My Depressed Blog

This is my depressed blog. My sister told me that she knows when there is a post on here, I am upset. By golly, she's correct. I have to vent somewhere, and this is my unknown blog. My other blog has readers that would quickly stab themselves if they read this one, so I keep the angst here.

Money worries:

We are upside down on our mortgage by about $50,000. During the whoopla when houses were worth ridiculous amounts, ours was worth about $120,000. more than we owed on it, so we decided to borrrow $40,000. against that, thinking we were being conservative. We borrowed this money to pay down credit card debt.

For about 2 months, we stayed out of credit card debt. Yes, our mortgage went up, but we figured it was no problem. Times were good.

Then dental issues came up, we needed a new refrigerator, a new washer and dryer, the cats got sick......and the credit card spending went back up again. Then Christmas came and we said, "what the heck" and we wanted "stuff", so we said, "what the heck" and used the card(s).

We were irresponsible. I'm not defending myself in any way. If I could crawl out of myself and get a big stick and come back and beat myself with it, I would.

We. Were. Stupid.

Then I found out about the mortgage. I didn't do any research or get involved in the choice of mortgage. My husband did all the prep work. I don't know what I was thinking, since he is not a financial genius. He got us an adjustable mortgage. That will go up for the first time in June 2011, which is rapidly approaching.

That was a kick in the gut. I've never had an adjustable mortgage before. I knew when I was divorced from my first husband that NO ONE with a brain gets an adjustable mortgage - EVER.

Then our house value went down, down, down, below what we owe by about $50,000.

Then our credit cards raised the interest rate on our accounts to the max rate - something like 20-29% on most of them.

Then people at my government job started losing hours and getting cut. Not me yet, but if things don't get better economically, which I don't think they will, I could get cut too - even lose my job altogether.

My husband still has his job, too - so we're thankful for that.

We can still pay our bills. For now. But the Sword of Damocles is over our heads, and all it takes is one big hit - and we're down for the count.

At ages 56 and 53 we won't be whipping up a new life anytime soon either, or new jobs. I'm not saying we couldn't find jobs - but with the economy the way it is, I bet it wouldn't be very easy to find new jobs.

Our house needs repairs - nothing serious, yet, like the roof. But we literally live from paycheck to paycheck.

Yes, we've saved a small amount of money - and we're trying to hold onto that in case we need it, but it is only $5300.00, with another $3300. in a CD at a bank.

My husband's retirement went down so far the company had to hire retirement account-sniffing beagles to find it again.

Social Security is going broke - and Obamanomics will cause the speed with which it dies accelerated.

Now, I'm a Christian, and I have been taught that the Lord takes care of His children. I'm also a studier of history and I know that Christians have suffered terribly as martyrs for their faith. So the Lord does take care of His children in this life, but He doesn't spare them when they are stuck in the middle of a war or a country that is disintegrating. I've read enough first person accounts of Christian suffering from WWII alone to show me that when the going gets tough, Christians are often in the lead. Since this is Satan's planet, it is often the evil and the wicked that are spared, at least in this life.

So while my faith is very strong, and I realize that no matter what, "though He slay me, yet I will trust Him," I'm not feeling very protected in a human way.

God does not save us from the consequences of our stupidity.

So, I humble myself to His sovereignty. My husband and I have finally stopped saying, "what the heck" and we do NOT use credit cards.

If our teeth fall out and our cars break down, oh well. We'll be toothless bus riders.

I know I'm concentrating on the negative. I'm also looking ahead and seeing disaster ahead, and that may not necessarily be so, and if it is coming, why dread it now before it even gets here?

Perhaps that is human nature, I don't know. But I'm full of dread and my husband? He's so stressed and unhappy - even more than usual (he's not known as Mr. Happy in this life) - that he makes it worse. The Happy Couple. Oh yeah.

I'm at the point where I'm fantasizing about getting in a car, on a train - whatever (not a plane, however) - and to just keep going until I can't go anymore, and then.....well, that's not realistic.

Who's that crazy woman that tried that a couple of years ago when she couldn't face getting married (who can blame her??) - the one that then, once she got "away" and realized she had no way of living, lied about her disappearance and said she was kidnapped? And her fiance? The news doesn't follow up on these cases, although it would be fascinating if they did - I read that shortly afterwards, he took off. She was too looney for him - and who could blame him either?

So the fantasy won't become reality.