MasConcepts Incorporated

I’m feeling super discouraged about what to do next. My wife and I are trying to file a bankruptcy in WA state and our attorney just did the means test and said we would have to file a chapter 13 and pay $2,800/month for 5 years.

My wife was laid off a little over year ago just before our wedding and it completely fucked our debt payoff plan and sent us wildly backwards in debt. We’d done consolidation and bargaining with creditors for lower payments but the $1,300/month payments were still too high to afford once we lost that income. We have about 80k in unsecured consumer debt.

I have a salaried income of a little over 100k/year. I have 180k in student loans and work a public interest job so I’m trying to qualify for PSLF and if we do ch 13 the time paying student loans I read won’t count towards PSLF.

She’s back to self employment and her income wildly varies but the six month average is 2500/month pre tax and business expenses.

We have paid off older cars, we don’t have kids or own, so we don’t qualify for a lot of the deductions but we live in Seattle where cost of living is high.

I don’t contribute to a 401k because I can’t afford to. And my bi-weekly take home pay is $2800, which is the same as what they’re saying our disposable income is. I have to pay $600 a month for health insurance through my employer and my wife and I both have major health issues.

We try to live cheaply but Seattle living is expensive. Our rent is 2450, electric $200. Our pets cost $300 a month for medical/food/vet and our food costs $1100 in groceries alone. We spend $500-$600 gas and maintenance on our older high mileage cars and we do the maintenance mostly ourselves to save. We’ve Stopped using credit cards for 5 months now and drastically cut back expenses but are still living paycheck to paycheck. I know there’s budget areas we can cut back on…but I have no idea how to come up with $2800 a month for 5 years.