May Madness *UPDATE*

Photo courtesy of Canobie Fan

Last Friday I posted about all of the various expenses that seem to all converge on our finances in the lovely month of May! Here's a quick excerpt if you missed it -- and if you did miss it just scroll down the page and get to reading yo! lol

"...So that's been the month to this point, but even more daunting is the rest of the month to come! My cousin is graduating from medical school on the 19th in Richmond (again gas is the issue), My mother has a birthday on the 23rd, I'm in a wedding in New Jersey on the 25th for the same cousin, and on the 29th my niece is graduating from high school in South Carolina... our mode of transportation will be by car... gas is approaching $4.00/gallon... not to mention that before we can even GET on the road we need to replace the 2 front tires and get an alignment and oil change as well (We're looking at maybe *$250 for those to be done)!! This is why I love and hate May at the same time!!"
*Though it says $250, it actually should have said $350. Big... big... difference ha ha.

So I just want to give a quick update... God has really been in the midst of this process. It seems that at every turn I see costs coming in below what we had estimated! This is great because it gives us more resources to throw away at the gas pump while we're on this trip.

I had estimated it to cost about $200 for the front tires to be replaced. But check this out, we ended up getting 20% off because we experienced some customer service issues where we got the work done. (A very long story, but as you can see it worked in our favor.) So we ended up paying $166 after taxes were included!

"But wait... there's more!"

So next comes the Oil change, tire rotation, and alignment.. I was expecting these to come to about $150 total: $40 for oil, rotation included, and $110 for the alignment.

Well I forgot that my car requires synthetic oil which adds $25 to the cost out the gate, but as a buffer they had a special going where it basically took $35 off the cost of the oil change! Truth be told the special on the billboard outside said "Oil change and rotation -- $19.99" but of course the synthetic oil removed that as an option. Sigh... So anyway it came up to $45 for the oil change and rotation (which worked out well since the tires were replaced the day before!)

The only thing left to do was the alignment. Man, again I'll be honest here... after I drove around with the new tires I REALLY had 2nd thoughts about having the alignment done at all. I wrestled with it for a while cause y'know this is $110 we're talking about! And to make it worse the more I drove, the more I realized that at least in MY opinion this thing was driving straight as an arrow! At one point I centered it in my lane, took my hands off the wheel, and just let it steer itself. I kidd you not, I went for a mile straight like this and the wheel stayed right where I had aimed it.

I finally decided to still have it done, with a lil prodding from my wife. Yes we could pocket the $110 and put it towards something else... but we just got brand new tires, so if we didn't get the work done now, WHEN would we ever get it done? Fact is there was no more advantageous time to do it than now. And besides we're not just doing it for the sake of this trip, we NEED our car in tip-top shape cause right now it's the only one we've got. Shoot, if you could've seen how it steered before we replaced the tires, you would NOT have ever wanted to drive in the lane next to us on the road. No lie, the alignment was so bad that if you took your hand off the wheel, it would INSTANTLY veer 45 degrees to the right! lol wow, the things that the Lord keeps us safe through! Final cost came to about $140 because we had a $15 coupon that we used towards the work.

So all in all, we came up to about $305 for maintenance on the car when we expected to pay $350... and guess where that surplus $45 is going? Yup right towards gas expenses. Sigh...

See ya when we get back,

@W

I did'nt even know God could type!!

Photo courtesy of pbrian49

So check this out... We just got a letter in our mailbox this evening from God. Yeah the letterhead says it came from our mortgage company, but God devised, typed and mailed it out to us. (Hmm does God use stamps? lol)

To make a long LONG story short we had an on-going issue with our mortgage company. They had wrongfully imposed insurance coverage on our condo unit, which caused our mortgage payment to go up by nearly $200 each month. The reason we knew this was wrong was because my wife used to work as a loan officer. The type of loan they were trying to force on us was not required by law because we owned a condo versus owning a single-family house.

The truly amazing part is that if my wife had not been aware of our rights in this situation, we would've been swindled out of an extra $200 each and every month! This really makes me wonder about others who have no idea what their rights are when dealing with corporations and companies that throw around intimidating verbage and clauses on their forms.

We had told them that they would not receive a penny more from us than we had already been paying no matter what the statements said. I'll be honest, it took great faith for us to say that to them. But we came to a point where we were not willing to be moved on the issue. And we knew that God was on our side. There was no way we could afford what they were demanding and that was that. And what's more they were demanding something of us that they had no right to demand.

Ok so i said i would keep a long story short, but if you've read ANY of my posts you'll know I just cant do that lol. So let me add some background. In order for us to prove to them that we did not have to purchase the policy they demanded, they wanted US to provide proof of our condo association's insurance coverage for the unit. Our condo association assesses a $250 fee for requesting this information... Wait I'm not sure your following me so I'll put it another way: the mortgage company wanted us to pay to prove that we don't need insurance on their property, and the penalty for NOT doing so would be that they would FORCE a policy of their choosing onto our loan and make us pay anyway!

That's practically like the bank you secured your auto loan thru telling you that they need you to buy Supreme-grade gas from a specific gas station even though your owner's manual says that only Mid-grade is required for your vehicle! And if you refuse, then they will fill your gas tank with Supreme in the middle of the night and simply add the cost to your loan each and every month lol. How absurd would that be?! Could you imagine walking up to your car and seeing a receipt sticking out from under your windshield wiper?! It's a crazy visual, I know, but I think you see my point.

Now to be "fair" lets look at this from the mortgage company's perspective. Until we pay off the mortgage in full, THEY still OWN our house. So any insurance purchased only protects THEIR investment! But wait, if they were so concerned about insuring THEIR investment against any type of damage or loss, why would they use us as a middle-man to achieve that? Because just like many other clauses and mortgage company policies, it's assumed that just because they said it or put it in writing, it must be lawful and the homeowner simply MUST be obligated to do it. This type of thing is done on a daily basis to millions of homeowners across the nation. And nine times out of ten the homeowner complies with the demand because they have no idea what their rights are within the situation.

So anyway enough of that, lets get back to the letter from God. Back in March we get an official looking letter from our mortgage company saying that effective April 1st our payment would be inflated by $200, which started this whole long drawn out dispute. So then another identical letter arrives yesterday in the mail from our mortgage company saying that effective April 1st our payment amount would be reset again... But the catch is that this "new" payment amount is now $50 lower than our ORIGINAL payment! The only difference between the 2 documents was the new payment amount and the date the letters were issued. Ok, so no it's not a huge amount, but we had specifically been praying that God would relieve the situation somehow... And he did! And not only that the letter came just days after my last blog post about the cost of gas and all of the miscellaneous expenses that seem to be hitting us this month. And on top of that, we had basically expected God to only keep us at our original payment amount in the first place... we never even thought for a moment that it would decrease! We were only expecting fairness in the situation, but God wanted to show favor!

What a blessing it is to be able to see God's hand in times of blessing, trial and even uncertainty. By answering our prayer about the bogus insurance, He also freed up some extra loot for gas JUST as we as we had prayed as well! He's always looking out for us!

Ephesians 3:20,21 says it this way:

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, 21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Thank you Jesus!

@W