Seeking God Knows What

Tonight I am going to bore you with an evaluation of our appointment with the bankruptcy attorney last week.

First of all, he was a very nice guy.  He seemed very honest about his desire to help people avoid bankruptcy if he can.  If not, he works with them through the whole process and makes sure that they leave with a good budget plan for the future.

Secondly, we do qualify for chapter 7 based on the new median income test.  I think there is one other “means test” we have to qualify for based on our expenditures and income to file.

Thirdly, based on our general estimates for debt, household expenses and income, he seemed to think we probably would have to file. 

Since we talked to him, we have spent the last week gathering the required documents to bring to our second appointment, doing the required bankruptcy credit counseling online -a big joke that cost me $50 for our required certificates- didn’t even copy the information I entered into our paperwork accurately (I’ve decided we are going to use Dave Ramsey’s Bankruptcy Pre-Discharge Program for that part, hopefully it will be worth it!) and just analyzing our expenditures on household, groceries, dining, clothing and so on.

What we discovered is T’s income, which is steady and very secure (Thank God!), is more than enough to cover our household expenses.  So that means what I make pays for child care and debt reduction.  Now, that brought up the question of whether I should work full-time to “save” us from bankruptcy.  However, after evaluation, we determined what held true last year holds true this year, my earning potential (at least if I were to stay at the same job just full-time, the easiest option) is not enough to offset the additional costs of full-time childcare, work expenses and add enough income to cover what we REALLY need to pay off debt.

Truth be told, I’ve been living in dream world about how much money we need to live without increasing our debt.  These last few months, we have truly watched our dollars at the grocery store, going out to eat, clothing etc. well, other than Spam-a-lot tickets and the reality is we cannot live on the money I had planned out.  We’ve managed to skate along the last few months with various methods- with a 5% interest rate till the balance is paid off check (bad choice), because T did an outside computer job for his old boss and because we had a referral to our apartment complex meaning we got a 50% credit on our rent for the month (both of these don’t have a lot of prospects for future money).