Today the lady who looked at the trailer with her friend who will be living in it called me.  She said they definitely want it, and had talked to the park manager. The lease stipulations said the shed had to be moved, they had to fix the underpinning skirting and they had to clean up the yard.  Not too bad for a free house, so they agreed, and the guy had to fill out an application.  When they find out if he’s approved, she’ll call me back and let me know.  I HOPE he gets approved. Gosh!  Turns out, he’s a divorced dad paying a ton in child support and is staying with this woman who had contacted me. He’s living with her because he can’t afford rent on anything else, so without friends, he’d be homeless.  Sounds like the other guy living in the camper. Remind me if I ever divorce DH not to take him to the cleaners and leave him homeless.  Thanks.  That just sucks!  So, anyway, the swingset will stay I guess, in case his kids visit.  They didn’t mention it anyway.  I’m SO excited about this now!  Once it is out of our hands and we can no longer be beholden to the managers of that other trailer park, the better my sanity will be!!  I’m glad I decided to put it on Freecycle.

Today was a crapper financially though.  DH’s antibiotics plus his Plavix and Lipitor and Lisinopril all came to over $300 – that was the money I was going to pay the past due amount on the electric bill.  We STILL haven’t met his deductible.  I think he’s really close, but DAMN!  we’re living on next to nothing and everything is getting behind just to keep him alive.  I’m going to have to call them electric company or go down there in person and see if I can get them to defer it another month due to these circumstances. When I signed up for the high deductible insurance this year, it was with the intention of using the tax refund to pay all the medical bills and prescriptions that would make up the deductible very quickly, then we’d be fine the rest of the year. However, we decided on the spur of the moment to buy this house.  I AM SO GLAD we did, but OMG, these bills!  We had $2500 in medical bills we didn’t get paid off last year that we still owe, and now we’re up to nearly $2000 more NEW medical bills  ACK!!!!  And to think this time last year we were fresh out of bankruptcy and didn’t owe a dime to anone.  DAMN.  I think I’m gonna cry now.   I seriously need a bailout!!!  Heck at least we still have our jobs.   KNOCK ON WOOD!!!

The guy who said he’d buy our trailer for $300 down and then another $500 over 5 months has backed out because the landlord is an asshole.  So, after a few days of discussion DH and I decided to give it away.

I was sick today, some stomach bug or something but deinitely needed to be near a working bathroom all day (blech) and so couldn’t go work on cleaning out the old trailer like I’d planned. I decided to send 16 and her boyfriend over there to get as much done as they could. She said she got the living room and kitchen all clean, but didn’t touch the bedrooms which are what needed it the most of course.  While she was there I texted her to ask the neighbor who had backed out of buying if he would take the place for free.  We just asked that he’d pay April’s rent and give us one more week to get it all cleaned out and haul off the junk.  He said he’d mull it over and get back to me… he never called.

So, I put it on Freecycle.. or tried.  The ad never posted. I have no idea why.  So after a few hours I posted a short one and then sent the moderators an email asking why it was not approved and yes I really was giving away a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home.  Well, the co-mod wrote back and said she didn’t know why it was never approved, but now that she’d read about the place, she was interested in it for her adult kid who was paying too much for rent.  So I sent a very detailed email listing the stuff wrong with it and all the good stuff as well. It’s in an IDEAL location, (well other than the asshole landlord), and that helps a lot.  I mean hell, put about $5000 into the place and you could make it look like it was on HGTV. I know I could do it with that much anyway. heh. Well, she’s not replied either.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day to give away a house.

Oh, and a couple days ago, DH had mentioned there was an email for him at work about bonuses and how to check what his would be etc.  He was set to get $3400…  but today he came home and said his store didn’t meat the goal to get hte bonus.  DAMN.  That money could have changed our lives.  It would have paid off his old medical bills and gotten us out of cash advances and right where we need to be.. a clean slate.  But no… we’re still a year behind on Dr bills and almost 2 months behind on electric.  I’m sick of having no money and  being so damn far behind.  I knew my ideas on money were really changing the last couple of times DH and I went to eat lunch together, I felt guilty. I know we need to pay these bills and get them off our backs. I’d rather have a PB&J sandwich and send the $20 we’d spend on lunch out to a Dr or save for his medication.

As I posted earlier today, WE GOT THE HOUSE!!

