Successful 13 person here. You NEED, I repeat you NEED to make sure your lawyer leaves you with plenty of money to live with. For insurance copays and license plate stickers and christmas presents and so on. There is nothing wrong with this. If your current attorney wont make the numbers work so you are comfortable, then you need another attorney bottom line.
As long as your payments are made every month, the only communication from the trustee you will get is the yearly summary of disbursments made from your payments to the plan. Just sign up on the TFS Bill Pay website so it makes your plan payment automatically, and forget its there. Just let the time pass. Dont wish and hope to fast forward to the end of the plan. Live your live. You will regret all the time you spent worrying and wishing you were out of the 13. I know I do. Since its been over, our credit healed and we have purchased cars and homes and so on.
And you need to open a secured credit card once you are filed. Keep the limit under $500 and use it. Try to pay it off every month, but its not a big deal if you carry a balance. This will help you re-establish post filing and thats what most creditors will want to see. Jump on all the three reports and start disputing all the negative info as well a few months after you are filed.
Live your life. Think of this as another car payment or credit card payment thats necessary. Oh and dont forget to do the pre and post filing credit counceling courses as soon as you can. Dont put off the post filing one until the end of the BK. You will forget about it and it will delay you from getting your discharge until its done.
And YES take that vacation. We did every year. Not some $10k disney vacation, but we made it to warm weather and spent 7 days on the cheap on a beach every year with our kids and had fun. There is nothing wrong with this.
