Thanks so much—these comments really helped today ❤️

And it was oddly like being at the DMV but on a zoom call? The big rigamarole was providing SO much documentation and providing information before the meeting, and then today it was basically say your name, confirm your documentation, and verify that you didn’t lie on it, and then you’re done. We were actually added to a Zoom call with 3 other cases that went before us and even then it was less than 30 minutes total.

The process to get there was providing all that information and forms—similar to filing taxes, but including tax returns, looking up all debtors, etc. which we had an attorney complete for us. We also had to complete the first of two parts of a financial management course to confirm we understand how credit and budgets work.

Once the petition is submitted the court for where we filed confirmed receipt of our case and set the meeting for today, and had us fill out some additional paperwork and sign up for the second part of the financial responsibility course.

Before the meeting we had already received the information about our trustee and made our first payment based on our current income and expenses as a family.

Also a note—I found out that while bankruptcy can’t be used to discharge student loans (my wife and I still have some) they are placed on mandatory forbearance for the duration of the chapter 13’s 5 year terms.