Sell a laptop to pay off some bills

[Laurie77]

Hello everyone.

My husband and I are considering filing Ch. 7, but not sure when.

I have a laptop that is fairly new that I've been considering selling on Ebay. Now that we're experiencing financial hardship, I'm looking at it as an "excess" item and think I should sell it.

Could I sell it and use the money to pay off a credit card bill? Or should I use it for groceries or other living expenses? I guess it would be pointless to pay off something if it's going to be discharged anyway. But would this sale look odd if we filed within the next few months or is it ok if I can simply show where the money from the sale went? (with receipts and etc.?)

Thank you all! Everyone here is so great and informative!

[keepmine]

You won't be the first to sell personal property to pay living expenses.
Go ahead and sell it and use the cash for bills.
Why on earth would you want to payoff a cc that'll be included in your bk when you're struggling to buy groceries?

[Laurie77]

Thanks Keepmine!

That's exactly why I said selling it and paying off a cc that will be discharged anyway... that's sort of dumb. I would be smarter to use the money to buy groceries and pay other living expenses.

In the event that I do this, should I keep receipts for anything I purchase with the sale money?

[keepmine]

Won't hurt to keep records.

[drowning123]

I second what keepmine said. Use the money to pay bills and buy groceries.

[chicagoannie]

I have a decent laptop and have been trying to figure out Christmas for my kids (am unemployed) so I decided, as my daughter is always saying "mom, can I borrow your computer?" that I'm going to wrap it up and it will be her Christmas present. You gotta do what you gotta do! Sell you laptop and use the money for necessities, not the credit card bill! (save receipts, tho, just in case)

[drowning123]

Awww, chicago. Now what would make you cry, I'm sure, is if your daughter totally understands why you did that. That would be a Flip moment. LOL.

[Intoodeep80]

I did the same thing before, during, and after my bk.

My Lawyer advised me that they were looking for bigger ticketed items, over $1000. And if you are questioned, you sold the laptop to pay living expenses, right? Gotta do what you gotta do!

[Laurie77]

Thanks for the input everyone! I agree, you gotta do what you gotta do! I just didn't want it to be questioned later and/or get in trouble for it. But like a few have said, just keep receipts for anything I buy with the money from the sale. Another person mentioned giving a laptop as a gift. Could I give it as a Xmas gift to my brother, or is that one of those things where the trustee might go after my brother to get it back? I paid $600 for it in June 2009. Can you imagine how much it'd be worth now if I tried to sell it? Probably not even half, and that's being generous.

And re: bigger ticketed items, we don't have anything of huge value. All the furniture in our living room/dining room in our apartment is hand me downs from my family. Our kitchen, same thing. Our bedroom furniture was less than $500 for everything in there. (that's purchase price, of course.... worth much less at garage sale or etc.) My husband has two cars, both over ten years old, one not even driveable. My vehicle is going on 7 years old. (all three cars paid off) The amount of clothing we have is reasonable, we don't have a lot of that. I've been unemployed for almost 2 years, so haven't bought a lot of new stuff. Got rid of A LOT when we moved from CA to WA. Bottom line, we don't have a lot of extravagant things by any means. We live modestly, we just got in trouble with credit card debt when we were both working, were able to pay our bills, but were naive and thought things would always be good. (i.e. we'd always have jobs) Then the economy crashed and we both got laid off. Does anyone think that our assets would be a huge deal? I think our case will be pretty standard, likely a no asset case?

The only huge value item we have is my engagement ring and I've posted other threads here, as I'm worried about having to give it up if we file. We still owe Robbins Bros. for it because we used their store card to buy it, but we are prepared and able to reaffirm it if we have to. And we'll likely have to. I'm not willing to take the chance of trying to discharge it and have RB come after it.

[RichM]

You haven't filed anything yet. And "thinking about" isn't the same as "deciding."

Theoretically speaking, if I were in your position, I might be tempted to sell my excess stuff on Craigslist, get paid in cash, and keep no records of the transactions. Theoretically, of course.

I might even sell so much stuff to so many strangers that I'd lose track of how much stuff I'd sold. Then later on, if required to do so, I could honestly raise my right hand and swear that I don't remember the details, but before I decided to file for BK (remember, thinking about does not equal deciding), I sold so much stuff to strangers to buy gas and groceries that I can't remember the details. I could honestly say that, at the time, I was more worried about survival than record-keeping.

-Rich