Financial Challenges Support Group

Hope your meeting goes well w/ the attorney tomorrow sling. Good Luck! :D

Good morning SweetPea09!

Thank you for the good luck wish! I truly need the luck today. Did not sleep too well last night; worrying too much of the "IFs". My mind got stuck in "What IF we are not qualified to file either chapters, what do we do?" and "What IF the attorney asks too much of a fee, how do we afford him?" Right now, both DH and I only have about $1,000 cash in total. Hopefully, the attorney will work with us on the fee issue.

SweetPea09, I will let you know how it goes after the consultation today. Have a great day!

Did you have to fill out a 20-30 page questionaire. I had to for our consulation. We had a decent attorney (I think he was) his advise to us was "you have to figure out where you want to go and then how are you going to get there". BK was going to be too complicated for us. I cried all the way home and we figured out what we had to do to get out of our mess. Good luck.

Dear Carolynl,

It's so nice to hear from you. Also, thanks for the good luck wish!

We didn't fill out a 20-30 pages of information yet. I understand there's a lot of data to be provided to the Trustee, but the attorney didn't request us to do anything except to bring 180 days of our pay stubs, our 2008 tax return, our monthly expenditure form and copies of our cc statements.

We want to keep our house and vehicles as they are current, however, I really don't know what to expect.

Carolynl, I don't mean to be nosy, but wouldn't one of the Chapters help you at all?

Your welcome Sling... hopefully you feel a little better prepared. Let me know how it goes.

Hi Sling, your not being nosey. We own 3 motorcycles, my truck is a 1999 but still worth 8k they only give you a small alowance for a car, we also have a rental house (at this point it is costing me money but we don't want to sell now) so we didn't make enought to "buy" our stuff back and I am not selling my bikes. So it got really complicated. We ended up taking my husbands annuity money and paid our way out of the business. I actually called the landlord this morning and told them since they made no financial concessions to me during this "great recession" I want to be released from my lease on 11/15/09. She tried to offer me a rent reduction, told her at this point even that wouldn't help. Hubby will be unemployed then, we may have to revisit the bk idea if he cant get a job.

Dear SweetPea09 and Oestonee,

My DH and I are not eligible for Chapter 7, and Chapter 13 is not helpful to us. According to the attorney, my DH makes too much so we have to use Chapter 13. However, this makes no sense to me. After our expenses (not including cc bills), we only have about $1000 left and our cc bills totaled $1500, thus, leave us with negative $500. If we use Chapter 13, the attorney figured we will pay the Trustee $990 monthly for 5 years. This means we only have $10 to spend on the baby. This won't cover the expenses for daycare, diapers or formula each month.

Now, we are at a loss. : (

Darn, I'm really sorry to hear that the attorney couldn't help much Sling, I know how rough each chapter is on a credit score, but I was hoping and praying for that filing either a 7 or 13 would have at least given you some relief and the chance to get ahead financially.

Since filing a ch 13 would leave your budget too short, would using a non-profit debt consolidation organization help? I know some orgs. do charge payment fees to pay your creditors, but for some people it gives them a chance to keep their creditors from calling so much and from being sued

If a non-profit can't help, then I'm praying extra hard that your creditors will work w/ you and DH so that you can keep everything.

Again, I'm really sorry about your appointment w/ your attorney. I'm praying extra hard that things will look up for you soon. :)

Sling are you saying your "minimum" credit card payments are $1,500 a month?

I appreciate you, SweetPea09.

The devastation on my DH's face is unbearable. Worse still, this morning we found out his closest friend, who has been suffering from cancer, is in hospice's care and that made him feels like the end of the world. Many times I tried to keep a positive outlook for DH's and DD's seek, but I feel like I am breaking down myself - again.

We did call a non-profit credit card consolidation organization for help, but the agent could only give us a relief of $89 each month. That is not enough when the baby arrives in January.