I'm trying to save my house

This is the third time in two years that I've been threatened with foreclosure. Ok, now stop the tsk, tsk. I am not in over my head. We bought this house in 1979. Yeah, almost 32 years ago. We were young with a whole life ahead of us to pay off this unbelievably old Pennsylvania Fieldstone Farmhouse that was built in 1805. Thomas Jefferson was President. It's a special home. Not some tract home in some cookie cutter neighborhood....not that THAT is bad. All homes are special to the people that live in them.

Here's been the conundrum. Do I keep up on my Medical Insurance payments, which just got lowered to just under $900 a month because I now receive Social Security Disability with Medicare. Yeah Me!! My husband of 34 years has been self employed as a builder/contractor. Life use to be pretty good. I was just reminiscing that I used to have a cleaning lady. Ah, sweet, sweet memories. We never lived high on the hog, we stayed well within our financial limits. We had two major things happen to us.

First, I got sick. Very sick. I had Lyme Disease for 22 years and it finally secured itself firmly in my brain rendering me stupider than shit. I used to be rather smart, very ambitious, lots of energy, and an idea person. Now? Hell, I can't even read a paperback novel anymore. I no longer read the newspaper, because I retain nothing. Neurological problems are by far my most serious threat from Lyme, but there is a whole host of other illnesses that come along after 20 years of being untreated. THAT was another blog. On my second try I was awarded Social Security Disability. I never contributed a whole lot of money to the family piggy bank, but the medical insurance I'd get from my employer was one hell of a gig, I realized after I left it.

Our second mistake was, using the Equity in our home to buy some land, put up two beautiful single homes worth about $300,000 each, at the time. Then we watched while the Real Estate Market chipped away our dream and sucked every penny we ever had, away; like a new Dyson. Here we are in our mid fifties and I think I might lose this wonderful house, so full of history. Our phone for home improvement jobs, has just stopped ringing. We are now advertising for work, something we never did before. Word of mouth....that's how we did it for so many years. People say it's hard to find a good Contractor. No it's not. Not if you live in Southeastern PA. Not many Contractors make it 32 years, we did.....but we are doing it barely.

No one wants to hire a 55 year old man who ran his own company. I'm working hard with Indy Mac, our mortgage company. They've been so patient with me. I have a 4 generation home. My 91 year old Mom has lived with us for 21 years now and recently my oldest daughter, with her two children 9 and 2 moved in after her marriage broke up. She's losing her house too. We have to be able to save one of them and since mine is the biggest for all of us, it would make sense to work on saving this house. I read the "Secret", I visualize, I pray, I look for work that I can do from home as I can no longer drive due to legal blindness. I'm not throwing myself a pity party. I just want all you folks in cyber space to know it can happen to anyone. It could be your next door neighbors, or a family member. We lost every nickel we ever had when we built two houses to sell. Timing....it's all about timing and ours couldn't have been worse.

We've cashed in my 401K, his IRA's, I've tapped every life insurance policy, we've sold our hot tub and every thing else that wasn't nailed down. I got really good at EBay. I even wanted to sell my engagement ring, but our local jeweler talked me out of it.

Our mortgage is not top heavy, we have equity in this house, but there are no banks that will let us use it. Can you blame them? So is there a lesson here? Yes there is. Don't get sick. Don't use the equity in your house to pay for a business venture. Lesson learned. Shame on us. The nine thousand dollars I need to save my house, still eludes me. But my optimism reigns supreme. I HAVE to save my home. I WILL save it, somehow. Maybe the Universe will provlde? One can hope.