WooHoo! The house sold – again! Merry Christmas to us!

Ok, see. When we left the old homestead, under such terrible circumstances, we had/have a great friend that bought our house from us so we didn’t have to worry aobut trying to sell it and the timing of moving and finding a new job and all that jazz. So. The basic agreement. We sold it to him for the appraised value (appraised at that time). SmockDaddy and I were a little shocked when we went to the attorney’s office to sign the paperwork to sell the house and we were met with a personal check for the agreed upon price of the house. I didn’t know that, um, it was going to go like that. I mean, I didn’t think I knew anyone with the ability to just write a check for a house. WHOA, Nelly! I must say that saying that is really a testament to the man and that he doesn’t live his life wearing his money on his shirt sleeve and is a regular guy whose been through a few wringers himself. He’s a Godly man and a quiet man. And I can’t tell you enough about what he’s done for our family so I won’t – he wouldn’t want me to anyway. And being a great friend to my husband is the best thing he’s done for us, including the financial and material things he’s done for us. We appreciate it all, but friendship in times of trouble is the greatest.

So now on to my WooHoo! (boy, that could get translated poorly, couldn’t it? :) Hello, pervy Googling men). Anyway, here’s how it was supposed to work:

He buys our house; we rent it back for $1.00 for two months (as we were moving at the end of the second month) and then he was going to list it for resale. We had some things we were committed to doing to the house before we handed over the keys like having the inside painted to a less colorful and boring fresh, clean slate. There were some timing issues and we told him we would just hire someone to do it and then get the keys to him. Basically, he wouldn’t let us do it. He said he’d take care of it and felt confident he would still get full price back for the house. We checked in often and the house still hadn’t sold. We were getting concerned about the fact that he still had the house in his possession – the deal was not for him to be out any money and he wasn’t looking to gain money – just to help us out.

We got concerned about the house after Hurricane Katrina hit and had a friend find her way over to it to see if it was ok. Yes, I know it wasn’t in our possession anymore, but come on, this wasn’t supposed to be his trouble at this point. If it had some injuries we were goin to go help take care of it. All was well, it was one of the few houses that didn’t have a tree on it; it was only missing a few shingles from what she found out. What a blessing! And the roof was just a few years old and the extra tiles needed were still in the gargage in good condition. Well, he must have done well on the resale because when we got back from our Christmas trip to Grandma and GrandDaddy’s house we had a present waiting for us in the mail.

It was a check. A check for the difference from the sale of the house and what he put into (painting, carpet, commission to the agent, etc.). It was a Godsend; this we didn’t expect. We rolled into the driveway with no money for groceries and gas. Between the extra SmockDaddy got for Christmas from the church (for the children and to get us over the hump) and this blessing in disguise we were/have been able to get the children some presents for Christmas, buy a Christmas Tree, pay off a bill, pay down others, and get a few things for advancing my business. I’ll be posting more about these things in the near future.

We haven’t used credit cards in over four years and have been steadily working to pay off all debt. We moved here with less than $3,000.00 in debt and because of the crappy things that happened with this move we were forced back up very high in debt. We have worked hard to get it back down. It’s been even harder here than where we lived before because we have more out of pocket expenses here and the cost of living is higher too. BUT, we’re doing it. The debt is decreasing. I still don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel most days, but I can beleive that I will soon. The debate over what to do with ‘new found money’ is a hard one. It wasn’t enough to pay off all the debt, so we did a great bit of it and then are putting some into business investment that will begin bringing money back in again. It will be a slow road, but it’s a great deal better than me getting a job and I am grateful for that.

. . . and then my ailing computer died. Although I’ve been able to resuscitate it a few times throughout this year, it’s finally on life support and brain dead. ;)