Modification Results

I know it's been a while. The shit really hit the fan the last couple of weeks.

Rupert, the best cat in the world, was gravely ill the past week or two. I won't bore you with all the cat/vet details, but he had liver failure and nearly died. We are nursing him back to health slowly but surely. He went from my big squishy 18lb Garfield cat to an 11 lb skinny yellow cat.

My dad has been in the hospital for the last week with a strange infection that was eating part of his hand, not a flesh eating disease, but it's close slower moving cousin.

I had comletely given up on Jowanna since my friend said it took her 10 months to get a modification. Jowanna called me Saturday morning at 8:00 (I know. WTF?) I missed the call, and called Luis Monday to get the 411 and was told that all she did was submit an offer to the investors. I forgot about it again and just figured I'd wait another week or two to hear back. Wrong.

I got a phone call this morning at 8:30. It was Jowanna with the modification results! I could hardly get to a pen and paper fast enough. Here's the deets:

Our current loan has a payment of $3803.73 a month with a 7.5% interest rate.

Our new payment for the first 2 years will be $2445.11 with a 3% rate.

The next two years will be $2711.02 with a 4% rate.

Starting on year number 5 and from then on the interest rate will be fixed at 5% for the life of the loan and a payment of $2972.16.

And we don't have to make the first payment until June 1.

Now I forgot to ask if that included taxes and insurance. I was led to believe that it did, but I am double checking that.

I think it's a pretty good deal if it includes taxes and insurance. If not then I'm not too impressed. That would only be a drop of about $1358. If it includes taxes and insurance that's a drop of $1706 which kicks ass.

With those numbers we should be able to stay in the house which is a load off. We were not looking forward to moving at all. There aren't too many people who will rent to a family of 5 with 5 cats. We would have had to downsize (cats not kids). I'm a little scared if we still have to pay property tax out of our own pocket or if there is more to those numbers Jowanna gave me, but things look a little better now.

It's a new month I feel a little bit more setteled. I feel like we can move ahead and not keep worrying about what comes next. There will be no new fresh start and a new house in town, but we will be able to stay in the house that we know and love despite it's numerous faults.

So what does this mean for you? I will no longer be talking about my loan mod non-stop. I can branch back into the exciting topics I was discussing before. I will have a little extra fundage to start selling my rugs and maybe a little bit more time to write again and not this kind of drivel.

Waiting for Bank of America and not making mortage payments

Still no word from Bank of America. I'm just not going to hold my breath anymore. I was before because I was still making my payments, but there is no turning back now. I've already spent a big portion of what would have been our mortgage payment this month. I bought the family new glasses. This week I'm getting some shit lasered off my face. Next week I'm getting an exhaust leak and an oil leak fixed on my truck. The week after that I'm buying the family passports, and after that we're all getting our yearly cleaning/checkup at the dentist.These are all the things we've been putting off because we couldn't afford to get it done.

I think I deserve all of the above things. We aren't getting any attention from B of A by paying our mortgage, so in order to get our modification I'm not making payments anymore. I don't mind wrecking my credit.

If you're just joining me, and judging me, please note that I would still be able to afford my house if not for the banks wrecking the construction industry. The horrible lending practices of the banks ruined 2 of my businesses, so I'm trying to get a little relief in the form of a modification.

I was feeling bad for deciding not to pay the mortgage, but then I got over it. It's my money and I decide where it needs to go most. If I can get a 6 month repreive on my mortgage payments and catch up on everything we've been falling behind on the past few months, then I'm going to take advantage of it. If the modification comes back good maybe we'll stay, or maybe we'll move. Only time will tell.

It's hard to not make plans. It's hard to not know what we are going to do, but we're going to ride it out and see what happens. Either way we will be okay. We still have great income, just not enough for this big freakin house.

With the extra money I'll be able to put some of it back into my rug business which has been sitting in the background getting ignored for lack of funds. This could very well work out as a good thing if it gets everything up and running smoothly again.

Time will tell. I'm trying to be patient this time.

Spring Breakin' It

I'm not going to rant and rave about Bank of America this week. I'm on spring break. We're watching movies. I'm reading Atlas Shrugged. I'm spending money.

