Seeking God Knows What

So I’m bought the book and workbook for Dave Ramsey’s ”Total Money Makeover“.  I also signed up for the Free 7 day trial at his website My Total Money Makeover- I haven’t decided whether I’ll get enough out of the site to make it worth paying the either monthly fee of $8.95 or annual package of $89.95- although, if I buy the annual package I can return the book I bought cause I would get it free in his little promo deal.  But you can’t use a credit card on his site- debit card, yes, although you could cheat and use a credit card saying it was a debit card but he relies on “scout’s honor” for that one

The first steps are cutting up any credit cards, creating a budget and keeping track of your expenses for 30 days.  Since there are only 28 days in February, I’m starting tomorrow.  He also recommends you cancel whatever extraneous services you have, sell whatever you can – as he puts “Sell so much stuff the kids will think they are next” and start saving until you have $1,000 in the bank.  There are things in this house we can most definitely sell and we’ll certainly will need to purge before we move out, as we aren’t going to have that much room for storage if we end up in an apartment.  I’ve got books-lots of books, a slightly banged up and out of tune piano, a photo printer, a video camera, polaroid camera (bought so we could have instant pictures before we obtained our digital camera), a set of used twice good china in ten years, a double stroller, a non running 96 Jimmy, cds (nearly everything is in our itunes library), ye old ibook some computer geek can fix up.  I’ve also got a lot of baby stuff that I have to decide whether to sell or keep since who knows when we will adopt again.  If I sell it, then I don’t have to store it somewhere but that means an outlay when we adopt again.  Methinks eBay is about to get some business from us

our furnace shall quit working.

I came home from errands this evening, it was 60 degrees in the house.

T had me look at the furnace, try to interpret the correct number of flashes the light on the side was making and then reset the furnace.  It ran until it hit the temperature set on the thermostat and did not kick in again because the temperature dropped back down to 62 degrees.  So T reset the switch and now it is running back up to the temperature. 

He is going to attempt to clean the flame sensor, even though he has never done it nor does he know where it is because his interpretation of the flashes said this was the problem and then he read some HVAC forum that says how to do it.

Just what I want.  Someone not trained in heating messing around with my furnace.

We shall see what happens…

We’re dropping the price on our house $10,000, which now makes it less than what we paid for it 2 years ago.

And based on the copy of the appraisal from our very bad idea to refinance, we’re pretty sure they used comparables that would inflate the value rather than the more recent and accurate ones closer to us, which would have not given the mortgage company the ability to “meet our needs”.  That, on top of them, mis-stating our income by $2000 makes me feel absolutely fabulous about my ability to make this kind of financial decision.

We are, however, creating a very solid file to prove that whatever offer we get is a fair market value.

One interesting thing to note is that the company that approved the refinance promptly sold it without ever servicing it.  As in they got their money but our current mortgage company is S.O.L.

If you want to know who we used, just comment and I’ll let you know.  You definitely want to stay far, far away from them.  They are awesome at screwing you over.

Just when I feel like maybe, maybe we will be able to get the mortgage company to cooperate with us on the whole hardship thing, T tells me he called them today to check on the status of our hardship-resubmitted-for-the-millionth-time application and they denied us. Because apparently they don’t count credit card payments or things like prescription co-pays into their calculations….

Um. Yeah. Anyone ever gone through a foreclosure?

Our friends- yes, the ones from this post and this post-have already sold their house. 6 weeks on the market before they got an offer.  Granted, it is a smaller starter home and was listed for $25,000 less than ours is.

But still they get to have a baby (they had their first one before we adopted even though we started the process to have a family 4 years before they did, and she did have to have some assistance in conceiving both times) AND have no trouble selling their house.

STOMP! STOMP! WHINE!  WHINE!

Not fair

I know, who said life was fair?  Besides I’m just reaping what I sowed.

On a side note, #5 and I had a discussion about her during my session with him yesterday, related to what happened/how I felt after going out to dinner and bowling with our “circle of friends”, of which they are a part, this past Saturday (yes, we went bowling.  Yes, I suck at bowling ).  Based upon what I told him, he said she sounds “toxic” and “unhealthy” for me and he thinks there is some “families of origin” stuff going on with her, where unless she seeks out her own help, I’m always going to bump up against those issues as I have for the last thirteen years.  Here’s what I don’t get about my relationship with her.  I see her or talk to her and I end up with this f***d set of feelings (currently anger and jealousy) but when I make a conscious decision not to see her, I miss her and think about her a lot.  What the hell is wrong with me????