I got divorced in Oct 2010 and part of the settlement agreement was that I pay the mortgage as alimony on the martial home where she resides until Feb 2012. The house is still in both out names since we just refinanced in Feb. 2010. I have paid every mortgage payment and every CS support payment on time. My work has slowed down tremendously during the Summer due to low student numbers at both schools I teach at. Plus she just lost her hour job last week. Being a different religious beliefs was one of the many things we got divorced over although it was not the biggest thing. I doubt she will ever come to Christ, but I can’t help but pray and have hope that through my actions toward her and what positive changes she sees in our own children that she will someday understand or at least seek understanding. I wish her the best for her for the sake and our 2 darling children, but we have both come on hard times. That’s why I sought out help from my church. They generously paid my mortgage and some other bills through the grace of God.

She does not know anything about my financial situation except that I have been able to pay. Would it make any difference for the better to let my EX know I have fallen on hard times and that my church has paid for her alimony? If so, how would you word it in an email?

To top it off she has a live in boyfriend that stays there at night with our young kids. I obviously don’t have the money to go to court about this. I rather use that money on the kids.

Thanks for reading. Please help.
Thanks for all the suggestions and advice. This is not BS. It is the real deal. I don’t like the idea of spending more money that neither of us have on lawyers, but it may result in that.

Since I know we both are poor, what if I demanded that the live in boyfriend leave the house OR pay the mortgage without a lawyer, but then be prepared to back it up with a lawyer? Maybe a volunteer lawyer from my Church? I don’t know if there is such a thing.

My two brothers and myself inherited our parent’s 5-story, 12-unit apartment building on the vibrant west side of Manhattan, NYC over four years ago. We also have a commercial tenant on the ground floor (a successful restaurant). Almost three years ago we took out a 7-year million mortgage on this property (and our building pays around ,500 per month for this mortgage) and I was happily able to retire on the 0K I pocketed. We have recently discussed what more we can now do to get another nice chunk of $$. This past year we were able to take an annual total of approximately K each from the building’s profits (our rent-roll totals around K per month). All three of us agree that attempting to sell the building right now in this terrible economy is not an option. MY suggestion was that we refinance our mortgage as interest rates are low now. However, one of my brothers feels uncomfortable doing that because (a) we would have to pay around K outright just to take care of the first mortgage, in addition to paying closing costs, fees, etc., and (b), although he feels that the building would be able to pay the higher monthly mortgage payment, he feels uncomfortable about leveraging our building for over million, especially when right now all property values are low. He would prefer for us to just continue taking our monthly $$$ from the building’s profits. My answer to that is that this current terrible economy is hopefully a temporary anomaly and that property values will rebound in a year or two. The three of us are in our 60′s and I feel that tomorrow is promised to no one, and we should enjoy as much money as we can while we are still healthy enough to. I am the only brother who REALLY needs a financial shot in the arm now; they don’t. I expressed to my brother that his discomfort level shouldn’t deny us in getting another nice chunk of money each. Is there any method of perhaps having a bank give us a "mini-loan" allowing just me to get around 0K? Does anyone have any idea how we can safely get more $$$ from this valuable property, instead of just taking "nickels and dimes" per month from the building’s profit? Perhaps there is some way that I could somehow take 0K from the building without jeopardizing the financial integrity of the building, if my two brothers agree to that method? Thank you.

I believe I am a typical 33 year old, married male, who earns a decent living and manages/invests my money well, i think, but I am not 100% sure.  Most articles and research I see highlights either the super rich or people who have tanked.

I make between 150k and 185k p/year depending on bonuses.  My pay has risen sharply over the past 5 years with some promotions and I’ve increased my investments along the way.  Here is a high level breakdown of my financial situation:

Debt:

22k school loans (combined wife and mine into single low interest loan)

Home – owe 350k on a home worth about 420k.  I pay an additional mortgage payment per year automatically by spreading that payment out into 12 monthly payments.

Auto – owe about 2500 on a 2004 Durango.  I pay 0 per month so I am almost done with that.  I plan to continue to dump 0 per month into an account after this car is paid off.  The hope is to drive this car for 3-4 more years and use the money from that fund to buy a new, more energy efficient car, using cash.

No other debt

Account balances:

20k emergency fund in Ally Bank savings account.  I place 0 dollars per month automatically in this account each month.

10k in liquid savings account.  I put left over money manually into this account monthly.  I try to keep this at 10k at all times.

