Who waited months to file?

[momof3b1g]

I think I see the issue here. When are you planning to actually file? Before June but after your tax refund?

If you have annual home insurance due in June that you pay separately from escrow, then why not pay it in advance with your refund so you have a paid receipt? That will solve your issue because you can not have the cash to show you are 'going to pay in June your insurance'. ALL cash you have (on hand or in bank accounts) has to be declared on the petition and exempted in order to keep it.

Right, the question would be wether the trustee knows or questions when we pay certain things like insurance. But if they know we pay yearly it would only make sense we have money to pay. Seeing its stated in our monthly budget. But wondering about other things like clothes if we don't have receipts for the amount we figured for certain expenses it would look like we have extra money we haven't exempted. Just not sure how picky and detailed our trustee will be. Our exepnses are not over the top so i guess we shouldn't have anything to worry about proving.

[GeG_Lost]

this post was a wake up call for me. yes, i do think things will be easy once this goes through... easier...what if I'm wrong?

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This is the first time I have responded on this board, but I have been reading here for awhile. I retained an attorney in October and thought that we could easily pay them the remainder of the money in November and be filed before December. Everything that could go wrong, seems to have in that time. I had three tires with slow leaks since the summer, and those suddenly got a whole lot worse. My motor in my car window went out. Then the week before Christmas my fuel pump went out, I needed a CV joint replace, and a pinion seal. I would say that for the months of November and December things actually felt worse than they were when we had credit cards to fall back on. I still feel like there is no end in sight as far as getting the lawyer paid in full and other things caught up. The kids always need something for school or one comes home with a hole in their shoes or something like that. What keeps me going is knowing that at some point, I will have caught up on the things like needed dental work, car repairs, etc. What is important now is that after we have filed we set up an emergency fund for those type of expenses. What if you are wrong? Well, maybe things won't be easier right away but eventually they will be. I look at it this way, we still have nothing left over right now and so much that needs to be done, but for the first time in a long time we are actually accomplishing things like needed repairs without ADDING to our debt and making our long term situation worse.

[Over our heads]

We stopped paying last sept. And honestly, there hasn't been any extra. If it weren't tax season and a refund, we would be borrowing to pay the legal fees!

But, stuff like your car insurance, you figure that as a monthly expense on your schedules. But I understand the question of having that money in the bank. Our lawyer has said many times, we don't care where you put it, as long as it isn't in the bank, and the mattress seems to be their favorite hiding spot!

But really don't go thinking that once you file you will magically have money left over once it is said and done. That will only happen if you cut your expenses afterwards.