CF Fatboy Is Mildly Depressed

I’m sorry to make this a rant/sob story of the likes of Beautiful’s today, but we’re a team, and we are in this together. What affects one of us, no matter how opposite the other is in demeanor, time wears the other either up or down until we have a celebration day or a pity party with both of us immovable until even Fatboy breaks down and cries.

When we got married, we did our budget within the first month and were not able to make the numbers match up, but we somehow made it work. We out-earned our expenses. What got us ahead were career advancements and career moves with advancements. Our expenses stayed the same until 2 major life events in the last 2 years of our almost 4 years of marriage:

1. Buying our townhome
2. Fatboy going self-employed

There’s some good, bad, and ugly in those two events that look like this. This is where any but of sob story ends and it’s pure facts.

The townhome

We bought at what we thought was the low point in the market. However, being our first house, if we had it all over to do again, we would have looked out for warning signs that HAD to be there that we didn’t know how to look for. About 6 months after we moved in, the last buildings they had started were done and the builders converted the model to a home and packed up and moved. The unused lots go unmowed for 6 months at a time and home values are supposedly crashing, though we haven’t had out beautiful pond view unit appraised. The units across the street were under shortsale for 3/5 the price we paid, though they have a view of palmetto bushes past a barbed wire fence. The builder (Tousa) is in bankruptcy hearings now, so who knows when a reputable builder will buy up the other lots and resume building. As a result of foreclosures and an unfinished development, the HOA is dying and it’s beginning to look a little bit like ghetto. It’s sad to leave and come home through the disarray. We realize we have a tremendous asset when the market turns, but the mortgage went up nearly a fifth and we have to get a new homeowner’s insurance that is 1/3 more expensive than before because the other (Homewise) is unable to payout if something happens.

My self-employment

This is totally not an option to change at this point. We’ve realized that this is the only way I can nearly guarantee control over increasing my income with a good plan in place and the only way I can ensure being 100% compliant with my treatments and doctors’ visits. The problem is my individual health insurance policy is nearly 3x more than with the company and it is almost guaranteed to go up by 20% per year.

Our options as we see it

For now, all we can think of is cutting our telecom to the bare minimum – and I mean minimum, like using Skype as our home phone. Our one great asset and decision is the Kia that we actually have equity in seems like a bad idea to sell and get a hoopdie that may turn into a money pit for a mere 2 months of cushion (well one month after purchasing the hoopdie).

That leaves part-time job(s) or coming up with a killer gameplan for multiple streams of income or one killer product/service that blesses us beyond our dreams – and I dream big. It’s just that every time I have a gangbuster month, the next month sucks and it’s just barely what we need to get by as an average… until these stupid unexpected, new, confusing, and expensive barrels of crap fall from the sky into our lives.

Beautiful has a medical test on Friday and our awareness bands arrive on Friday, too. If you’re of the praying type, please, please pray that her test isn’t expensive and our awareness bands campaign is a success, both for us and for CF research. 25% of profits for either the bands or straight donations will go to the CF Foundation. I plan on opening the store sometime late Thursday for a few hours of pre-ordering before the bands arrive via FedEx.

I leave you with my life verse since high school, 13 years ago. I often lose sight of it, but I’m always brought back to it because it is written in my heart.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28 (NASB)