Arlington Heights Bankruptcy Attorney Assists With Budget

As your Arlington Heights bankruptcy attorney, I will interview you and I will derive as much information as I can based on what you give me including your paycheck stubs, your tax returns and just common sense answers to common questions such as what do you spend per month on auto insurance?  What do you spend per month on food?  What do you spend per month on rent? 

You as the client are not going to have to painstakingly come up with your budget.  The bankruptcy schedules provide for a statement of income and a statement of expenses and I as your bankruptcy attorney will assist you to come up with the numbers that are accurate and that really reflect what you spend per month.  A lot of this information is derived from your paycheck stubs.  We simply take your paycheck stub and determining how often you are paid and what the pay frequency is, we can determine exactly what you are bringing in per month from your job as well as from all other sources. 

The difficult part is the expenses which is Schedule J.  Most clients do not keep track of a budget and they really have no realistic expectation on how much they pay for certain items over the course of a month.  What I like to do is give them a range or a reasonable standard as to what most of my clients discover they spend and then we go from there.  So we can kind of take a clothing purchase and say over the course of the year, someone spends anywhere from $1000-$1200 per year.  That equates to $100 per month.  The same could be said for food.  Some people spend weekly on food; some people spend every three weeks.  So we have to come up with some kind of basis as to how much you are spending per month to come up with the budget. 

Now, in most Chapter 7 cases, the budget is not even an issue because you are spending more than you are bringing in; thus, you don’t have money to pay through a Chapter 13 trustee.  In a Chapter 13 scenario, however, the budget is much more strictly construed.  The trustee is going to analyze your income and they are going to analyze your expenses.  If some of your expenses seem out of line and not within the norm, then the trustee has the right to ask for verification or proof that you actually spend a certain dollar amount on auto insurance, on food, on clothing, on medical expenses.  

So don’t worry if you don’t have a budget in hand or even if you’ve never prepared a budget before.  Your bankruptcy attorney will assist you in the preparation of your Schedule I and Schedule J based on your paycheck stubs and based on what a reasonable budget might be under your circumstances.  The important thing is to just get in to see that bankruptcy attorney and bring whatever information you do have concerning your income and your expenses.  From there, the bankruptcy law office will be able to assist in preparing all of the schedules, having them ready for your signature and then eventually having them filed with the bankruptcy court once all of your pre-bankruptcy filing requirements are satisfied, as well as your fees being paid in full.