Personal Bankruptcy Wildcard Exemption question

[marshull]

As I read it, there is a wildcard exemption of $5,000 of unused homestead or burial exemption, plus $500 of any personal property.
Now the amount of the homestead exemption is $18,500 since I am filing jointly and both the wife and I "own" the home. The house is currently worth $132,000 with the mortgage being $140,000. So with having -$8,000 in equity, I do not need to use the homestead exemption. Does this mean that I can apply the total wildcard of $5,000 towards whatever I want?

Edit. Just to let you know what I am doing. I have purchased Nolo Press,"How To File For Chapter 7 Bankruptcy". I am going over the Property Exemption Worksheet right now. I am a bit confused though.
How much detail do I need to go into regarding my property? For instance, regarding clothes, do I have to list all my clothes? Or do I just say "clothes" and give a value. Should I break down clothes by individual? Self, wife, kids, with values for each. What happens if I don't list my blender or something stupid like that. Can they take it to sell? How would they even know I had one. Do they come to your house and look everything over?

 

[diy4law]

Listing Property in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy

When disclosing your property in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy you must list the following things since I am sure you own them. Things such as; houshold goods (which is basically every item that is physically located within your home/residence/abode/cave) and whatever is in any storage unit. Also, you do have clothes and accessories...so you need to list that. Most everyone also has items such as a car or other vehicle. Or, an animal. Or, any kind of a retirement plan such as a 401k, IRA. Or, if you are expecting a refund from the gov. for the 2009 tax return, then that money is an asset called an accounts receivable. So list everything. As far as the value goes, here is a method. For that category you can just say Miscellaneous of $XXXX.XX value. The value method is what is called the replacement value. That means if you had to buy at retail what you already own, how much would you pay? The retail merchant will give you two discounts. One for the age of the stuff and two for its condition.

Everything has value using the replacement method.