The means test will determine whether you bankruptcy will be a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13.  That is, it will determine whether you can have your discharge now or will be required to make monthly payments for a while. 

Here are some links to an online means test calculator:

• Riverside County, California
• San Bernardino County, California
• If not in Riverside or San Bernardino counties, go to this link, enter your zip code and find the means test applicable to your location. 

(The site may also offer you referrals to bankruptcy attorneys in your area, which is helpful since I generally don't file cases in courts outside of Riverside (which also covers San Bernardino county).

The credit card industry devised the means test and had it passed by Congress hoping to extract more money from poor borrowers.  I argued at the time the legislation would not accomplish its goal and would only increase bankruptcy costs for debtors -- without benefiting creditors.  (A better choice would have been simply to apply a "means test" before lending money in the first place.  Why give money to people who can't afford to repay it?  But then again, it's pretty clear logical thinking is not the banking industry's long suit.)

Guess what. After effectively "buying" legislation from Congress through lobbying and donations, those banks -- like Citibank and JP Morgan Chase -- merely increased their losses.  Unlike you, those banks are now on the public dole, supposedly because they are "too big to fail."  I don't know if they are "too big to fail," but the public is not supporting them because they are "responsible" or "good money managers."  In fact, about the only things they are good at are lobbying Congress, losing money and paying themselves big bonuses.

Statistics show that the means test (and other mean-spirited aspects of the bankruptcy revisions) didn't decrease credit card lenders' loan losses at all.  In fact, euphoric that they finally got Congress to adopt the law they wrote, the credit card industry went on a lending spree to subprime borrowers, increasing their losses.

At least that's the way I see it.

So, anyway, it's now more costly for you to discharge your debts; and the credit card industry got nothing out of it.  You can think of it as a "hidden tax" that burdens the U.S. economy. 

We would all be better off if Congress would streamline your fresh start -- and get you back to productive work instead of supporting lawyers and the court system.