Letting go

So, I haven’t blogged in a while. Fortunately there’s Facebook so people still know I’m alive.

(Run on sentence alert) In any case, I feel like the past month has been one of the best, most fun and relaxing I’ve had in a long time. Late June/early July Kristin was in town, and I got to spend an whole day with her, Mark, Karen & Logan, Trey and I have had more time together, I had a really great round of concerts with Wicker Park at the beginning of July, and I have a recital coming up tomorrow that has been a lot of fun to rehearse and put together. On top of that, it’s just been a fun summer in Chicago with the Hawks Stanley Cup, the Transformers movie filming, and the fact that we’ve got summer weather for the first time in several years.

At the same time, there’s been a horrible undercurrent of stress, most of it related to financial stress that is a direct result of our property tax situation. I’ve felt like if I do start blogging, all I’m going to do is complain, and I really don’t want to be one of those chronic complainers, because frankly I think those people are a pain in the ass and no fun to be around.

Anyway, I think last weekend kind of put me over the edge stress wise, because of several smaller things: a) I’m going to need new tires before winter, b) I’m going to have some car repairs that will cost more than we can technically afford at the moment, c) Sepp is sick, and while we’re not going to take any heroic measures for him, even an exam and a blood test at the vet costs an insane amount of money (more on all of that in a separate post later on), and d) our air conditioner is not quite working properly. I came to the realization that we’re finally getting to the point I’ve been dreading ever since this whole issue came up.

As a reminder, in February of this year, our mortgage payments went up 35% as a result of the property tax screw up because our taxes are paid out of an escrow account. Anyway, I estimate that if we wipe out what we’ve got in short term savings, we’ll be Ok with mortgage payments through the December payment. At that point I could screw with my 401(k) and take a loan from there, or we could use the extra student loan money that Trey will get above and beyond his tuition for the year and go through April, May if we’re lucky. The huge problem is – I have no confidence whatsoever that the situation will be straightened out by then. If it’s not, we’ll have to go into foreclosure with no backup resources, probably not even a deposit for an apartment.

I should add, just as a reiteration, that we are responsible with finances (bought a house we could afford until things got screwed up, don’t have any credit card debt, don’t go out to each much, brown bag lunch every single day, clip coupons, etc.) but I think that at this point we’re almost living so carefully that it’s ridiculous. We do go to a couple of baseball games a year, but we bring in our own food. We go to the opera a few times a year, but sit in the cheapest seats. We’re doing a long weekend in Cleveland in August to get out of town for a few days, but we’re doing it on the cheap. We drink wine, but we drink the $3-4 a bottle wine. Long story short, I do consider having a little fun essential to not having a nervous breakdown, and frankly, I don’t think we do quite enough of it.

So yesterday, Trey and I got to go to Wrigley for the first time this year (and the Cubs won!). We had a few extra minutes once we got back to the Addison stop on the blue line, and there’s a little German restaurant/bar right there we’ve been wanting to try, so we stopped in for a beer and had a nice long talk. We decided that we’re going to make our September mortgage payment, and then we’re just going to stop paying. We figure that when our fall tax bill comes due, we won’t be far enough behind on the mortgage that they won’t pay it, so the county won’t seize our cars or those kinds of assets because of non-payment of taxes.

I also know that the foreclosure rate in Illinois is so high right now that the court system in really backed up – we could easily end up living here for another 6 months before we have to move. There was actually a story in the Trib the other day about the skyrocketing foreclosure rate in the NW burbs, and our condo development was mentioned specifically because of the screwed up tax situation. Anyway, even if it’s just a few months, we won’t have totally screwed ourselves financially, aside from wrecking our credit for the next decade, before we have to leave – as much as I love my mother and appreciate her help, I don’t want to have to move in with her.

Despite all of it, I still have a glimmer of hope that this will all work out before we have to move. That being said, I feel completely powerless that we’ll be able to get anything done to resolve the situation ourselves without taking it on as a full time job. So, if plan A, plan A being some kind of miraculous resolution, doesn’t work then plan B is just to let it all go, and that feels so good.