I knew I was way behind on my mortgage. I knew I had to do something or we were in danger of losing our home. I knew, but I still avoided the phone calls from my mortgage company. Their notices I received in the mail went unopened. I did not want to hear the bad news. Instead I wrote them a letter with my brilliant plan to get caught up. The only problem with that was we couldn't stick to the plan and we didn't get caught up. In fact, we fell further behind. We were in serious trouble and I had no idea what to do about it.

I had been hearing alot on the news about the mortgage crisis and how there were programs out there to help people like us who were in default on their home loans. But I procrastinated acting on the situation because I was embarrassed and ashamed of the mess I had made of our finances. I didn't think we would qualify for any of those options or programs because of our credit. I didn't think we had enough equity for a 2nd mortgage and no one would refinance our mortgage with us being seven months behind. I was stressed out and worried sick but I just didn't know what to do.

Then it happened, we received a letter from an attorney acting on behalf of our lender informing us our home was in foreclosure. 'Your home is set for auction on...' I had less than a month until our home would be sold at public auction. I was devasted. My worst fears had come true.

I can not lie and I must admit that my husband and I got into this situation on our own. I would love to blame the economy or the lender or the government, and maybe they all played a small part, but essentially it was our own choices that led us here.

When we first bought our home in 2002 our combined income was about 80k. Since mid 2006 it has dropped to just below $50k per year. Our home was purchased at $161k on a 20 year fixed at 7.5%. Our outstanding loan balance at the time of this article is $130k and our current market value is $92k. This could be blamed on the economy or the falling housing markets, or whatever. But the truth is we should have done something about it sooner. We had a responsibility to lower our standard of living from $80k per year to $50k or get 2nd jobs and we did not do what needed to be done.

They say 'hindsight is 20/20' and I have to agree. What should have happened is we should have forgone the cruise we took in November of 2006. We should have sold our boat, motorcycle and timeshare instead of struggling to make the payments and continuing to fall further and further behind. We should have limited our spending and cut some corners. We should have refinanced while our credit was still in good standing to lower our regular monthly payment. We did not do any of that. We went on trying to pretend things would turn around and our lost income would recover. We waited to long hoping that would happen. The hard truth is we made some bad decisions.

First, I called our lender and explained that we were living in the home, it was our primary residence and we wanted to keep it. They talked to us about several available options such as a home loan modification, a forbearance, a quit sale, among others. They suggested I visit their website and click on a help for homeowners link to explore my options.

I was immediately qualified for a home loan modification that required a large down payment and a possible increase in my regular monthly payments in order to catch us up on our past due payments which were seven months behind. I didn't have the down payment required, had no means to accumulate it in time to prevent the foreclosure and so still felt defeated and at a loss as to what to do.

A friend suggested we call 1-888-995-HOPE and talk to someone at the Hope Now organization about our pending foreclosure. They referred me to a debt counseling service who in turn helped me re-establish a budget and devise a plan to get my mortgage back on track. They took all my current financial information and composed a proposal package to submit to my lenders. I then had to fill out a multitude of paperwork and make multiple phone calls to my lender where I inevitably spent a lot of time on hold.

The whole process was very frustrating, but I was eventually approved for a forbearance and my monthly payment has been lowered by nearly 1/3rd. No down payment was required for the forbearance. I am in a preliminary 3 month trial period and the pending public auction has been suspended. Once the three month trial period is over, as long as I have made my new lower payment on time, it should be approved and finalized.

 You might be wondering what my 'Plan B' was...what would we have done if we were in fact foreclosed on? I do not really know. I began looking into rentals in the area but they were priced essentially the same as my monthly payment. Not to mention our credit was horrendous at this point so I wasn't even sure we could get into a rental.

I put all of my 'hope' into the Hope Now project and am just eternally thankful that God was on my side.