My wife and I filed for Chapter 13 in 2013 basically to save our house ... At the time I was between careers and had very little income. Over the past 4 years I've built a new career and went from about $14k yearly income when we filed to about $175k yearly income at this time. As a result of this, we were able to pay off the Chapter 13 at 100% about 18 months early. This was primarily for 2 reasons - (1) we had 12+ year old cars we owed nothing on that have now broken down and we need to replace and (2) we live in the same house we bought together 19 years ago, and with the addition of 2 kids over the past 10 years, we are desparate to move into a new home.
Given that information, we are at the point now where we cannot ignore purchasing a new car. We can afford to pay a high interest rate now (just paid off the Ch13) and refinance later in the year. But we definitely want to move to a new home which will be a significantly larger mortgage. I realize it may be 2 years before we can do this.
But in the meantime, what can we do to to prepare for the next 2 years - in terms of buying a new car immediately, and in terms of repairing the house that has been falling apart for the past 8 years and preparing to do a massive upgrade in housing as quickly as possible?
