So it's gotten to that point. The bills seemed manageable at first. You paid the heating bill on time, (after you picked your jaw up off the floor when you saw the cost of heating oil), you paid the phone bill, the electric, and the cable. The kids needed new clothes for school, and there were the usual groceries and prescriptions to pick up from the drug store. Oh yeah, and the washing machine broke down last Saturday. And the oil needs to be changed in the car. Again. Didn't you just do that? "Yeah, 3,000 miles ago," the mechanic chuckled.
You thought you had it all under control, but before you know it, you're charging groceries. You're living in a cashless world. Everything goes on plastic, and you just close your eyes and pray that at the end of the month it will all add up. Either that, or you can put the credit card bills off long enough to make the mortgage payment, which is at the top of the list. But it doesn't work that way, and somewhere deep down you know that. You should also know this: you've got two choices. You can panic (a lot of people do), or you can take a deep breath, roll up your sleeves, and assess the situation. Yes, you're in debt. But no, you don't have to lose your home. Somewhere in the back of your head you recall a conversation you had with a neighbor years ago when times were tough for him. What did he say? Something about loan modification?
Loan modification isn't a magic bullet. It can't make all the bills go away. But what it can do is lower your monthly payments to better fit your budget, and take away that sense of dread you get when you ponder losing your home to foreclosure. Think of it, no more waking up at two a.m. from a nightmare in which your children's clothes are being scattered on the lawn in the middle of the night by soulless repo men who are gutting your house of your precious belongings. Sounds nice, right?
The worse scenarios are always the ones you manage to dream up in moments of panic. You remember what it was like when you were a kid and your parents would appear in the morning at the kitchen table, bags under their eyes as they drained their coffee cups, your mother telling your father or vice versa that she or he had woken in the middle of the night again because, "There's a lot on my mind." It never seemed like it could happen to you. But now it is. Take back control of your life, and call to find out more about loan modification. The only memories you want to pass onto your children are happy ones, so find out if loan modification is right for you, and start waking up rested again.
