I don't think that the price of gas/oil that we use has had time to adjust yet, has it? I didn't see any dramatic drops in the price of diesel!:tongue_smilie:

I don't think that the price of gas/oil that we use has had time to adjust yet, has it? I didn't see any dramatic drops in the price of diesel!

I figure that the next ds (who is 10 now) will more than make up for his brother's lack of hormonal issues. If he lives to see 13.

Yes, several times. We used Expedia.com also and once we got tickets the night before!

Mine isn't and he went through early puberty, so it isn't coming. He has his moments, but I would never characterize him as moody or sullen. He doesn't have fits, rarely is disrespectful, and obeys mostly without complaining. He also has always been in ps. ;-)

I would not go into debt for anything. I would drive as little as possible until I was able to save up money for a less-used, lower-mile van. You can probably find something not to expensive. Are the repairs going to cost you more than the $3600 that a $300 payment would cost in one year?

I doubt anyone would want to come here - we are 8 people in 1300 square feet!:lol:

Well, the program he looked at was $16K for one year and our income (with us and 5 other dc) was less than twice that, I don't think we're going to save that much, LOL! We live pretty slim around here!

$1000 or so to savings and the rest to debt.

It's funny you ask this, since part of the answer is in your previous post. Some Baptists consider themselves a sub-group of the Anabaptists, who are not Protestant (as in did not come about as a result of the Protestant Revolt.) That is true for some, but not others and Independent Baptists have little in common with Anabaptists.

I have at least 1 child who would LOVE it and had actually looked into it, but it was SOOOO expensive! I wouldn't feel a need to keep them home an extra year for academics, but I am way more laid-back about "what they need to cover" than I used to be.

Did you get the 3/8 pre-engineered stuff (not laminate but the "snap together" hardwood) or the regular hardwood? We are thinking of someday getting hardwood from the Habitat store from de-constructed houses, installing it, and refinishing it.

I would go to Honduras and serve others there for a few years. Or I would go to the Christian Appalachian Project and spend a year or two there. If my dc don't have any idea what they want to do when they graduate, this is what I will suggest - go serve somewhere while you easily can. If they want that to be the military, then so be it, but I would NOT consider that the default option because you don't know what else to do. If they wanted to join because they *wanted to join* then that is different.

I don't think you were picking on me! I can handle it. ;-)

No, I imaginse she was just offering me some compassion. ;-) The only reason I am sharing all this is so that others don't make the same mistakes we did. If the only way you can afford to stay home is with debt, you can't afford to be a SAHM. And if you stay home anyway, it just gets worse!

The only thing I can think of is that the bank felt they better get it now or there would be a problem later. Foreclosed on houses are usually in disrepair. Who knows? It worked! The bank got their money and reduced their risk!

That, and she thought that interest rates would never be so low again. We were living for free in a trailer park we managed and not managing our money well at all. She even paid off some debt for us so that we could qualify for the mortgage. It really boiled down to the fact that she did not want her grandchildren living where we did - she didn't feel that it was safe (and it really wasn't - there were several scary incidents right before we moved.) It was stupid. Here we are 4 years later with a tremendous amount of debt and a house we can't sell. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

It can happen - most mortgages have a clause that lets them call the mortgage whenever they want.

That is exactly how it happened - when we bought our house it was a STRETCH monthly to make the mortgage payment. My mother kept saying, "It'll be okay. Every year you will make more and the payment will get easier. If you don't buy now you will never be able to buy." We had good credit, so we got a low rate and by doing some of the work ourselves, we ended up with enough equity not to need a down payment. The problem was that wages never went up - my dh was making last year roughly the same as he was 4 years earlier. We kept making the payment on time, but more and more day to day expenses went on the credit card so that we *could* make the payment. We couldn't sell the house because no one wants to buy it (it is too small - only about 1300 square feet.) So we are stuck - I am not really willing to walk away from my obligation anyway. I just figure that our dc are learning some VERY valuable lessons!

