Finally at Peace

[overspent]

Up intill last month. Worrying about how to make my mortgages, my CCard payment, paying neccessity bills has been driving me crazy. Thanks to the knowledge (some from this forum) from reading and my attorny advice, I've come up with a budget and a plan to excecute for the next few months. Now I am at peace just wait for the timeline to come up and excecute. Stopped CCard and mortgage payments since last month and with the money saved I can find a rental if I have to. House based on comparable sale is just under the first lien balance. No need to pay the HELOC. If I have to I will allow the home into foreclosure. But I think my chance of getting a mod is good. As a banker, I would prefer to make 5% than losing 20% and a win-win situation is better than a draw-lose situation.

Good luck to all who are in the same boat.

[klandsb]

Well it sounds like you have a good plan to me. It was very, very hard for me to stop paying as that is just not in my nature. But surprisingly after a few months it didnt really bother me. I think because I knew it was part of the plan... This is a HUGE step for all of us and very, very stressful. Just keeping looking at the prize at the end !!
Goodluck to you !!

[Flamingo]

It's such a relief, isn't it? I was such a detail freak and worrywort for a year prior to our filing and really had robbing Peter to pay Paul down to a science to try to avoid filing. Unfortunately, either Peter or Paul would start to become broke too. Once that detail drama of the constant chase of a money source to pay bills after the income loss stopped when we retained our attorney, it was like the plane landed on the runway in Rio. One can actually make themselves sick over trying to keep up with all that along with all the other issues of maybe job loss, illness, etc., etc.

I always compare the time prior to filing and trying to stay afloat as to one spiraling down a big black hole. You keep going round and round trying not to get sucked down to the bottom but it gets harder and harder to fight against the force. Once you hit bottom and realize you have to file or do file, you are flung out the other end of the black hole into a new place to start over again and the payment and call worries are gone and you have the chance to chill and contemplate how to change things and begin anew.

[Michigan1951]

I actually wanted to throw up when our lawyer told us to stop making payments on the cc cards. Now there is no turning back once filed though. It was a good choice no matter what, I still say. I want out of debt one way or another. Either with a c13 or a c7, I will take whatever comes at this point. Even in the scary timeline of waiting now, I am still what you call "at peace" because it is the right thing to do. I am done with cc cards, and I'd rather live on what I can afford than to surrender to cc debt ever again.
Good luck!!

[overspent]

I was thrown off by the Zillow.com estimate for the house. The Zillow estimate was over the first and HELOC balances combined. Then one of my neighbor got foreclosed for 75% of his Zillow estimate and the other just listed his house at 85% of the Zillow estimate. That woke up and prompted me to do a comparable sales analysis and it turned out my house is just under the first, the HELOC will get squat. That's when I come up the plan to stay rent-free as long as I can: 3 months to NOD + 4 months to foreclosure + mayb3 2 more months by filing chapter 13 = 9 months. After the discharge 3 years later I can reapply for FHA maybe buying the same house?

[klandsb]

Ditto to Flamingo... I was in the same black hole as you were.... Filed and most of the time feel better knowing someday there will be an end to the madness... Oh and yes Peter & Paul are some of my best friends

[JEM]

I think I'm mostly at peace too.

I haven't actually missed a payment yet, but will before end of the month. That's what I mean about "mostly at peace". I know it's what we need to do--but actually doing it may stress me out a bit.

We want to keep our house--and continuing to try to pay the CC's is making it harder and harder to keep up with the house payment.

Without paying the cards--we'll be able to pay our necessities and house payment and put away some money for a lawyer.

Having a plan definitely helps! Good Luck!

[Flamingo]

I was thrown off by the Zillow.com estimate for the house. The Zillow estimate was over the first and HELOC balances combined. Then one of my neighbor got foreclosed for 75% of his Zillow estimate and the other just listed his house at 85% of the Zillow estimate. That woke up and prompted me to do a comparable sales analysis and it turned out my house is just under the first, the HELOC will get squat. That's when I come up the plan to stay rent-free as long as I can: 3 months to NOD + 4 months to foreclosure + mayb3 2 more months by filing chapter 13 = 9 months. After the discharge 3 years later I can reapply for FHA maybe buying the same house?

As to your last sentence and also as to your contemplation of foreclosure prior to filing BK....If you file a Chapter 13 your Plan will run from 3 to 5 years with the discharge coming about 3 months after the end of your Plan. If at that time you don't have a foreclosure on your reports along with your BK filing, you may be able to obtain a FHA loan with a chunk of PMI (1.5% I believe) collected from you at settlement and payment of PMI for the first five years of your mortgage. We are almost 4 years into paying that PMI additional in our mortgage payment and cannot request removal until after five years; the only way out is to refinance to get out of it. Our monthly additional charge on our FHA loan is just under $50 even though we are far from a risk now...

[overspent]

Flamingo,

So if I file BK before forecosure and surrender the house (just to get a couple monre to get thru the school year for the kids), foreclosure won't be on the record? just the bK.

Thanks.