Amish....My wife and I filed Chap 13 4 years ago....I was discharged last October...Chap 13 is the way to go...you lose all your cards and bills to go with them. It's amazing to see how nice collectors get when you tell them to contact my lawyer, i am filing bk. Anyway, if you file Chap 13, they lawyer gives you a budget sheet from the court, where you list all your household expense minus loans and credit cards, i.e. newspaper, cable, daycare, food, lunches, electricty, telephone, internet service, clothing cost per month, dry cleaning, mag subs, anything else that you can think of to keep living a normal life. What happens, at least in Chap 13, they look at your total monthlies and see what you have in disposable income, and that becomes you bk payment. So, in short, if you increase some of these numbers by a few dollars, you can make your bk payment and still have a few dollars to spare. You do not have to hide anything if you file Chap 13, unless you have some stocks or bonds you do not want to sell. I sold mine to my mother before I filed....Disney, IBM and such, not alot, but I didn't want to sell them. In Chap 13, nothing is taken from you, unless the judge says so, which is rare. I had just bought 2 month prior to filing a big screen from IncredibleUniverse (remember them anyone?) and made 2 payments....can you say free TV? I had also just gotten a consolidation loan from Commercial Credit for 5k, we had asked for 25k. If we had gotten the 25k, we would not have had to file bk, but anyway they got 3 payments from me and the loan was killed by the bk. Anyway, please feel free to ask me anything else, I know laws have changed since mine, but I may be able to help find the answers.
And BTW, I started reestablishing my credit while under bk plan. You are NOT supposed to aplly for credit while under bk without court approval, Providian Credit offered me a card with no credit check, they hounded me for months, I finally gave in with 2 years left on my BK, but be careful, the court could throw you bk out if you get busted. I now have over 25k in available credit with them. Between the wife and I, we now have decent credit, 2 new cars and a new house and we are only 1 year out of bankruptcy. Yes it does hurt your credit, but not as much you think. It is more of an ego thing. And also, here in Texas, you must attend a mandatory Credit counseling class after filing. They teach you how to manage your money and such.
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