Buried Beyond Belief! (court, property tax, apartment, savings)

[sheenie2000]

I'm wondering what happened to the money when he refinanced? If the original mortgage was around 300K and now it's 800K, where did the 500K go?

[darstar]

Juggling credit cards , can be done. I have a friend that has been doing it for years , and , for him , it works. He is in Commercial properties , and , some of the interest rates , if , you miss a payment , , or are just one day late , are best covered by a credit card , at what ever the rate. He has huge limits, and low interest rates on his cards as a result..........Not everyone should cut up their cards , but , for most of us , its the thing to do.

[plaidmom]

The day did end good though. For the last four weeks, I've been helping my brother who is a dentist, startup a dental assistant course run out of his office on Saturdays. He is giving me $500.00 for each student I get to show up. He paid me $2,000 today for the four students I get. Our next class is on Jan 24th so I'm trying to get between 10-15 students.

My brother does have a little extra money and decent cash flow and was trying to figure out a way to bail me out.

Could your wife train to be a dental assistant/hygenist?

Pretty sure that brings in more than 12K per year.

[8 SNAKE]

Originally Posted by sheenie2000

I'm wondering what happened to the money when he refinanced? If the original mortgage was around 300K and now it's 800K, where did the 500K go?

Toys.

[8 SNAKE]

Originally Posted by czubmeister

to greggd, my first is 549,550.75 and my 2nd is 250,000 = 799,550
Zillow.com comes up with 678,000 but a realtor that came by a couple of weeks ago said around 750,000

I'm a bit confused by this post. Are you saying that your home is worth approximately $750k right now? If that's the case, I would sell as many of your toys as necessary to pay the difference in mortgage debt and get out from under that note each month.

[Alanboy395]

Originally Posted by czubmeister

I do have two kids. I live in california. My daughter just started University of Arizona but only lasted one semester and is coming home in December to go to school locally. (That whole moving to a dorm thing was a huge expense as well) Probably spent over 700.00 in one semester flying her home 3 times.
My son is a couple of years away from starting college so I have to deal with that one as well.

As for the utilities,
$149.00 Cable (includes house ip phone thorugh Time Warner and a bunch of cable boxes that I'm returning today.
91.00 gas company
$275.00 Cell Phones including a internet connect card for my pc (business expense)
$500.00 Department of Water and Power. Bill is starting go to down a bit due to the cooler weather.
$176.00 Office phone. (I work out of the house doing sales calls)
$51.00 800 Line
.. Actually 1,241 in utilities

My wife works as a mommy and me teacher at 3 locations but only brings in about 12,000 per year.
My house is upside down. I bought it for 285,000 14 years ago (2200 sq ft) and now owe over 750,000 due to refinancing every few years. (another stupid mistake)

I have about $18,000 left between our two retirement accounts and not sure what to do with that money. Cash it all out and pay off some debt... or keep the cash in case we need it for something.

You may want to start with thinking about moving out of California. Extreme standard of living and pressure to keep up with the Jonses can get the most financially responsible person into trouble there. Moving may also help with the utilities. Forego the cable and find cheaper cell phones. Downsize into a cheap rental with all utilities paid if possible.

Tell me you at least have health and life insurance. If something happens to you or your spouse, it will take your situation from "have mercy" to "lord have mercy."

[czubmeister]

Originally Posted by Humanoid

How exactly did you manage to even get $140,000 in credit? How many cards do you have? Most don't offer a limit of much more than $20k. I just find it amazing that lenders even let this happen.....

Out of curiosity are you now starting to hit your credit limits? I know a few people in similar situations (perhaps not as bad...but pretty similar), they don't seem to see the giant wall in front of them. It seems so long as the credit is flowing, nothing changes. Its only when people start to max out their lines of credit that people start to realize what they've done....

You sure hit the nail on the head with that one. It started out when I ran out of home equity.. or should I say Wells Fargo yanked the last 8,000 I had in there. And then I started "borrowing" from my sons savings account to the tune of 6,000 and then I liquidated half of an IRA to stay afloat then I couldn't get the mortage payments together in time. That's the progression.

