Joseph in Pokeberry

A lovely post by Mary at Pokeberry Garden about Joseph in Egypt, how all that time he was waiting to be called into service by the king he wasn't really waiting at all, but living as best he could in whatever circumstance he found himself in.

But there is something I was struck by in Joseph's waiting time. He lived his life to the fullest as he waited. He didn't 'just wait' so to speak. The bible tells us that in every position Joseph found himself he was faithful, he did his work as best he could and he had the outlook of serving God in whatever it was he had to do.

She relates it to her own experience, losing a job, having to short-sell a house, having to move around a lot and work suboptimal (one might say) jobs. It's really a lovely post and I relate a lot to what she's talking about, of course.

DW and the DKs all pretty much looked at the house in Illinois as the perfect place - perfect town, perfect schools, etc. I always had my doubts because it seemed altogether too white and cul-de-sac-y for me, but in the end the decision was made for us. There has really been a sense of exile because of how much they liked it there. We also landed in a place which is for me (being from the east) the sort of quintessential place-you-never-expected-to-end-up-in. But I'm grateful that the community here gave us a place to land! We have a nice (rented) house and we are a lot closer to her folks and friends in KC.

We've been licking our wounds to a degree, but also doing what Joseph did, and doing the best we can. I wish the house would resolve itself but I'm not driving myself crazy about it. I felt sorry for myself the last 6 months in IL but when I got here I decided I didn't have time for that anymore, and I don't think DW does either. She has tomatoes planted in a pot. We're working on our debt. We're wrestling with the school district to get the DKs what they need. You know, living it.

Thanks, Mary, for reminding me that in the end, we're all on God's plan anyway.

Bad advice

Funny post from I paid for this twice already - a how-not-to-be-frugal posts as opposed to the frugality basics posts I mentioned the other day. Ben Stein actually wrote a whole book like this, which I kept for a while in the bathroom for quick review. Of course, one of his was "don't buy a house" and we know how that turned out for me....

Speaking of which, we're trying to do a "deed in lieu of foreclosure" with Sovereign, but I can't get anybody in the loan mitigation department to return my telephone calls. I just got another utility bill from the house - how is an empty house using $63 in water, I ask you? - and there's just no telling how long it will take them to get around to sheriff's selling it. The lawyer I've been consulting with (dollar signs roll...) said that we should keep the insurance up just in case the place burns down the day after we let it lapse, which will be a big bill in July if it goes that far, but that we could let the utilities lapse. So that's what we're going to do.

And another consequence of my continued and elongated default is that I keep getting notices from Bank of America (my major credit card creditor) lowering my credit limit. Every time I pay off another $1000 they lower the credit limit to the next thousand. So I'm at something like $7400 now and they lowered the limit to $8000 "due to a major derogatory item on your credit report," according to the letter. No kidding. But I can keep using my card, they assure me, as long as I don't spend more than $600.

This is actually sort of okay, because I don't want to have a whole lot of available credit anyway at this stage, but the issue for me is that, while I acknowledge that I'm going to spend the next few years discovering how people with bad credit live, I can't start rebuilding my credit until this thing with the house is resolved, and it just won't resolve.

Yippee!

The tax refund came in today. Since I no longer have a pulpit, I expect this will be the last of the major-league tax refunds (upwards of 3K) that I'll be getting. (There are a couple of major tax breaks that pulpit clergy get that ordinary mortals don't, and also since I won't own a house anymore - one way or the other - there won't be much in the way of itemization).

I've mentioned that we've been having trouble making ends meet. In part this is because I've been attempting to put the pedal to the metal in dealing with some of our debt. So here's what happened to the new money:

$1,000 into savings, to provide an overdraft cushion. (We had to use what we had there this month to cover Pesah expenses.)

I doubled what we've been paying monthly toward credit card debt - I paid off the Banana Republic card, which was small beans but a high interest rate and according to the debt snowflake model you should deal with the lowest balances first.

$400 to DW's card, $800 to my card. (Her's has a lower balance and a lower interest rate.)

$200 toward my Federation pledge (mustn't forget our tzedakah!)

That about does it. The rest of it will go to the rent, and a little cushion until DW's part time jobs start paying. When I get the so-called stimulus check, I may make an extra payment on our car loan. I'd also like to bolster our savings a little bit more. But our highest priority are the credit cards.

Now I know what it felt like to be on the Titanic

In the latest news in the painfully slow-moving disaster that is our house in Illinois: Our RE agent told us that Sovereign has turned down our latest short-sale offer. This isn't a surprise at this point, but still ridiculous considering that they're asking for more money than we owe to them on the house (there's also a 2nd mortgagor, which might have something to do with it). Everyone's in agreement that we're not going to get an offer for what they're asking for (20K less than we paid; the best offer is currently 35K less than that). RE agent asked if we wanted to have a lawyer take over the file, and I was like, sure, whatever. As long as nobody thinks they're actually going to get paid for the work they're doing.

For all the times that people say that buying a house is the foundation of wealth building etc.... my situation may be a little different (or not, considering the number of foreclosures moving through the system) but I can say without fear of contradiction that in a lifetime of making stupid financial choices absolutely the stupidest thing I have ever done is buy this freaking house.

A little of the story...

I had a pulpit job in the Chicago area, starting in 2004. We bought a house, with no money down so the payments were high but the interest rate was pretty good and it was fixed. In 2007 my contract was not renewed, and I tried to find work in Chicago but couldn't. We put the house up for sale in February of '07, and as the whole world knows by now the real estate market completely crapped out and we were not, and still have not been, able to sell it. The family moved to Wichita for my new job. We've attempted to sell by cutting the price, finally so severely that we were not going to get as much out of the deal as we owe the bank. (We didn't even get an offer until we did this.) So far the bank has not accepted the best offer we've been able to get, so foreclosure is the next thing. So part 1 is the story of my financial ruin-by-real estate.

Part 2 is that I'm making less money now than I did in Illinois, and Dear Wife has only just started working a part time job. We're renting, and it's less than it was in IL but not all that much less. I have a large amount of fixed debts - a car payment, a student loan payment that I will be paying till retirement, insurance of various types. We also have acquired a substantial amount of credit card debt. I realized recently through the use of budget software that we're _barely_ making ends meet. So that's part 2.

We really don't buy very much. We almost never eat out. We did get cable when we moved here, because we could only get 1 channel (count 'em!) on broadcast with the electric rabbit ears. I also have netflix. I may spend, I don't know, $10 or $15 a month on magazines.

Many of the things that would be suggested I already do. DW is working a PT job and will probably get another one before too long. We've stopped using the cards and are trying to pay cash for everything. It seems weird to be 45 years old and wonder if one can really afford cable television. I mean, it's not a boat! The only thing I have to show for all this debt is an expensive education and a van. It's not really happy days financially around here right now.