The American Dream- or nightmare

  Well, like many other Americans out there our homestead is also a victim of the big financial corporations who buy and sell your mortgages like trading stamps. Now like so many others in our area and abroad, we find ourselves in the fight to keep what we've earned and call home.
 
  The story really starts from a beginning where we wanted this old farm home and knowingly finagled a high purchase price from my husbands uncle and aunt so they could move on with their business and other home. The reason it was over priced is that there were two liens on the property so those had to be paid off, thus adding to the homes purchase. The financial rep we had work with us was amazing! He got our loan where other companies like Quicken wouldn't return our repeated phone calls at all and we moved into our lil homestead. My husband decided to get out of his uncles Electrical business as he could see trouble ahead and didn't want the common problems contractors face: little to know work, lay-offs, traveling many miles for a small job here and there and more; so when a great opportunity came once more to him from a friend who was running a chemical plant as a Electrician/Electrical Engineer with steady hours and guaranteed OT he took it. It was a great move with awesome paid-for benefits and such, getting him as much, if not more than what he was making as a contractor.
   THEN IT HAPPENED! A new company came into the picture and decided they needed to cut the guaranteed OT and cut hours for all the maintaince crew. We struggled for months to pay bills at this point. Even though I was working full time plus at my job(which I no longer have as we were blessed with a wonderful baby girl- and my job didn't pay enough to afford daycare and the drive to and from) continuously, I too had some outrageous bills that were there as I struggled to make a home for my children from my first marriage. I started from scratch in our home, my kids needed everything and we had near to nothing for them in our new home. Not forgetting that in the divorce I was told I had to pay support to my ex- who was having his mother buy all the kids their things, do everything for him and even paying some of his bills (as my children confided in me).
  We were determined to make it so I started clipping coupons, saving where I could, growing my own veggies and budgeting to the last penny. Meanwhile some payments to bills such as our home went missed knowingly, though we reached out many times to Wells Fargo to get help we only received help with a supervisor to the representative we had assigned to our mortgage a couple times. What we received mostly were full voice-boxes when you called the rep or the supervisor, or no returned calls what so ever! During these times were highs and lows. When we start to get on the plus side and things started to look up some major thing would happen like our hot water tanks (yes, two) failed, we had a major leak in our roof with extensive damage and much, much more. Next thing you know the payments start coming back with no explanation. Our double payments come back with no explanation; that is, until I receive a certified letter from the mortgage company followed by a visit by a wonderful lady from the Sheriffs department.
  The Sheriff tells me to take the actions she had printed for me as she sees the mortgage companies name and knows first hand their ill doings, having had issues with them personally (and never being a client of them at all)! So now we contact a lawyer and shell out more money that we had not planned on and taking away from bills. Meanwhile the house is still in a sad state of disrepair and now that my husbands job has improved greatly financially, he is a manager on salary now at the company and works from 5:30 AM to 4:00 PM every week day (sometimes on weekends as well). That doesn't end there. He also comes home to answer constant calls from work, work sales reps, constant emails and a barrage of work that can only seem to be done here (with less distraction from annoying ppl).

  So here we are in limbo waiting to hear something, anything about the status of our homestead; wondering if it is worth doing repairs or even yard work if there is the slightest possibility we may not own the home we've fought so hard to have for our kids and family. This is the America we have become and there are too many others out there feeling this story too. I see it all the time. I can go to the grocery store and pass a dozen homes abandoned- sitting empty that once had families playing in the yards.

  I had to get this off my back as this monkey is big and always looming no matter what I do. Many people approach foreclosure as a silent whisper of shame that many struggle with, but for me I see the need for others to know I'm HERE. I'm the same as you. We only want to live our lives for our children and make the best of the American life we can for them.