Thanks for the reply...guess I should have been more specific about the job thing, we are both teachers in Mississippi so neither of us really make a whole lot. I have tried talking to the credit card companies and the best offer I get is a reduced monthly payment that would stop anymore late fees but not the overlimit fees so all that would do is get us into more. Even when we add in my child support (200.00 a month) and my husbands national guard check each month we barely have enough to make our necessary bills (house, 1 car payment, utilities and car and health insurance) and have enough money left over to put gas in for our commutes and buy groceries for our family of six.
It's hard to believe we've found ourselves here. When my husband returned from a one year tour in Iraq in 2005 we were debt free except our house, car, utilities and etc. He had one year left to finish his degree and we did fine then too due to his GI bill...unfortunately when he graduated in 5/06 he couldn't find a job with his degree (bachelors in physics with a minor in math and history) here, he even applied out of state and nothing...he took what he could find but that was tough because with the economy in small town mississippi jobs he was qualified for were now unavailable and the others (like factories) he was "over qualified." He finally got a construction job with a small local company but about 2 months into it the work got so slow that he only worked 1-3 days a week, sometimes not at all, for several months. On top of that I was put on bedrest this past February with high blood pressure during the last month of my pregnancy then had to have a c-section....that meant I was off work for 12 weeks and despite popular belief teachers (at least around here) do not get "paid maternity leave" after my 10 personal days were up I lost about $200.00 a day. When husband got his teaching job he had to 4 weeks of training classes since he wasn't an education major, his district paid his expenses but no salary and it was out of town so that meant 4 weeks of no work for him. Then to add just a little more stress my 5 year old got sick the week before school started and has spent 2 weeks in the local hospital here, 2 days in University of Alabama Birmingham Childrens Hospital and multiple trips to the hospital and doctors. He's been able to attend school 3 days the entire month of August and will have to go to the doctors weekly for the next three months to make sure his kidneys are not affected by the disease or steriods that he has to take to control the disease.
Believe me this was not an easy decision for us! Nor is it one we take lightly. Our saving graces this summer....1. at the height of the gas prices I was home for the summer so the mini-van was parked 2. Due to our income (or lack thereof) we qualified for WIC for my newborn and myself 3. Great insurance through the national guard, it's not free to us since he's not full time, but it's cheaper than most and the coverage is wonderful. 4. due to the birth of my son we hit our yearly maximum so until October 1 insurance is paying 100% of my 5 year olds treatment, of course come 10/1 we start over with the deductible and must start paying 20% of new bills.
I know this is long....I just don't want ANYONE to think that we are just trying to take the "easy way out" this house that we are contimplating on "giving up" was my mother's house that I grew up in. When she was killed in a car wreck in 2003 she had just refinanced it after a nasty divorce from my step-dad and had not even made the first payment....we chose to keep it at the time I think that I felt like it would help my brother, sister and I heal...as the oldest I was trying to "hold our family together" so my husband and I bought them out, refinanced it in our name. Now I see that maybe it was a bad decision made at a time of great grief.
