What a relief!
I feel like I can breathe again.
Isn't it amazing the havoc that stress can exact on peace of mind?
I had become enured to living with an oppressive situation, so much so that I didn't realize that it was slowly smothering out the light.
No more.
No, I'm not referring to the pain in my hands.
That will be with me for yet a while longer, but I can see the end approaching.
I'm talking about the virtual mountain of debt that had been collapsing upon me far faster than I could dig out from under it.
Crazy.
At least teaching full-time last spring had helped shore up the enormous load for a bit longer. But I knew the mass was toppling and threatening to crush life as I need it to be.
I had taken steps in January to buy myself some breathing room.
Literally.
I was wagering my house for a long-handled shovel.
After a few weeks I was told, "No."
But I was also told, "try back when you have had the new job for six months and we will add it into our considerations."
Six months.
All I had to do was hold on until mid-summer.
And so I did.
I even waited until the 27th of June, almost the end of that sixth month, before I reapplied for remedy. At that time, I gave them seven of the most pressing of my credit card debts. They would take care of those at the closing of the loan.
Note to others: Don't apply for a loan before a holiday weekend. It'll really get slowed down. Seriously.
Prior to the long weekend, I filed twenty pieces of paper with them. Twenty data files of my financial history and current employment and pledges to pay.
Then I waited.
About three weeks later, the house appraisal was completed. Progress!
Then the processor handling my loan went on vacation and his boss took over.
That turned out to be quite beneficial. While talking to her, and receiving the word that my loan might not be approved, I asked her what more I needed to do. She had said the Savannah Tech job was too new and could not be considered as income for two years. At that point, I lost it! I explained to her what I had been told when I had applied earlier this year?
Say what? She had no information on my earlier application. She would research and get back to me.
And she did!
And the committee agreed to honor what had been said before!
Hallelujah!
But the process bogged down again.
The title search on the house had shown it was listed in my trust. Of course, right? That was okay, right?
Apparently not. Even though I had never changed the title, the fact that the property was listed in the trust complicated matters. They needed several articles from the enormous tome. So, I stopped everything I was doing and dug out those bits and sent them to my processor.
After all, the clock was still ticking and I had two big credit card payments that had come due and that I had been hoping to avoid. It was now the 12th of August.
One last request came in. The committee needed the latest statements on the credit cards initially listed for consolidation. I immediately gathered up the needed papers for them, adding statements for three other cards.
Big mistake on my part.
That delayed the closing another twelve days, by my calculations, as they adjusted the loan amount.
That meant another large credit card payment would need to be covered from thin air, as my checking account couldn't do it.
"Thin air" translates into yet another balance transfer check from yet another credit card.
All in the name of keeping my credit score in the good zone.
Sigh.
But I would have needed to write that check anyway.
You see, this is how the closing works, in real life.
I had thought that as soon as I signed the documents, the credit union would cut the checks and all would be golden.
No.
By state law, I was given three days in which I could back out of the loan.
Crazy, but true.
That tied the hands of the credit union for those additional three days.
They could not give me any money until I'd had the time to void the loan.
Sigh.
On the 24th of August, by 2:18 PM, my signature and the notary's stamp had been affixed to the many, many, many closing documents the lawyer gave me for the loan. The entire process was completed in less than twenty minutes with the three of us sitting at a table at the McDonald's near Armstrong.
Less than twenty minutes.
But, as of this very moment, the ten credit cards listed with the loan have been paid off.
PAID OFF!
And this loan, what type is it?
Well, it's one that the closing agents hadn't seen very often.
It's an Interest-Only Home Equity Line of Credit.
For the next twenty years, my payments will be less than $300 per month, i.e., just the interest due on the loan.
Then in 2036, and until 2056, I'll have to pay interest and principal.
Meanwhile, the mountain has been shifted and I'm paying to move buckets of debt instead of barrels of debt.
I can breathe again.
i thank You, God.
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