Mortgage Crisis

The mortgage crisis has been going on for some time now, and it seems to be getting easier and easier for those inconvenienced by a mortgage payment to get out of it.  I've watched the value of my home plummet, while heaving a sigh of relief that at least we're not upside down.  Most of that is because I've been throwing every spare dime at the loan in order to keep it in the black.

Only now I realize that that very attitude has screwed me.

Did you know that the powers that be have changed the rules so that a short-sale only stays on your credit report for 2 years?  A foreclosure for 5?  Did you know that if you are 30 days late on a payment of any kind, it will stay on your credit report for 7 years, but if you walk away from the largest debt you could possibly have, then that's washed away as if it never happened in 2-5 years?  Really??  What is wrong with this country?

And why am I still making my mortgage payments?  I've been trying to get a better interest rate on my loan for over a year.  I bought my house before the rules changed to make it easier for people to get loans they couldn't afford.  As a result, my interest rate is much higher than it should be.

The government is kindly dropping the interest rates on mortgages for people who can't pay their mortgages, or who simply bought more than they could afford.  They are even cutting the amount that is owed considerably to make it less onerous for people to pay what they agreed to pay when they bought their homes.

But I can't get my loan refinanced because I'm not upside down, but I owe more than 95% of the current value.  My loan is a conventional loan that was not financed by the government, and therefore cannot be easily changed.  And to top it off, I've been making my payments on time, and therefore the banks have no interest in cutting or reducing their profit from someone who is obviously dumb enough to keep giving them money.

I find it equally disturbing that we live in a society that seems to be more than willing to support a government that exists only to prop up big business and the rich people, and reward a lazy, unethical, illiterate population with handouts at the expense of the steady, honorable, responsible citizenry.

I guess that's fine if you fall into either category getting the government bailouts.  And it seems that the responsible citizenry seems to be shrinking in number so as to make their voices immaterial anyway.  It doesn't help that they still cling to a code of honor that assumes that justice will prevail and "those" will get what they deserve in the long run.

It sickens me that in order to get the banks to do the right thing, I have to consider NOT making my payments.  How is that at all reasonable?  I know that there's a hell of a lot that I could do with a year's worth of mortgage payments if I were willing to walk away from this house.

New Year

It's the start of a new year.  I've never really marked New Year's as a new beginning until recently.  Now it seems like an easy enough date to measure goals by.

Last year I set some financial goals for myself.  I'd have to go back and look at the post to see what other goals I'd set for 2010.  I know I did do fairly well with my finances, and would have done better except for a setback from another stupid decision I made a few years back trying to help out a family member.

I took on a couple of side jobs at the end of last year which will hopefully help me towards my goal of buying a rental property.  I've wanted to do this for over a decade, but somehow the money for a down payment has not fallen out of the sky for me.  So I've done something about it and am actually setting aside the money from my side jobs for this purpose.  Hopefully I can reach this goal by the end of next year.  Hopefully the real estate market won't have rebounded so much as to make it out of reach!

My own business seems to be faltering.  I have lost almost every kid I've added this year, which is NOT good for business!  I am laying off my assistant next month, which may be a blessing in disguise.  Her work ethic has really fallen since she had her baby, and it's been difficult having to supervise at all times to make sure she is doing her job.

I've also decided not to have her work just because I know she needs the income when I don't actually need to have her here.  It costs me too much, without the income to support it, to fund her family.  The Bank of Reina is closed!

My side jobs have also kept me pretty busy since November.  Things are lightening up a little but I have my own year-end tax stuff yet to do, as well as the year-end tax filing for my husband's new side business.  That one should be easy as he and his business partner just started the business late last year and there hasn't been much activity.  My own will take a while.  It generally takes me two weeks of straight work to get everything together and recorded.  Usually I'm done by now, but I haven't even started!  I did get my filing up to date yesterday, which means at least all my receipts are together.

I do enjoy being busy, it seems.  And since finishing school in the middle of last year, it's only natural to have added a few jobs to fill in the time!

I need to spend some time this year on getting my website updated as well as the resource website presentable.  It's disappointing that every time I actually hire someone to do something for me, it rarely turns out well.  I need to give it some time and effort to make it match my vision.

