Today I happened upon this CNN article, which caught my eye obviously because of its title, “Digging out from $80,000 debt.” I have a lot of debt, and I’ve lost sleep over this. In fact, I was sick home all week last week, and on two days, I had to stay home without any PDO left, which means I would not get paid for those two days. Sadly, losing two-days’ worth of pay creates a problem for me. Heck, losing even one day’s pay creates a problem. So I had to warn a friend that I would need to borrow money in a few weeks. I admit I’m the one who got myself in this situation by buying the house that I shouldn’t have bought, but I just want to make something clear. I don’t spend money on things I really don’t need – clothes, shoes, cosmetics, manicures/pedicures, beauty shops, movies, etc. Most of my debt consists of payments to the vet for the last 2 years with more than a fair share of health troubles for my furry ones. But I digress.
So I started reading the article, remembering the phone number I memorized this morning from a radio commercial about debt counseling service or something or other, which talked about some government debt relief program for people with debt over $10,000. I did google this program in hopes to find something about it from a government source, but I quickly lost patience seeing 12 billion search results are the websites for debt counseling or debt consolidation services. Anyway, I digress. Again. Sorry.
As I was saying… I started reading the article, and yeah I finished reading it. That’s it. The end.
You know I was lying, right? That’s not it and wasn’t the end. Anyways, it was nothing special. The usual story – somebody got herself into this situation, and after transferring card balances from one credit card to another with really low introductory interest rate, she finally contacted a debt counseling service, and after a year, her debt is now $40,000. Half way there. As I said, nothing special. But I did get something out of it. NFCC – National Foundation for Credit Counseling, recommended by CNN personal finance editor. It’s a nonprofit organization with credit counseling service agencies as its members, who meet certain standards and provide no or very low fee services. I surfed the site for a long time, and I think I’m going to try contacting a counselor and see what she/he has to say. The first counseling session seems to be free.
Wish me luck. I tend to get very nervous about things like this and forget the questions that need to be asked or just get tongue-tied, even though I have nothing to lose. It’s the times like this that I want a husband who could and would take care of this kind of stuff. And I would need some good sleep vibes too from now on since I was also reminded of the fact that my mortgage rate is going to adjust in just about four months… Oh Fuck! Crap! Shit! Moose dick! *bangs head on the wall*
On Tuesday my bank notified me that the payment for my second mortgage had been returned. I called Chase Home Finance to see what’s up. After the customer service rep got my loan number and verified my identity, the conversation went something like this:
Yes, I’m calling because I was notified by my bank that my payment had been returned?
I can certainly help you with that. Let me find out why… Oh yes, it was returned because your balance had been paid off.
Uh… Hmmm… Really… (HOLY CRAP!!! How I wish it was true! Think! Think! Is there a way to make this stick? I mean it’s not my fault if somebody made a mistake and paid off my balance! It’s THEM who returned my payment! Oh man, should I tell? I know I should, but damn… Shit. FUCK!)
Yes, your account has been closed.
Well… (Stall! Think! Need more time! Think! Stall!) When was this?
On the 30th.
For how much…? (Oh fuck, I got nothing. I wish I could just hang up and that would be that. Wouldn’t THAT be nice…)
That was 38,661 dollars and 46 cents.
Hmm… (Oh shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This is really painful… Oh God. Why? Why? Pourquoi? Pourquoi?) I hate to tell you this. I really really hate to tell you and you have no idea how much it KILLS me to tell you this. But I have to tell you that I never paid if off, O. MY. GOD. it would have been great if I did but the truth is… (SIGH) I didn’t.
Oh. And there is nobody else who could…?
Not that I know of. I truly wish there was, but sadly no. I know, I’m dying. It’s killing me right now having to tell you this.
(Laughing a little) Oh I understand. Could you please hold while I look into this?
Oh sure, take your time. I just denied myself cool thirty-eight thousand dollars, what’s a little wait?
(Laughing) Thank you.
I was on hold for more than 30 minutes, and when she came back, she apologized and told me they would investigate and give me a call back within 10 days. There won’t be any late fees because of this.
Today, I got a call back from them thanking me for pointing out the error before the lien was sent out. Somebody whose account number was similar to mine paid off his mortgage and it went into mine by human error. Not only that, they would have also sent me about $3,000 because my balance was less. Since they cannot reopen the account that has been closed, I would get a new account number with everything exactly the same. They will also resend the tax information.
You know, I was wishing they would find some eccentric rich stranger paid this off for me as the good deed of the year. But no. Somebody fat-fingered a key. Shouldn’t I get some kind of reward or something? You know, for having gone through all this heartache and shit… Now I’m depressed. I know. It wasn’t my money to begin with and they would have found that out sooner or later and then I would have had to pay the penalty if I hadn’t told them. But it doesn’t make it any less painful.
I got my federal tax refund the other day and my state refund should be on its way. I already spent a little over $1,000 in removing a dead tree from my yard, I have to pay back $500 I borrowed from my friend last month, and I was going to get a new stove because my oven stopped working, and then I was supposed to have a few hundred left over.
Fat chance it would go that easy. I completely forgot about the $1,425 fee I had to pay the lawyer. And my mortgage company informs me that my insurance went up and so I need to pay them $489 by April 1st to cover the escrow shortage. And the oil company filled up the oil tank and left me a bill for $681 yesterday (not only the oil price skyrocketed, but I was also sick with flu and cranked the heat up to the tropical heat level for a few weeks, so I used A LOT of oil). And the gas price is going up so fast that I don’t even know how much it is now and I’ve been spending over $100 a week on gas.
So basically, I had to tell my friend I would have to give him back his $500 in a few months… hopefully…, and I can’t get a new stove any time soon. So yeah, crap.
Serious Stuff. Seriously
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