100k in 401k all invested in Fidelity 2040 target fund.  I now max 401k each year.  My company doesn’t do a match.  They dump profit sharing into the 401k yearly regardless of if I invest into the account or not.

11k in Traditional IRA all invested in Fidelity 2040 target fund.  I now max this out at 5k each year with monthly automatic payments.

1k in newly opened Traditional IRA I opened for my wife.  I plan to max this out now yearly at 5k and this is also invested in Fidelity 2040 target fund.

5k in 529 college fund invested in growth strategy fund in Illinois Bright Start fund.  I automatically invest 0 per month into this account.

Donations:

I donate about 3k to church tithes yearly (I should do better here)

Other than that, that is my financial situation.  I spend just about everything else per month on entertainment, food, bills, etc. for my wife, myself, and two year old daughter.  We plan on one more child and other than adding an additional 0 to another 529, my current financial plan would stay the same.

Other than maybe some better budgeting to leave some money for some short term investing, is there anything else I should be doing?  Anything I am doing I shouldn’t be doing?  I know Target fund approach seems lazy but I work and travel a lot and just don’t have the time to micromanage my portfolio.

From goals perspective, I want a few simple things.

1. Retire early if possible
2. Pay for some or all of kids college
3. Pay for daughters wedding

Again, most investment advice doesn’t seem to be geared towards someone like me so any advice is appreciated.  I just don’t want to "think" I am doing ok if I could be doing something better.
Thanks for the candid feedback Steven. I don’t disagree with anything you said. I can definitely do more with my income. I think I should hit up a financial advisor to dig even deeper and get me on the path you outlined below.

They lure the homeowner with lies and low payments, cancel the program last minute instead of finalizing it (as happens to 99.8% of those who are supposedly approved and get sucked into it) only to mail foreclosure documents instead of the finalized paperwork. I think it’s the biggest scam in the history of mankind. The government gave handouts in the hundreds of billions to the banks to bribe them into putting homeowners into HAMP (they called me nonstop for 3 months even though I was current for 9 years until I gave in, lowering my payment from 00 to 00 so how could I say no?). They pay the mortgage co. for each sucker they suck into the scam, then the mortgage company adds the difference that the homeowner is supposedly saving onto their loan balance without ever telling them (for those who haven’t been kicked out yet I’ll give you a heads up what to expect). Then they say "you’re not approved" for a bogus reason they make up (you can go to forums and read about everything under the sun they’ll make up to not finalize the terms) then hey consider it you hadn’t made your mortgage payment the whole time they had you on the scam modification and mail foreclosure documents! Let’s hope Obama goes to jail for signing this bill, advocating it and even airing in commercials telling innocent homeowners in need to call their mortgage company (if the sharks hadn’t contacted them yet) to get on this "program" so they can steal their house. What a crook of an administration we have.

You might think how can mortgage companies make money in a foreclosure?
1. The government pays them for each homeowner they succeed in putting on a modification (HAMP)
2. They add the difference between the fake discounted monthly payments and the regular one and add it onto the mortgage balance at the end (this goes for the less than 1% of those who get the terms finalized!! Win-Win for them
3. The difference between the mortgage balance and the value the lender sells the home in foreclosure – yup you guessed it, Uncle Obama pays them! cha-ching. Bank of America, Citi – they’re all gonna have a nice fat Christmas at poor homeowner’s expense who got suckered into the worse than ponzi scam that cost them their house. Mine will be auctioned off next Thursday after they suckered me in Last October and had me on the fake trial payments and all of the above transpired and yes I do have a lawyer but it’s hard going against the government and the mortgage company and all their lawyers so it’s a lost cause.
I was desperate and shocked, I appealed to my congressman who wrote letters to Bank of America on my behalf. I complained to the Treasury department since B of A is a national bank and long story short what I learned is that they are on the bank’s side 100% – I wonder if I suffered a heart attack because I felt so betrayed and in shock and had a panic attack how through lots of lies they were taking my home, lied about everything. For those of you who are asking for references, it’s all over the internet, it’s not a secret for the millions of homeowners who are victims of this scam, you can read up on it if interested. I just can’t believe this could happen in the United States, I hate our government! They are crooks, as are the banks!!
My mortgage balance is under 729K. My income and everything qualified based on the guidelines I was told. In fact they won’t even tell me why they’re not doing it, all I get is that the system kicked it out. I asked them to send that in writing and they never did. Each time I call I get a different story. I just wish I could rewind the time and never have gone on it.
Billy Bob – deferred still means it is owed. When I agreed to get on the program they never told me the amount they discounted my payments would be added as a lien/deffered/whatever you want to call it – that I would still owe it!!