Reminds me of one of the Extreme Home Makeover a month or so ago. They showed a family who has lost their house to foreclosure (and a special needs daughter - but I am not addressing that.) My dh was FLOORED at the "stuff" in their new rental. There were boxes and containers and rooms full of expensive stuff. And this was BEFORE the network gave them all their NEW stuff! I am SOOOOO thankful that we never used our equity to pay off debt. I am SOOOO thankful that we have managed to stay ahead of our mortgage. I can't imagine losing my house and keeping all my stuff (not that I have any, but if I did!) I would have sold every single last thing before letting my house go. I know the road back will be even more painful for us than the past 10 years would have been. However, I still have a house to live in, and now we make enough to pay for it, but not without sacrifice.

Hmmm...we are in a serious credit situation here. I never bought a new sound system, though. I imagine that there is a whole range out there. We are in debt for things like car repairs, healthcare, clothing, etc. We haven't ever lived an elaborate lifestyle. Our stupidity was in thinking that we could be a one-income family and do more than rent a trailer space for an old, paid for trailer. We would have been okay had we stayed there. Or maybe not - who knows. We have lived well beyond our means (which were way low to start with.) We bought more house than we could afford (because we really couldn't even have afforded a double-wide, much less a 1300 square foot house!) We bought furniture when we should've been begging on freecycle. We tried to pay our own way instead of getting state insurance (and ended up with piles of medical bills we couldn't pay, either.) We used our earned income credit to buy clothes and pay bills. And not fancy clothes, but new clothes - we should've shopped the thrift stores only. There is a TON of other non-essential, non-frugal purchases that got us in this mess. As Dave Ramsey would say, our very own stupid tax. Yes, it was greed, because we did want some of what others had. I look around now at what we actually have and think, "Where did it go?!?!?!" Sheesh. At least we are young and we learned our lesson!

I like Virginia Dawn's reasons, too! I've been saying for years that all this money that was flowing wasn't "real." It's like a shell game with no pea.

It's more than just about the housing bubble, though. Other contributing factors that are making this snowball get bigger and bigger: Rising gas prices: Of course, our prices were low to start with compared to the rest of the world, but when gas jumps, so does the price of everything else. Increase in corn prices: GREAT for corn farmers, bad for lots of other folks. Bad in the sense that prices for many, many things are going up (like eggs and milk), but not bad in the sense that it shouldn't happen. Credit crisis: A big reason our economy has been growing has been the ability to buy stuff on credit. Then, when the credit cards were full, people could use home equity to pay them off, then run them up again. Now, due to falling housing values, they can't pay them off easily. So, instead of spending money to keep the economy growing, people now struggle to pay for the stuff they have already bought! We own a retail business and we can see it coming. People are *not* buying certain things that they did in the past. We have had an upswing in the number of people getting lawn mowers and such repaired rather than buying new ones. The phone calls and visits from people looking for truck caps and accessories has DIED - we only get a few calls a week now (instead of the 10 or so per day we were getting.) Our contractor business has died off some, but we are seeing many, many more homewoners that are doing their own house and yard projects than ever before. Things do go in cycles, but this downward swing is much worse than recent others. My mother weathered the 2001 downswing (she's in computers) okay, but she may not make it through this one. Of course, she lives in FL where the economy dropped last spring. Some people, like you JenniferLost, will weather it just fine. Many, many others will not. Those who have recession-proof jobs will tighten their belts and weather through it. Those whose jobs are in retail, investments/mortgages, construction, etc. will not. Just ask the 1000+ people who have lost their jobs in the past month in our nearest town! (BTW, that 1000 people is almost 8% of the population - those ripples will be felt far and wide!)

I am probably just wrong! LOL I was under the impression that it happened very quickly.

That is very unlikely with e.coli or listeria, though, which is what you are likely to get from ground beef.