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

May Madness

Photo courtesy of kerindaj

Hi guys,

Unlike my last post, I haven't been hiding so much as I've been buried with tasks and functions to attend. The month of May is notoriously busy for me each year because of the many birthdays, graduations, weddings and holidays that happen in this lovely mid-spring month!

And of course with this blog being about our personal finance fiascoes, naturally I'm looking at these various events with an emphasis on the cash needed to pull them all off.

So here is what my month of May has looked like so far from a dollars and cents point of view:

May 8th I had to pay $100 out of pocket for a farewell party for my departing manager at work. (The money will be reimbursed, but it will be s-l-o-w in returning to it's rightful place in my pockets!)

May 9th I had to get fitted for a tux for my cousin's wedding. (more on that below) I'm a groomsman, and although $150+ isn't a bad price for a tux rental, timing is everything, and right now timing is TIGHT!! lol

May 11th my wife and I hosted a Birthday/Mother's Day Dinner at our house for my mother, mother-in-law, godmother, my wife and myself. Though we kept the menu pretty basic, thus keeping costs down, a lot of time, energy and fuel went into researching and gathering the materials used for the event. Let's say $50 total was put towards the event when accounting for gas.

Ah, yes let's discuss fuel for a moment... we recently increased the amount of money we budget for gas to $75 a week. That's up $10 a week from what our traditional consumption has been in the past. ($65) The frustrating part is that we have had to come to grips this on the fly, which is not easy. We kept coming up short in the recent weeks and found ourselves using Blow money on gas. So instead we decided to lower our entertainment fund a bit each month and put the rest towards gas. UGGHHH!!!! An extra $40 a month is now going towards just gas, and that is only so that we can continue to do the minimum amount of traveling possible. From home to work, work to home, and church once a week is our normal routine and now even that is pushing us to our limit. "Gas" is quickly becoming a cuss word in our household. But I digress...

Next up was May 12th, my wife's birthday... This year my best friend and I joined forces to celebrate our wives' birthdays together. We did this on the 13th because it was the day between both of their birthdays. I wont get into the details, but basically we cooked and served them a very unique and interesting dinner experience lol. Again here, just as with the Mother's Day dinner, even though we didn't go overboard with spending (I must be careful here, she's my number one reader for this blog lol.) a lot was spent in gas rounding up the items for the menu, etc. oh, and text messaging. (Sorry, you just had to be there to get that.)

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!!

Whew -- calm down Adrian... count it all joy man! (James 1:2)

Ok, sorry about that, i flew off the handle a bit there, I know...

But before I go I'll leave you with a few stats I've compiled for our trip and the estimated costs we'll be racking up for the sake of family!

Total estimated miles from DC to New Jersey to South Carolina and back to DC: 1650
Total estimated hours of drive time from point to point (not including intra-city driving): 25
Estimated Avg cost of mid-grade fuel per gallon: $3.85 (it will be more expensive in the north and less in the south)
Estimated cost per fill up: $63.14 ($3.85 multiplied by 16.4 gallon tank capacity)
Estimated Avg MPG: 20 (according to fueleconomy.gov, a VERY useful site these days!)
Estimated number of fill ups: 5 (MPG multiplied by Gallons per tank divided by total miles)
Estimated cost of fuel for trip: $315.70 (cost per fill up multiplied by number of fill ups)

Your prayers will be appreciated! @men! lol

The bright side to all of this is that by sticking with the TMM, we started the process of properly budgeting to help defray some of the costs associated with all of these various events and the costs that come with them! And this was all done MONTHS ago, because it's built into our budget! There is a category for vacations/trips that we set aside money for, and also there is a category for gifts as well. Now I'll be honest we haven't done it exactly as Dave Ramsey suggests, but we've made a pretty good run at it considering we are still VERY much in the thick weeds phase of defeating our debt!

I for one am proud though, because 12 months ago, I would've just as quickly suggested skipping a mortgage payment so that we could make this trip and all the rest of May Madness happen as planned. The Total Money Makeover, really shows us how we are growing in our financial maturity.... and it will give us plenty to talk reminisce on when we finally take our first "paid in full" trip once the debt is gone!

@men to that too!!

@W

Time to get the lead OUT!

Photo courtesy of rendebbie

Aight, confession time... I've been hiding from you guys. I've hit a wall. I know it's temporary but I've just kind of found myself in a financial lull this week. I havent even wanted to LOOK at our budget, let alone make descisions on how/what to pay.

It's natural to feel this way, I know. But it's still painful. There's a restlessness that comes with deciding to get out of debt. Once you make that decision, you want it to be OVER with PRONTO! But I've heard some people say "Hey, It took me my whole life to get INTO debt, so obviously it'st gonna take some time to get OUT!" Though I know this to be true, it's just not helpful to pacify myself with that thought at times like this.

Yes, it's a process getting out. And sometimes you just dont really grasp the toll it takes on you when your income vs. your outgo only ebbs -- not really flows -- on a bi-weekly basis. The only time the debt moves is virtually once every 14 days, or when you get that paycheck. You make a payment, then wait another 14 days to do it again. It's a SLOW process at first.

But there is hope! And it's called the Debt Snowball! It's truly a work of art once it's working properly in your financial situation. Right now, my wife and I are about 3-4 months away from the moment this tool will really start to be of benefit to us. We have it all graphed out, diagramed, and circled on our calendar, and we cant WAIT for that baby to start gathering steam.

We have 2 large monthly expenses that are really standing in our way right now. A personal loan with about $700 left to payoff (4 more payments). And another line of credit with about $3000 left to payof (about 7 more payments). Once those 2 monthly payments are gone, it will REALLY allow us to lay into more of this debt!

Wow! Just writing about this has helped improve my mood. I think sometimes we dig around in the details so much that we lose sight of the big picture. Thanks to you all for helping me through this funk!

Anyway that's my time for now. It's Friday afternoon and I gotta run some errands so I can start my weekend off WRIGHT!

God bless you all,

@W