The story seems to keep changing from one week to the next. We're making arrangements to start the ball rolling on this plan though, then it will be in the Lord's hands from there.
After meeting with a financial advisor, a few things became very obvious to us:
First of all, we need to establish a budget. I had been unsure about how to go about planning out a budget due to the seasonal nature of our business. This is all the more reason to have a budget! I had been throwing extra money at loans while the income was good, and struggling through the off seasons. It needs to be in the budget to pay down loans, not "throw any extra this month towards this loan or that." If we had been faithful with a budget from the beginning, we would probably not be cutting it quite so close right now. It still wouldn't change the fact that we can't afford this house without having had a substantial down payment.
Secondly, and looking back now it is very clear, that the ease with which we acquired our 100% financing on the house was not necessarily the Lord working. When the advisor asked us about tithes, I had to confess that I have not been able to tithe since shortly after we moved in here. Our money has been tied up trying to meet financial obligations, preventing it from going to the Lord's work.
Also, we need to take whatever steps we can to cut expenses and increase income. We're already living on the minimum for a lot of things. We don't have recreational or entertainment expenses to cut; we don't go on shopping sprees; we don't eat out unless it is just as economical as eating at home. I will be looking for a second job (night shift) to supplement our current income. It will make for a long, hard year or so, but this job will accomplish two things: it will provide health insurance (freeing up a substantial amount of money that I have to dish out each month to pay for our own), and it will provide an additional income to help pay down some of our debts.
Our advisor also put the house payment in perspective for us. Where I had mentioned in the last post that we can't afford to stay, can't afford to sell... well, I was half right. I looked at the major loss that I would be absorbing and didn't look any further. Kevin put it like this: would we rather spend $200 to $300 a month paying the mortgage company for a hard lesson learned, or continue to pay ten times that amount for the roof over our heads? With that perspective, we have decided (once again) that we need to sell the house. I'll be in touch with the mortgage company and work to have them give me a loan for the difference between what we sell for and what I still owe on the house. We are enlisting the help of a reputable realtor in the area that happens to be a member of our church. We figured that if we have to pay a realtor a commission, we'd rather have it be someone who we know is part of our "extended" family! We'll be meeting with him on Saturday to assess the situation and take whatever steps we need to take to get the house on the market.
We'll be looking to rent an economical place to live for the next 18 months or so as we work to get back in the black and figure out where the Lord would have us to live. We should be able to find a 2 bedroom apartment or duplex for about 1/3 of what we're paying for mortgage right now. In the course of 18 months we should be able to turn our situation back around.
There are some other factors that may come into play as we consider our options. I won't go into detail here, but there are other doors with Books Are Fun that may open for us in the coming months. Doors that would allow us to keep up with the books in another (more affordable) area, or doors that may allow us to take on a managerial role (allowing me to work from home for most of the time). I'll keep everyone updated as things unfold.
It will probably be this weekend before I get another chance to update here; the next four days will be long ones as I head down to Southern Massachusetts (almost Rhode Island) to cover shifts at some EMC buildings. Long days, a long way away. I'm planning on being exhausted for the weekend!