So, what’s the next step?  Well, it wasn’t getting any sleep, that’s for sure.  I decided it was finally time to pack, like seriously make a dent in it.  Fortunately DH and I had picked up a bunch of boxes behind the Dollar Tree.  I completely cleaned out my closet of hanging clothes, packed the stuff i know I won’t wear in the next month, and put stuff with stains or holes into the trash bag and nice stuff i don’t want or can’t get into, went into the Goodwill bag.  The local schools lets school out at noon due to the ice storm we were set to get.  So when the kids got home, I let them know the good news and they started packing their stuff. I told them to box up anything they don’t wear to school normally and any toys they can live without for a month or two. I don’t have a clue how long it will take to get settled in with heat and water and all that, so I don’t want them to pack stuff they’ll be crying for later.  Though to be honest, I don’t see it taking long to unpack everything.  There’s not much room here for them to actually own much.   It’s DH and I that have too much junk.  Even he impressed the heck out of me today.  He looked around the room at the progress I had made and said “My knick knacks and things I want to display…  throw away any of them that are broken.”  I asked if he was sure since almost all of his things are broken due to the kids knocking them off tables and shelves and breaking off pieces of them.  Poor guy.  He nodded yes. and said, “I am tired of having things that are broken.  besides it gives me an excuse to buy new ones I like.”   …  wow.  Can it be that DH has finally come around?  He’s no longer the “I don’t care what the house looks like as long as I have my books and laptop.” kind of guy.  He finally cares!  Groundhog Day is AWESOME!

Oh, and when DH got home from work, he had checked the mail, and the last W2 had arrived.  Since he has to work 13 hour days the next two days, I asked my boss online if I could come in late, then called and made a last minute appt with H&R Block and headed to town with DH.  16 was supposed to make dinner, which she of course didn’t do. Lazy kid.

We did the 1-2 day Classic Rapid Refund. We’ll get the check in 1-2 days. Usually it’s the next day when we get it. I hope it will be so in this case too.  As soon as I get the money, I’m going to call the trailer people and set up a time to meet and do the down payment and sign papers etc.  DH is off Thursday, so I guess that’ll be the day.  Meanwhile I’m hoping they’ll let me go check out the trailer again.  If it didn’t seem kind of creepy, I’d love to just go and sit down in the floor of each room, and *feel* what it’s like to be there. I’d start cleaning, but they need to do that as part of their agreement of things they do.  I’d LOVE to start putting moving boxes in the bedrooms to get them out of here!, but that won’t happen til we put the money down and get the keys (even though they leave it unlocked right now.)

I guess I can’t really get the electric and water and internet started on the whole switching over process til I have the keys and can say it is OUR address.  OMG a new address!!  WOOHOO.  I’ve had this same address for 16 years and it’s a horrible street name and we always have to spell it for people. I hate it.  The new one should be much easier for non-locals.  And locals will all know where it is from the name.  Pretty cool.

Oh, and the other day when I showed the house to DH, I took some pics with my camera (I finally found it again). The front porch, kitchen, DH checking out the sink cabinet for water damage (none we could find anywhere! woohoo), the kids’ bathroom and the view from the back porch.  The bluish gray line in the background is the mountains.  I’ve got to cut down that brush stuff blocking my view!

OMG Someone pinch me!  It’s happened,… it’s really finally happened.  We’re buying a new house.  Ok, so it’s actually another trailer in another trailer park… but that’s OK!  It’s a HUGE trailer 16×80.. that’s over 1200 sq ft (so, for us it’s a mansion).  It’s on a back corner lot with a back deck that has a mountain view. It has a dishwasher!  A laundry room!  A walk in closet!!

The lady called this morning and apologized for making me wait the weekend, but it’s property tax season and they were really busy.  She said they reviewed our credit, and even taking into account my husband’s heart attack, our credit was still really low (they happened to pull the worst of the three reports btw,  of course!).  So, in order for them to approve it, they’d need $3000 down instead of $2500.  I said that would not be a problem.  Then she went on to talk about reducing the length of the note from 10 years to 8 years, and the payment actually barely changed.  So, I agreed to that as well.  She asked if we’d like to reduce the length more due to how much we make.  She was impressed with our income haha.  I think our income is really what did it for us.  Thank God for the promotions last year!   So anyway, she said, well, based on this, then we will approve you, congratulations!  I was in shock.  I thanked her very much and told her I’d tell her as soon as we knew anything about the tax refund, and then hung up.  I just sat there for a while at first.  Then I called DH at work to tell him.  He was shocked LOL.  He even agreed that maybe we should just do the rapid refund and be done with it. Then I texted 16 at school and told her and she asked if we can move in next week LOLOLOL.  Ummm no.   SO much to do.  In fact I told her no boyfriend visits til we get the trash out of here, sort through crap and pack stuff we’re taking and make a dozen trips to each the dumpster and Goodwill.

Wow…  we’re really going to move.  Thank you God.