support check and my first mortgage payment is due. I went to the church for help, my son told the school we had no food and they sent home lunch snacks so we would make it through the weekend.
My husband and I were married in 1997 right after boot camp. For 11 years and 48 months of overseas deployments all together, I stayed faithful. I had a son with him in 99 and a daughter in 01. Right after my son was born, he began to show extreme anger and off and on before 06 he showed abusive behavior towards me, IE, strangling to the floor, slaps in the face, items thrown at me resulting in bruises. In 04, I convinced him to discharge from the military, go home and bond with his family. When we went back home and he got out, he wouldn’t work. It was 5 months and I had to work to support us by myself. He moped around the house, wouldn’t even help with the kids. One night I told him if he didn’t do something that he could leave. When I came home from work that night, I found a note on the table that said, "I have the kids, I’ll be in touch". He took the kids, all their clothes and took them to his parents house. When I contacted them, they threatened to press tresspassing on me should I show up to see them. I told my dad, my dad went to his parents house and convinced my husband to bring them back. When he put them in the car to bring them home, his dad got into a fist fight with my husband in front of my children, but he brought them back. He came home and then wanted to fix things with me and because of the on going war with his parents and myself, I told him it was them or us and he chose us. He went back into the military and was deployed to Iraq. I took care of the bills and kids completely alone until he returned. When he returned, we were stationed in Montana as him being an Army recruiter. This was 2006.

During 2006, the fights got worse. He was rarely home, always late and when he did come home and I asked him where he was, it would either result in hours worth of him yelling at me, throwing things at me in front of the kids or him disappearing for days at a time with no idea where he was and he always said it was his job keeping him gone and I just didn’t understand that nor supported him. When I went to his chain of command, they always took his side and at one time, his Sgt told me if I didn’t like this life, to get out and deal with the fact that it was my job to support my husband no matter his actions because that was just the way it works. In October of 06, I was fed up with this behavior and decided to leave if he didn’t want to work this out. The only place I had to go was Alabama to the only friend I had that I had met online. I was homebound and raising 2 children alone for so long, I had no one else. My mother is paralyzed from the neck down due to a car accident in 95 and my dad takes care of her alone. He knew where I was headed to and did nothing to stop me. He encouraged the idea of us all leaving so I did. I was in Alabama for 2 months and he rarely called the kids, always said he was too busy. After 2 months, I had enough and decided to come back to Montana on my own. When I got home, I found the sheets on my bed turned inside out and panties under my bed which he denied having an affair and since I was the one that left, I let it go.

In 2007, I found a daycare and a job working in Corrections and got my own direct deposit and benefits. During the times he was supposed to pick them up from daycare, there were countless times he didn’t and they couldn’t find him to do so and they called me to tell me they were closing soon and needed me to pick up the kids. I couldn’t because I wasn’t off work yet and he wasn’t answering his cell. The checks he wrote the daycare were hot and eventually they got tired of this and kicked my kids out of daycare due to his absence when it was time to pick them up and me having to consistantly cover the hot checks. I found a new daycare and continued my job. There was another Army Recruiter that put a guy in the army and shortly after this guy went to bootcamp, the army recruiter had an affair with the guys wife. The recruiters wife just had a baby and 2 more small children with no family so I let her come live with me so I could help her get back on her feet. During this duration, which I have found out recently, she was having sex with my husband in my home and in my bed. My son caught them and my husband threw a beer can at him.