I'm going to have a kick ass weekend. I'm going to see a waterfall in Sedona. I'm going to a four year old's birthday party at the gymnastic center and if I'm really lucky my dear husband will bring home a bucket of chicken tonight.

Good Livin!

Personal Advice on Home Loan Modifications

Okay this is some crazy shit.

First of all Jowanna Hill is on vacation all this week. I still did not get a phone call or e-mail from her at all last week.

Secondly.. I got a letter in the mail on Friday saying that we are not elegible for the loan modification. Pretty much the same crap I was told 2 weeks ago by some lame customer service rep that freaked me out.

I called Luis this morning and was told yes Jowanna is out of town and yes I'll have to wait until she gets back. there is nothing that can be done. I started freakin out about how this process is working and he just told me to try and be patient and to ignore the letter I got in the mail last week. He's a great guy and an amazing customer service rep.. Do ya hear that B of A? That man deserves a raise. He has the patience of a saint.

So then later this morning I called one of my friends to see what was up with one of her rental houses and she proceeded to tell me her long drawn out story with B of A.

Brace yourself.......it took her 10 months to get a loan mod with B of A and she still doesn't have her final docs. She also told me she didn't pay her mortgage for 10 months waiting for the loan mod.

I feel like such an idiot for writing those huge checks the last few months. My kids had a less than stellar Christmas so B of A could get their money. We haven't vacationed in almost a year because of B of A.

Needless to say I will not be sending in a payment this month and I wish someone had been able to tell me this stuff a long time ago, but I guess I just wasn't asking the right people for advice. I'll give you a piece right now.... Don't listen to B of A when they tell you to keep making payments. my friend told me she didn't get any attention from them until she stopped paying.

So we sit and wait... some more. Only this month we are going to have money. I already went out and bought the kids their spring time shoes to replace the old ugly winter ones. We went down to the zoo for the day on Saturday and spend an extra $100 (that's the extent of our spring break festivities), I scheduled an appointment to get those ugly skin tags removed from my face, an appointment for me and my son to go get new glasses, I spent over $50 at the grocery store this week ($125 to be exact), and I might even schedule dentist appointments for us all since we are 6 months overdue on our teeth cleanings. That's the kind of stuff we have been giving up to pay our mortgage payment, but no more. I'm going to take back control until they decide to give us a new payment.

Suck that Bank of America!

FUSD Budget Override Hell YES!!!!!!

I know I'm a snob when it comes to education. I went to one of the best highschools in the entire country and got a free, although priceless, education at the above school. University Highschool in Urbana, Illinois. It is a laboratory highschool on the campus of the University of Illinois and across the street from one of the greatest engineering campus' in the world. All kinds of crazy insane shit was invented right across the street from where I was learning Calculus.

It is a school where kids learn the basics of Literature, Math, biology, chemistry, history, debate, and two years of language is required. When I was there they even offered Latin and Russian besides the usual fare of German and French.

I love this school more than any place else in my life where I spent parts of my childhood. We were treated with respect. We were gifted children and we were given freedoms that most highschoolers only dream of. We could sign ourselves out for the day if we were feeling ill and take the public bus system home. We didn't need to wait for a parent to come and get us. If you were advanced enough you could take classes on the University Campus. We even had a student lounge filled with ratty old couches and beat up stereos that was ours for whatever we wanted to do with it. Mostly it was filled with kids studying for a last minute exam during their free periods. That's right I said free periods. When I was a senior I had 3 free periods on some days. Of course I was a good girl, but that didn't keep me from sneaking out during those long days to my boyfriends house to make out for hours on end. But I loved that I had the freedom to do it. I love that I was trusted enough as a young adult to be given the chance to prove myself as the responsible adult I was going to become.

Money and funding is not what made this school great. It was the students, the university, the faculty, and the parents who made it great. Teachers are still here from when I was in school 17 years ago and they had been there years before I got there. They don't stay for the money. They stay because they know that what they do makes a difference. They know that they are providing one of the best highschool educations in the  US. I am so proud to be an alumni.

But where are you going with all this Emily? Well I'll tell you.......

Tax payers voted this week in Flagstaff to approve a budget override for the FUSD schools and I am estatic. There is nothing more priceless than  a good education. Yes it costs money. Money that even old people and people with no kids have to pay to fund the schools. But for some kids the one stable thing in their lives is their school. Shutting down schools, eliminating art and music classees, rezoning entire districts, sharing books, and having kids sit on the floor during lessons is not ever an answer to a budget crisis.

