 people for a week. It might help you stretch your food budget.

It does have meat in it though so if you are strict vegetarians it might not help, but at least its an idea.