Milestone!

I input all of the payments we've made this month, as I do after every pay day. I put all of our new balances in, taking into account what we spent on vacation. The only outstanding payment we have for April is my car, but I can estimate the balance based on interest rates and fixed payment amounts.

And then I came to a shocking and exciting realization.

For the first time since I started my debt payoff journey, we owe less than $200,000 in debt!

This months debt total is $199,564.32!

Slow and steady wins the race, right?

In other news, I'm trying to refinance our house. Supposedly, HARP 2.0 eliminated a cap on LTV and appraisals on your home. As I am learning, this is not necessarily so. Since financial institutions have a choice in whether they want to offer HARP refinancing or not, most of them are not willing to provide refinancing through this program. Why should they, I guess, when they're making a profit off of those of us that are locked into high interest rates and haven't walked away from our homes yet.

I tried to refinance through my credit union yesterday, but they enforce a 125% LTV cap on their HARP loans. We're looking at closer to 148% based on Zillow's values. Even if we used the higher assessment we received from the auditors office for tax purposes, we're still at 133% LTV.

I hate that we live in a society where I'm being punished for being responsible and paying my mortgage, unlike the majority of my neighbors. I don't know if our situation would be more bearable if we were paying less on our home, but it would certainly lessen the sting. Every day I ask myself why we're still paying our mortgage when all of our neighbors have walked away and the current owners paid 1/3 of what we did for our home. We're gluttons for punishment, I guess.

We have to make a pretty big repair to our home, to the tune of over $8000, but I don't know where we're going to find the money. In better times, we might have been able to take out a home equity line of credit, but since our equity is negative, there is nothing to take out. It's our sewer line, and it's a ticking time bomb. The walls are cracked and it has started to shift in about 1/4-1/2 of an inch. I know we need to fix it, but I don't know where we'll find the money.

Roto Rooter was pretty shady about the whole thing; they told us in our home that it would be a max $4000 to have the work done, so I took a $4000 loan out of my 401k, only for them to give us a proposal of $8175. When I told him he had quoted us $4000 at our home, he said there was no way he would have quoted that because it was impossible and told me to take out a loan for the other $4000. I told him I took out a loan for the first $4000 and it wasn't even in the ballpark of what we were willing to do for our home at this time.

I applied for a new job too. I'm not sure if I am ready to leave where I am, but the job I applied for pays significantly more, and it's more in line with the career path I'm following. We'll see if I even get an interview, and then I will start making decisions if it's necessary.

Alas, I must get back to work, but I wanted to share my good news.

260: Fired Up

I am so angry this morning.

I have banked with Kemba Financial Credit Union for seven years or so. I have always sang their praises, extolled their virtues, and recommended them to my friends. They have the highest interest rates of any local credit union, they've been easy to work with, when issues have cropped up with my account they've resolved them quickly. I have two checking accounts, two savings accounts, an IRA, a credit card, a car loan, and a CD with them, as well as having a savings account for each of my children.

I have never paid a fee with them, except when I overdrew my account.

Until this morning.

I woke up to find that they have implemented a new program called Kemba Advantage. It's great if you qualify, but apparently they now charge a "Kemba Advantage Fee" if you don't. I honestly never considered that I wouldn't qualify. Between the four accounts, I deposit close to $2000 a month into my accounts, and charge $300-$400 a month on my credit card. I don't use my checking account much, except to pay bills, but many of my credit card payments are drawn from that account.

The qualifications for Kemba Advantage are that you deposit your paycheck (at least $1000 a month), receive estatements, and have 15 transactions per month. In order to avoid a fee, you must meet these qualifications, or have an average daily balance of $500 in your checking account.

I had 13 transactions this month. So they took $14; $6.95 per checking account.

I'm ready to pull all of my money, close my accounts, pay off my credit cards, and transfer my car loan to our other credit union. I'm pissed. We don't have "a lot" of money invested, but it is growing on a biweekly basis.

I was so excited to do a balance transfer to my Kemba credit card and be done with my Best Buy and Target card. Now I've paid over $5000 on a credit card that I want to pay and close, leaving me with a high interest credit card instead.

I'm so angry.

I e-mailed their customer service and demanded the fee back. If I don't receive it back on BOTH accounts, I will be closing all accounts. Our other credit union doesn't charge fees. They don't pay as much in interest, but online banks do. Online banks pay more.

This is not how good companies keep good customers.