Poor Miz L. I spoke with her on the phone today. She is having a rough time of it again. Back in May she had a check bounce because she miscalculated how much was in her paltry account. And her bank proceeded to take no less than $85 in fees for the bouncing check. And because of that, she bounced her *next* check, for which they removed another $85 in fees. That made her $170 in the hole. She got her monthly social security check, which put her in the black again, but $170 short because of the overdraft fees she had incurred. And then she wrote her mortgage check. You can guess what happened. Yep it bounced because it took her below zero again, and she was charged another $85. It continued this way through June, July and August. We’re now in September. She had her $800 social security check deposited. Guess what her balance was once that deposit went in? $253. That’s how much she has to pay her mortgage, her electric, her phone, her groceries, her medications, etc. for the month of September. Uh…DOES NOT COMPUTE.
I feel so bad for this woman – I wish I had money so I could write a check to her and help her out. Even just $1,500 would be an amazing help to this woman. I advised her to do what Denis and I did – call her life insurance company (they automatically withdraw the premium each month from her account) and see if the dividends could be applied to her payments for the next few months. Denis and I did that a while back and managed to have the payments “paid for” through January 2008 – about nine months in payments that we didn’t have to worry about. I’m hoping Miz L’s life insurance company will do the same for her, because that’ll save her $85/month. Even if she only has enough to do that for 3-4 months, that’s major. I then recommended she call her bank to see if she can have overdraft protection put in place on her account, and to ask them if they’d consider waiving some of the fees she has incurred. Hopefully she’ll find someone with a heart over there who will take pity on her and wipe 1/2 of the $600+ in fees and return them to her account. She still won’t be able to pay her mortgage, but at least she won’t be as bad off. She’s two months behind on her mortgage because of this, with the third payment due in early August. If she can make at least ONE of those payments, the mortgage company will relax a bit. Not much, but a bit.
I know Mr. BIL would say, “Stop being so involved with this client!” And I know he’s right – but I also know that she loves her house (dilapidated as it is) and doesn’t want to lose her “freedom” by moving into subsidized housing. But it looks like this is what is going to happen – I don’t think her mortgage lender is going to help her save her house AGAIN – the second time in less than a year.