During 2008, as I continued working, trying to keep daycare happy with his consistant disappearing acts, taking care of her kids as well, I began to get frusterated and every time I asked my husband where he was all the time, he always said that he worked 16 hour days to support us and for me to get over it. In November, 3 days after our 10th anniversary, he brought his work computer home with him and that also frusterated me and when I begged him to put it down and spend time with me, it resulted in a beer can thrown at my face and a black eye. The police were involved and I have a report. Days after that, I tried to walk away from a fight and he threw a s
The police were involved and I have a report. Days after that, I tried to walk away from a fight and he threw a steel toed boot and hit me in the head in front of my son. I also got hit in the hip with a lighter and a glass ashtray to my foot. I threw him out of the house with that one and told him if he didn’t leave, I would press charges this time. The next day, he packed his things and disappeared. I would text him, call him – no response. I had no friends or family except my co workers. He never called the daycare to talk to the kids and we didn’t see him again until Xmas and briefly. He promised to help us make the transition when I filed for divorce.
In January of this year, we hadn’t heard from him, got barely any money from him and all of a sudden he showed up at my house to "take the kids", so I called the cops and they issued a no contact order until the divorce was final. He told me I could claim both kids on the taxes so I would have the money to make the move. He got his w2′s before me and claimed my daughter behind my back, refused to give us any money for support because he said I didn’t respect him and wouldn’t contact TMO so we could have help moving. I tried, but they said I wasn’t the service member and I couldn’t do it, so I did it alone financially and physically and with my 2 kids. The divorce was final in March and I went to Child Support Enforcement and they explained to me it would be a while before I saw my first check because the military do things a month behind. In April, we made our move, and I tried contacting him to talk to his kids. He blew me off. In May, I still hadn’t seen my first child suppor
This thing won’t let me tell everything, not enough space

Ohio economy is in serious trouble my sister works at 2 different gas stations part time through out the week and is a student as well she said it depresses her watching people come up with just a little bit of money to put in their tanks. I work 2 P-T jobs as a bartender and one at a grocery store and me and my coworkers been talking about how things have slowed down business wise and customers are hardly buying more then a few sack fulls at a time. We all been talking about it at church every week. So many people cannot even afford a weeks worth of groceries. Some people can’t apply for help like food stamps when your income is above a certain limit. So I guess many of us are forced to choose from your mortgage payment every month or getting enough gas in your vehicles just to get to work and buy food. Even my single friends are hardly getting by working FT with rent utilities gas and the cost of how everything has gone up. I have to say everyone around me I know from church to work is somewhat scared of what next? What is everyone going to do if things stay this way or get worse as predicted. My friends who live close to me the man is in the military and his wife is very pregnant and they have another child they are hardly getting by. His rank isn’t that high but yet he makes to much to qualify for them to get help. They are late on some bills every month one paycheck alone goes on rent and their car payment. The other car they have is parked because they can’t afford any insurance on it right now. I mean seriously come on what on earth is people going to do? It isn’t just the people like I know going through this from what I see on the news and random people many of us are. A family game through my line last week and the mom was counting I could tell in her head everything she was putting on the checkout lane and then as I was running her through she said take off my hairspray and my toothpaste so I did and she turned to her kids and said go ahead get you some candy. Man my heart about sunk I was about to burst out in tears right then and there. After she left I know I had some tears in my eyes. What are we all supposed to do if gas gets even higher I am not going to be able to afford to go to work and I’m seriously scared.
America has to do something with all the stealing lying and everything going on. The rick is getting rick and the middle class has become poor. I wish I am alive when the day comes where we have a better Gov then we do now. I might not live to see it but maybe my kids well.

I have just recently gotten married and have only been employed for two full years. I do not have a mortgage payment, but I have contributed a little over 10% of my income to a church and other volunteer organizations.

Is it worth itemizing these contributions, or will that not come close to the standard deduction of ,900?

How did this happen? Also how did one church go in to this kind of massive debt? I heard that offerings or revenue has gone down probably due to bad economy but million in debt seems a little ridiculous for one church.
Does the church still make mortgage payment?

Potentially an obvious real estate question, but hey, it's Yahoo answers, so I'm free to ask all the silly questions I want here:

Instead of getting a costly mortgage with a lender like Countrywide, why can't I just go out and find someone with captial and say, 'Hey, would you give me a 0,000 loan at 4%, and I'll give you first lien on the house if the payments are default?' The deal is signed at a title company and I have an EFT draft created to deduct cash from my bank for each months payments.

The benefit to me is a smaller monthly mortgage payment.

The benefit to the lender guy is that he draws 4% for nothing, and he can potentially bag the house if I default (which would be very unlikely to happen).

PROs/CONs to this plan? And what am I missing that might be painfully obvious here?
(and no, I have no plans to do this. It's just something I've been kicking around. And besides, I wouldn't even know where to go to find a rich person willing to do this anyhow..:)

Is it against the real estate law for an agent to give his client money for personal needs (to make the mortgage payment), and have the client name the agent as the beneficiary on the deed of trust to the house as collateral for the cash loan?
I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that I already own my home, I refinanced it to make repairs and have an agent who has listed it for sale. The agent helped me get the loan for the re-fi. The hard money loan came afterwards when the mortgage payments became more than i could afford so the agent offered to loan me money for survival until the house sold.