We shall see.  This year is shaping up to be just as full as last year!  We'll see how I do.

Speeding Ticket

I got another speeding ticket today.  This is my third in two years.  I guess my luck has run out.  I don't know how I went for 20 years without one, and now I get three in such a short time.  My insurance carrier is going to have a conniption.  Or maybe that will just be me when I get the next insurance bill.

How is it that I never get off once I've been pulled over?  What do these people do that get off with a warning?  I obviously need lessons.

I guess it's time for me to slow down and drive like an old lady.  It sure is going to take the fun out of driving!

Christmas Sadness

It's the seventh of December, and for the first time this year I listened to Christmas music in my car.  It was an accident.  I was switching through channels and landed on one that was all Christmas.  There once was a time when I could barely wait for Thanksgiving to be over so I could start playing my Christmas music.  I loved Christmas music.

Every year Christmas gets harder and harder.  I just don't have the energy to be jolly.  Just thinking of the work involved in decorating, and then taking down the decorations, makes me want to crawl into a hole and stay there until spring.

But I feel bad for my son.  I know I am shortchanging him yet again.  This year, he decorated the tree and the house, pretty much on his own.  I put on Christmas music for him while he did the work, because he asked for it.  My husband and I put the lights on the house because that seemed important to him, and I denied him that last year.

My husband's interest in Christmas seems to be limited to the giving and receiving of gifts, so it doesn't seem worth my time and energy to get excited about the season.  I know I should for my son.  I know I should...

Every year the joy of Christmas dims just a little more.  After last year, I hoped to avoid it altogether this year by booking a trip to Disneyland for Christmas.  If I can't get excited about Christmas in Disneyland, I really am hopeless.

Hearing the music today, I felt so sad for my son.  He definitely deserves better.

The Lovely Bones

There is a scene in The Lovely Bones (the book, I didn't see the movie) where the dead girl watches her mother make out with the homicide detective assigned to her case.  The dead girl had been the oldest and was 12 when she was murdered.  Watching her mother she realizes something that she had vaguely felt when she was living; that being a mother was a mask her mother put on when the first child woke up in the morning.

She knew her mother had been keeping time until the kids where grown and she could start her own life.  When her mother unexpectedly got pregnant again when the girls were half grown, it was like getting punched in the stomach.  She watched her mother deflate, and resign herself to THIS life.

About a year after her daughter's murder, tired of being the "dead girl's" mother, she ran away and started a new life, an anonymous life, somewhere else where she only had to take care of herself.  Where she was just Ruth, and not Carl's wife, or Laura's mother.  (All those names are made up because I can't remember the names in the book!)

I know there are plenty of people who would condemn her for that.  Who would think it was utterly selfish and she had no right to leave her family like that.

But I wonder how many women have watched their lives slip away like water while they are being a mother because it was expected of them.  It was just what you do because you're a woman, and your life can't be complete without it.  I wonder how many women wish they could run away, but are duty-bound to be the mom, the wife, the caretaker.  I wonder how many women strain against the routine of getting them up, getting them dressed, making their breakfast, making their lunch, getting them to school, cleaning the house, doing the grocery shopping, picking them up from school, making their snack, helping with homework, making dinner, getting them bathed, reading the bedtime story, putting them to bed, cleaning up from dinner, falling into bed.  Rinse and repeat.  Who dare not complain, or speak her dreams aloud for fear of being thought of as a bad mom, or ungrateful.

Granted, this book was set 40 years ago, and there are hopefully fewer instances now.  Although for some, I'm sure there is most of that squeezed around a full-time job.

And yes, I know there are many women who are fulfilled by motherhood, that WOULDN'T be complete without that experience. Who have waited all their lives for that moment of giving birth to that helpless little being who depends completely on her and is hers to shape and love.  Those women have the special gift of sacrifice that comes with devoting their life to the nurturing of little ones.  These are special and necessary, and god bless them.

I'm not talking about them.

I'm just wondering how prevalent the feeling is.  I was surprised to see it in the book.  I was surprised that anyone would admit those feelings exist, even in a fiction novel.