Where'd It Start?

It was the year 2000 and I was searching for a divorce attorney. My former husband and I had acquired a lot of debt and no savings. The fortunate thing is we did buy  2 houses so when we divorced we both got a house. The simple words that changed the direction of my financial life were, "you have nothing to show for yourself." It was humiliating to hear those words and yet it was true.  I made a decision at that point to never put myself in that kind of situation again.

I began my study of money. During this time I changed careers from that of a Realtor to a Mortgage Planner. It seemed a better fit for where I was personally going. For the next decade I became a student of money. I read a variety of books on the subject, I took classes, I read on line and I surrounded myself with people who were moving in the same direction. I vowed that I would not beome a divorce statistic.

I made great accomplishments. Starting out with one house, no savings & much debt I had plenty of room for improvement. By 2007, my mortgage career was cooking and I had managed to acquire 10 pieces of real estate. I had purchased my dream house in February of that year. I had a beach house in Manzanita and all the rest were investment houses. My investments had grown to over $117,000 plus I had a cushion of $60,000 in a money market account that I could access.  And I had removed all consumer debt from my picture. Then the real estate fall happened. Because I had all  my eggs in the real estate basket I was financially annihilated.

Unfortunately we can make every great effort to put ourselves in a better place but if we aren't prepared for a variety of tragedies, we could lose everything.  Here it is four year later and I have not made a mortgage payment on my primary residence in over 12 months because I ran out of money. My credit score, which has always been 680 or greater is 520. I'm behind on nearly every single mortgage and I have liquidated everything I could get my hands on during the process. My income went from a decent 6 figure to virtually zero.. I am losing my first home to foreclosure this month. Bankruptcy looms. So what do I do? 

I would not have believed you if you told me I'd be in this situation. When I heard about other people in financial predicaments I couldn't fully understand how it happened. Now I get it. When the real estate crash began I was in a better situation than most people. For the first year I felt relatively insulated from financial devastation. The next thing I know, I'm in the fetal position feeling like the world had ended. My career was gone, my money was gone and my real estate was all upside down!

Since 2009 I have been on this treadmill of redefining myself. It has taken  me down paths of pain, despair and healing. I have a plan to get myself out of this situation and I am going to blog about my journey. Afterall, money matters. If I can help someone out there avoid the mistakes I have made along the way, then this was worth it.  Thanks for joining me on this journey.....