So the last post in my blog talked of my family possibly moving due to losing our home. Well, things have done a 180 since that post, but for the better!
This morning Corey called our Relationship Manager about where we were at in the application process...After almost 9 long and antagonizing months, we have been approved for a loan modification. As of now, there is no real threat or worry about being foreclosed. I swear I could have done triple back flips out of my chair when he called to tell me of the news! Have you ever felt like a 1,000 pound weight has been lifted off your shoulders? Yeah, that's how I felt. I honestly can't remember the last time I felt this relieved about something, but then again, I can't remember the last time I was this worried about something either.
This wasn't a subject that I talked with a lot of people about because honestly, I felt like I had failed myself. Corey and I made a lot of stupid mistakes when we were younger (the days I like to refer to as "young and dumb days") and we paid a hefty price for them. We had to file bankruptcy in 2005 because everything had caught up to us from those "young and dumb days". It got so bad that creditors were withdrawing funds from my checking account (that was court approved) without our knowledge and was threatening to take me to court. They even garnished 25% of my wages from one of the 3 jobs I was working at. It got really bad and really ugly. This is also a subject many people didn't know about us because again, I felt like a failure for letting it happen in the first place. But we got past this bankruptcy and worked hard at rebuilding our credit. This was a long, hard and painful lesson to learn, but we certainly learned from it!
In 2008, we were finally in a position to become home owners. We were beyond excited and couldn't wait to find our perfect home. We looked at probably 20 houses in February and March, and found the house that was just right for us. I thought the whole house hunting process was fun (if not exhausting). We should've been on that show House Hunters, except instead of just a show, we would have taken up an entire season! Anyways, on our 7th wedding anniversary, we signed the papers to close on our house. Kind of a cool present to ourselves, huh? Life was all great and dandy...until June 2009 when Corey was laid off the first time, for 14 freakin' months! We were not doing bad until we got to the point that we had to use credit cards to pay for everything. Let me warn anyone that is reading NEVER depend on credit cards! I am sure many of you are thinking "I thought you learned your lesson" which I did. We did get new credit cards, but very rarely used them and when we did, we paid the full balance when we received the bill (with the exception of Home Depot because we had to use the entire credit line to buy materials for a privacy fence to keep Sasha-our husky in the yard!). Well, we ended up maxing out our credit cards to pay utility bills and buy groceries.
We didn't want to declare bankruptcy again (we couldn't anyways because it hadn't been long enough) so we ended up going to a credit counselor and putting all our credit cards into a Debt Management Plan-you close the accounts and pay them off on different terms. Well, in order to start that, we had to pay something to start it up and a set amount every month-which was kind of high. As a result, our other bills, mortgage included, fell behind. We were able to get mostly caught up with everything in February 2012, but then Corey was laid off again in August of that year. We sought help from the Ohio Save The Dream act, but we made too much with his unemployment, and those people dropped us like flies, they said there was nothing else they could do for us. Not even tell us where to go from there. We sought help from our bank. This process started in September. As I stated in the first paragraph, it was long and tedious! Lots and lots of paperwork, followed by even more paperwork. Then continuously sending in paystubs and bank statements, followed by tax return info...Be ready for lots of paperwork is all I can tell you, and be upfront and honest! Now we are approved and waiting on (you guessed it) more paperwork!! Oh well, at least it's more or less signing on agreements and stuff like that.
I certainly hope that no one ever has to face this kind of issue, but please understand that there IS help out there! Even if you are like me and get turned down for government assistance, talk to your bank/mortgage company. It is more expensive for them to foreclose a house than it is to help you save yours, especially if you are more than willing to work with them. Just be ready for a long haul and lots of paperwork.
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