To all the ugly old childless people waving signs on the grass in front of City Hall I say shame on you. Do you even know what it is like in schools today? Do you know that you are not hurting the teachers, the state budget cutters, or the politicians. You are hurting the kids and only the kids by trying to cut the school budgets.

Sure there are things that money could be saved on. Yes they could have more efficient building maintenance programs. Yes teachers could work for a little less money. Yes we could stop buying library books. But in the long run saving money won't help anyone. It's only money and education is priceless.

I had evidence of this this morning when I was talking to a mom with three young children who told me she hadn't read a book since highschool until the Twilight books came out. I tried to laugh it off. Some people are readers and some are not, but still, really? She had never wanted to learn anything new since she graduated from highschool and reading books was no longer mandatory. She had never been curious on a subject and wanted to learn more. She had never wanted to pre-read some of the books that her 10 year old was reading in school.

Her high school? Why of course I asked. She went to a huge 4000 plus student body highschool in Phoenix. I'm sure she never even had an option of getting a good education. She took the public option and it has failed her in more than one way in her adult life.

Not all of us are lucky enough to have parents who care about our educations. She obviously was not one of the lucky few.

I know I have options for my children besides public education, but I shouldn't need them. Public education should be just as good if not better for the amount of money that is spent.

My graduating class size was 32. Did it make a difference. Hell yes. I am one of the smartest people I know.

See I told you I was a snob.

Jowanna Hill Where Are You?

Yes I put her name in the title of this post. Maybe she will Google her name someday and my little blog will pop up and she'll read it and see what it is like to be on the other end of her unanswered phone calls.

It's been four days since I got little Miss Jowanna's phone number. I've left 3 messages and sent her e-mails and I have yet to hear back from her at all. All I would need is a one line e-mail saying, 'I'm working on it', some kind of acknowledgement of her being my negotiator.. something to satiate me, but no I've got nothing.
I even e-mailed my old friend Luis and told him to go on over to Jowanna's desk and see if she's dead, on vacation or in the hospital with rabies or some other debilitating disease that would keep her from returning phone calls.

It is driving me mad.

Then I decided to call our 2nd mortage company and see if they would be able to do a modification for us as well...... that's another 3 month process.... and they have to have the numbers from the first mortgage modification. The CitiMortage guy even suggested that I 'keep calling Bank of America and push them to finish up thier modification' I laughed out loud at that one.

This isn't what I want to spend my days doing .This isn't how I want to spend my life, worrying over whether or not my family will have to move this summer. I don't want to have to troll Craigslist everyday looking for an affordable rental that will hold my family of five and our five cats. I want to know what the hell is going on. Bank of America is holding our entire lives in their hands and they don't give a rat's ass. Jowanna Hill doesn't seem to give a rat's ass either. This is our life. We have to make plans and know how to move on with our lives if we lose this house.

Winter Lament

So we have had over 130" of total snow this winter season. Officially more than anywhere else in the United States this year, and it blows.

It is March 9th. School started late this morning and then I had to pick the kids up early from school since the bus would not be coming thru my neighborhood during the blowing snow. It has been like this since November and I am so over it.

There is over 5 feet of snow on our upstairs deck that we have yet to shovel off and it keeps getting higher and higher, so high that it is starting to block the views out of the windows.

My dear husband has been trying to deliver packages all day and will be exhausted but will still have to try and snow blow his way into our 200' long driveway when he gets home.....in the dark.

It's too much. This will go down in our history as the worst winter we've ever experienced and it even beats that horrible winter in Vermont with no garage, no friends, and no heat.

It's cold. We're tired. I want to wear sandles. Little Mia wanted to wear a sundress so badly this morning that we made it work with tights and layers over and under her dress with sparkly sandles over her socks.

I'm ready to implode. I want to beg the sunshine to come here and just melt everything and flood the place. As long as it's sunny and 65 I don't care how deep the water is. My toes need to breath. I need an excuse to shave my legs.

It's just too much. So much that I don't think I want to spend another winter here and suffer through another winter on a mountain.