I'm Poo'in Bricks!

So our mortgage company just sent a letter... they have been under-charging our property taxes through our escrow account and starting next month, our monthly payment will increase $300! YIKES. I pretty much had a breakdown this past weekend, I've been waking in the middle of the night stressed out about this entire situation.

I LOVE my house, I really like our property, we have all these plans to make things great around the place. But I dont know if we'll be able to keep our house! We have talked a lot about where to go from here, what to do if we just cant make the payment and still have a life. As it is right now, we pretty much have to end whatever life we have and just plug away at making that monthly mortgage payment, we literally are married to the house payment and it is really tough to justify keeping a house when it straps you so badly you cant stop stressing out.

I sat down the other day with Derek and we were trying to figure out WHY we are struggling so badly with our payment. When we decided to build the house, we calculated worst case scenario on our mortgage payment and our payment is at the worst case scenario price, which we previously determined we could deal with, so how is it that now that we have it, why cant we afford it? Well... 1.5 years ago when we started the process of deciding to build the house, Derek was making $12,000 MORE per year than he is right now!! And my income has not increased in over 2 years. I actually am getting less in bonuses than I was before, so my income has decreased as well. What was doable 2 years ago when we made this decision, has become almost undoable at this point.

It is scary to think of all the time/work we have put into this place and to think we might have to sell it. We are not making any hasty decisions just yet, we are trying to figure this out and see how things go for a couple months. We are desperately trying to refinance and get into a lower mortgage rate, which is incredibly frustrating! If we have to sell, then we are doing things differently.. we talk a lot about the what-if's. We have to, we'd be dumb not to. IF we had to sell, we would sell, use the leftover cash to pay off the red truck, sell the green one, buy a new car, rent somewhere or live with my parents (if they'd have us!) and save up some cash for a couple years and buy a new place down the road.

The lender I am working with seems to think he can get us into a fixed loan.. I'm not holding my breath. If he can, then it would put our payment (with our increased taxes) at a little less than what we currently pay per month. So I may not hold my breath, but I am crossing my fingers!!!