August 3rd, 2009

twin peaks - happy laura



I can't even explain how incredibly happy I am right now. We bought our house five years ago from my parents and to insure we got it, my dad hopped on the mortgage as a co-signer. Well, he went on to build his house in Wisconsin and desperately needed me to refinance him off of it because he had the mortgage of my house and the one of his house in Minnesota on his credit, so no one would give him a loan to finish the new house in Wisconsin. So, we went to the ex-husband of my husband's ex-girlfriend/mother of his son. He was a really nice guy; I got along with him well. He worked for a mortgage company, so we figured that going with someone we knew would be the best route. Yeah, do your homework before you refinance.

Due to his company, he was forced to include a clause in the refinance saying that if we tried to refinance (even with Chase, their company) any time before 2011, we would be penalized $8000. That clause actually became illegal in Minnesota a month after we refinanced. Things were okay for a while, but we went from paying $1400 a month to $2000 a month with a rate of 7.25%. I make $1600 a month and my husband only makes $800 after child support. So we were paying for things by the skin of our teeth, basically. Despite the clause being illegal, no one could get it removed. Tack on the constant problems we had with the people at the company. For those of you that own a house, you know that there is a grace period each month for when you must ABSOLUTELY pay. Example, my house payment is due on the first of the month. We have an eighteen day grace period, so everything MUST be paid for by the 19th. The reason for this is that a large portion of the population gets paid on the first and fifteenth of the month, which is the case with my husband. Without his paycheck, we can't pay it. We pay online, so every month, it is there on the sixteenth. It has NEVER been late. Nonetheless, we would get three calls every day after the first from the company telling us our payment was late. We would tell them about the grace period and they would be like, "Oh, okay, that's fine." This happened three times a day, every day. And due to the large amount of money, we were not able to ever get it turned around so we could pay earlier. I tried very hard and it never worked.

The kicker of this all was that none of the things that everyone got from the new president applied to us because of my husband's business. He makes $800 a month, but since his business makes $2 million a year, it looks to the government like he makes about $4000 a month. Reason being, he and his business partner put most of their take into the business, paying employees, buying inventory, etc. Not to mention the taxes. The pay all these ridiculous taxes. They paid out $125,000 last month in taxes. I just felt ill when he said that. Not only that, but the $1200 I usually get back after I pay my taxes goes straight to their tax debt with the state because I am married to him. Seriously, it is economically better for us not to be married. Isn't that sickening? So no aspect of the government will help me out, whether it be in the form of those tax rebates everyone raves about or financial aid. My financial aid person actually told me that if I wasn't married to my husband and had his stuff on my credit, 90% of my education would be paid for through financial aid.

So every month for the last four years, the sixteenth would roll around and our bank accounts (all of them) would roll to zero. Many times, it would go negative. I have my bank account protected by my credit card, so if it rolls into negative amounts, the amount is paid by my credit card. I paid for the house on my credit card many times last year, which is awful, but unpreventable.

Today, we found out that our payment was changed to $1500 and our rate was reduced to 5.0%. Not only that, but the $8000 was cleared. This is due to the economy. We got a really awesome guy that basically did the thing with our house that a lot of people do with credit cards. He worked directly with our current company and fought like hell to get it down for us. I am SO happy right now. It is such a large burden lifted off my back. I am a crazy person about debt. I watched my parents suffer with debt when I was little, so I promised myself I would always pay my bills and never get to far in debt. I only owe $2000 in credit card debt which is always current. Apart from that and my growing student loan debt, which I pay towards every week, I only have the house in debt. I just feel so balanced and calm right now.

Now back to writing my Sam and Ruby fic. I am on a serious Sam and Ruby kick right now.

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