I didn't really have either the time or the composure to explain the circumstances that led to yesterday's post, but so many people have offered prayers, encouragement and even donations that I think I ought to fill in some background.
What started all this was that, about a year and a half ago, our income got chopped just about in half. (I'd best leave the specifics out, but the circumstances were completely beyond our control.) This left us trying to maintain a large family on just about two thirds of the federal poverty level. While we were trying to recover the money we had lost, we were stuck putting some of our living expenses on credit cards. This continued until a little after our crisis last summer, when I got a raise at work that should have covered at least enough of the difference to get by until we recovered the lost income.
Trouble was, even though we canceled our credit cards at that time, we were already so far in the hole that even a pay raise couldn't get us completely caught up. (I have to say here that we're not the sort of people who live high on credit. We didn't buy luxuries or take vacations on the plastic; we bought groceries and paid bills.) The fees and interest kept mounting, and the collectors kept calling, countless times a day.
Yesterday, we got a call from the mortgage company, a final warning that they were about to take action. (They had sent a foreclosure notice, but it disappeared as so much of our mail does, in the household chaos.) Unfortunately, we had just placated the last of the credit card bloodsuckers by promising them our tax refund. Ironically, if we hadn't done that, we would have been far enough in debt to qualify for one of those hardship programs the lenders are starting to offer. As it was, they discussed our income and our debts, and told us we had run out of options.
So what we'll probably do at this juncture is cancel the scheduled payments to the creditors and use the tax money for the house. I have to call on Monday and see if they'll let us do that; it's not due for another ten days and they'll have to hold off that long. Once we have the house safe, we'll grit our teeth and file Chapter Seven.
It'll mean stiffing the credit card companies, but you know what? To hell with them. We've already paid them far more than we actually got from them, and we're still not out from under. Other than that, we don't have a lot to lose. We drive old beater cars, our furniture is all Early Goodwill, and even our computers are either second-hand or homemade. Our credit is already in the sewer; this can't do any harm.
Meanwhile, it looks like a night job I applied for should come through any day. Right now they're just trying to schedule a pee test, and then they're desperate enough that I should be able to start right away. Between that and the bankruptcy, that should be enough to keep us above water.
The only "if" is the house. If the mortgage company will let us hold off, or if they'll accept a smaller payment on payday, we can keep it. If not, we have to come up with two or three thousand immediately, which we just plain can't do.(Another note: we didn't buy subprime like so many of those people who are getting foreclosures lately. We bought at a phenomenally good fixed interest rate, and bought as much house as we could afford, figuring that our income was only going to go up. Who'd'a thunk?) If we lose the house, I don't know what we'll do. There simply aren't any rentals with enough space for a family of eight (nine in the summer), and if there were, the rent would be far above our current house payment.
So we could really use prayers for the situation with the mortgage. That's what everything stands or falls on.
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