Sunday, October 7, 2007

Why we are behind financially at the moment.

I thought that I would do a post on why at the dh and I are behind financially at this time in our lives.

First off, I messed up! Well, Dh and I messed up but I am the one who does the finances, bill paying etc...for our family.Dh and I find that it works out better for us this way although, I feel like I have failed over the past few months.

We bought two houses within a 3 month period. We had taken equity out of our main principle dwelling this past Feb. $42,000 we ended up with after paying the lawyer fee etc. We bought a couple of second hand vehicles and a bedroom set, it was our first new bedroom set since being together for 15 1/2 years at that time. The rest of the money we put into savings. We then found an investment property in May which was perfect for us to invest in at the time. We put down total 25% plus paid inspector and appraisal fees,lawyer fees etc.. Total amount was just a bit over $25,000 cash. We still at the time had some money left in savings, not much but a bit for emergencies.

We then decided to move closer to our dds school. I was starting to make up to 5 trips a day driving the kids to their sports,friends and school on some days. Those 5 trips a day round trip would add up to 2 1/2 hours of driving in one day. The kids were getting frustrated too as in the winter I find it hard driving on the roads, I just wasn't comfortable driving around the river and all.

Ok, to get on with the topic, We wanted to keep our mortgage payments the same and just move our interest rate of 4.99% to the house we would end up buying. My mortgage broker told me that I needed to come up with $19,500. I had an idea on what we could sell our house for which should have given us $8,500 from the sale so Dh and I would need to come up with $11,000 I confirmed this with our broker and he said yes that was right. I honestly thought at first where on earth could I find that kind of money? Well, we sold a toy( one of the vehicles we had just purchased, used the rest of our savings, dhs vacation pay and his overtime and I can't remember what else right off the top of my head.

All I know is the day we signed the papers to finalize the sale of our house we were something like $3000 short! There were extra fees, surveyer fees among a few others which caught Dh and I off guard. I called our mortgage broker, I was in shock thinking, what have we done? We just sold our house and can't afford to purchase another one. Then to top that off, the bank had also made a mistake and all with the paper work, which was off by $2000. We wanted to keep the same amount of mortgage to port everything to our next house but the bank had put that we owed $2000 less then we actually did.

While talking to our mortgage broker he told us that he was putting money into our bank account out of his own pocket to help make up the difference with what we already had in our account. The money that we had in our account had to pay for our motel fees,we told him that if he felt responsible, not to,it was up to us to double check all of the documents,he insisted and said that it was already being wired. Dh talked to the front desk at the motel to let them know what was going on so we were able to delay that payment for a bit. The next thing I know though is that the credit card was climbing out of control as well, everything was crazy for a bit.

So, we owe,we owe...Ouch! The hotel bill was $2100, we paid $1400 on it 1 1/2 weeks ago. We have a balance of $700 which will be paid on Dhs payday the 19th of this month. That will be one bill paid off! YAY!

Then we have our mortgage broker to pay $1700 , again, the end of Oct we will be paying him $1000 because we still have our regular bills to pay...He will be paid off no later than the middle of Nov.

We then have the credit card bill......$5,900 yup, crazy I know but it just seemed to go up and up but I asked Dh for it tonight,we decided that once it is paid off in full we will decide on what to do with "it". I have an idea, it is called scissors lol, but I don't think Dh is ready to do that yet.Anyhow, come December, Dh will have some commission money due to him from work and we will be putting whatever he gets on the card.

I feel pretty good writing this down. It helps to see it typed out.

One thing is for certain however, I never want to ever forget the feeling in which I felt at that time.If I remember this feeling, I will surly never make the same mistake twice.

2 comments:

Lynnae said...

It's an awful feeling to realize when you've gotten yourself into a bad financial situation. I admire your determination to climb out of debt though.

And if dh isn't ready to cut the credit card yet, you might try freezing it in a container of water. That's what I did with mine. Before I use it, I need to defrost it, which means I need to think long and hard before I use it. :)

Heather said...

Thanks Lynnae :). It is a hard place to be, we have done so well in the past and in just a month ( we realized when selling our house) everything went into an uproar as we have been in this house now for 4 weeks and paid $1,400 towards debt already so that isn't too bad.By the end of Oct we will have paid off $3,100 total up to that date.

I have thought of freezing the credit card but dh didn't like the idea. The card is in his name, I don't have one so I feel like I have my hands tied there. Dh is determined as well to get this new debt off our shoulders.

I just can't wait to get back to where we were only just a few months back lol. Or before we bought the house we are in now.