Everything is Due....Now What?

OK - Well it is Tuesday, June 17 and everything is due. The light bill ($220 with late fee) and the mortgage ($730 with late fee) are due for sure - everything else I can push off another week. My big plans for selling everything over the weekend didn't pan out since I didn't have enough in my account to run the classified ads and we had enough rain on Saturday to soak our plans for a yard sale. Now I am looking at E-bay and Craig's List as a last resort. We have some parts from our Firebird that we can sell and my fiance is willing to part with his stereo and some 10" Sony speakers. The yard sale can be back on at any time this week - I just need to show my fiance how to run it so that he doesn't let everything go for a quarter.

I've always kept in touch with my bank that holds my mortgage so I e-mailed my collection department contact last week and told her what was going on. She said to let her know as soon as I can make the payment but that I couldn't go past 30 days or they would start foreclosure. You see, the same friendly neighborhood bank that I mentioned in my initial post holds the note on my mortgage and I am convinced they love to make what is mine (OK so the house won't be mine technically for another 28 years) theirs. All of the late fees, check fees, etc they have collected from me over the past year could have been used to pay down my mortage enough to drop the PMI.

Don't even get me started on PMI. Where in the hell do they come up with these things? Insurance for the bank so they don't lose their shirts when you can't afford your mortgage. On the flip side, PMI makes my loan $200 a month more expensive than someone with great credit so they are almost charging me $200 a month to insure that I do lose the house. I should have fought when they came at me and said I would have PMI and it would be that high the morning of closing but we were already moved out of the rental we had been in for 10 years and we had no where to go. Everyone has called it a case of predatory lending but who cares? I signed the papers and here we are. I thought because it was a fixed rate and a reputable bank, there was no way they could do that to me but how niave we are at our first dance, right?

I have been reading some very inspiring posts lately from others in similar situations and really liked the post from "Reggie - Another kid with good credit" who is working through his debt by listing his goals and then checking them off as he accomplishes them. I know that works - I see it in my business dealings every day. Setting budgets, goals, etc are great if you are a person that can stick to them (which I am). My trouble is my fiance. He doesn't plan, he doesn't worry (until it's too late), and he doesn't budget. When I left for work this morning I tried to tell him that today at noon the lights would be shut off (along with his beloved cable) and he wasn't even phased. On the other hand, I didn't sleep last night out of worry. Instead he tells me that "everything is going to be fine - it always is". It must be great to be so stress free!

OK - so if I call the local municipal utility they may let us slide another week and I may have a few more days on the mortgage but I know how quickly those days will go by and if I don't do something soon there will be no more extensions. I started to look through loan information for people with bad credit on line yesterday and I quickly decided that I didn't want to do that to myself. First, I don't want to dig myself in further by borrowing to pay bills. Second, they all seem to want one thing - access to your checking account. That's just what I need - more people taking money out of my account! I think I'll stick with selling things and plain old overtime.

Sorry this post is so long - I had to take a break this weekend due to a nasty sunburn I got while we were working in our new veggie garden. This is the first year we've gardened together - it's been really fun but it is soooo much work. Now, if we could just grow hamburger, eggs, and milk we would be set. I could keep the cows in the backyard but they would probably eat the garden and then there is the chicken! It probably wouldn't live long enough to lay its first egg with "our children" in the house! Maybe I should just plant soybeans - you can make everything out of them these days!