Mastercard #1 limit = 25,000 Owe 10,000 Finance Charge 55.00
Mastercard #2 limit = 8,800 Owe 7,000 Finance Charge 31.00
Visa # 1 limit = 39,000 Owe 33,917 Finance Charge 151.00 (promo)
Visa # 2 limit = 53,800 Owe 46,711 Finance Charge 379.19
(citibank had this card for 20 yrs. Everytime I approached my max, they cranked on another 5K.
Visa # 3 limit = 29,500 Owe 29,450 (business card) Fin. Chrge 219.00
Visa # 4 limit = 10,000 Owe 9,217 (business card) Fin Charge 51.06

Finance Charges every month: $886.00. Most of my cards now have a 9.9 or lower interest rate. The card with the 53,800 limit had 14.5% for years because it is a mileage card. I have a couple of cards still on a promo rate so I expect that the real interest charges when these come due will bee over $1,000 mo in interest charges.

Total 165,900... I actually figured out right now that I owe allot more than my original post. I would also play the balance transfer game. Throw one card onto another at 0-1% for awhile and charge up the card again. About 4 years ago, citibank did let me take half of my balance and pay it on a 3 year loan at a lower interest rate. That was when this card had an interest rate of 14.5%

Home Depot owe 1500
Lowes owe 600
Ikea owe 1500

[czubmeister]

Originally Posted by sheenie2000

I'm wondering what happened to the money when he refinanced? If the original mortgage was around 300K and now it's 800K, where did the 500K go?

That's a good question. I don't have many huge expensive items that I definately put my finger on.

Things that I know about..
Paid of my Suburban
Re lanscaped the front yard.. new driveway etc for about 50,000
Paid off the credit cards numerous times with home equity.
Purchased a $5,000 TV with home equity
Purchased a music PA system for about $5,000 that I was supposed to use to make extra dough on the weekends but never did.
I must have re-fied about 4 times
Barmitzvah and Batmitzvah totaling 18,000 each.
Bought a Gibson Les Paul Guitar for $2500 on ebay. I definately sell that one.
A couple of cruises with the family
My health insurance at one time was $700 month for years going onto the cards.. along with a $300.00 mon cell phone bill that I've since rectified.
These are the biggest items I can think of.

It is mind boggling.

[czubmeister]

Originally Posted by Alanboy395

You may want to start with thinking about moving out of California. Extreme standard of living and pressure to keep up with the Jonses can get the most financially responsible person into trouble there. Moving may also help with the utilities. Forego the cable and find cheaper cell phones. Downsize into a cheap rental with all utilities paid if possible.

Tell me you at least have health and life insurance. If something happens to you or your spouse, it will take your situation from "have mercy" to "lord have mercy."

I do have health and life insurance. The only think I don't have is a Will. My father died without a will and left things a mess. Us kids ended up with nothing and my step mom got everything.

[czubmeister]

Originally Posted by czubmeister

That's a good question. I don't have many huge expensive items that I definately put my finger on.

Things that I know about..
Paid of my Suburban
Re lanscaped the front yard.. new driveway etc for about 50,000
Paid off the credit cards numerous times with home equity.
Purchased a $5,000 TV with home equity
Purchased a music PA system for about $5,000 that I was supposed to use to make extra dough on the weekends but never did.
I must have re-fied about 4 times
Barmitzvah and Batmitzvah totaling 18,000 each.
Bought a Gibson Les Paul Guitar for $2500 on ebay. I definately sell that one.
A couple of cruises with the family
My health insurance at one time was $700 month for years going onto the cards.. along with a $300.00 mon cell phone bill that I've since rectified.
These are the biggest items I can think of.

It is mind boggling.

Come to think about it. Another dumb, stupid thing was building a $4,000 tree house in the backyard. Kids definately enjoyed it at the time but now they are grown up a bit and never go into it.