Don't Let Your Future Go To The Dogs

There’s the classic scene from a cartoon in which one of the main characters turns down an alley in a sketchy part of town only to find that it’s a dead end. Just before the main character turns around to leave, he sees projected on the wall at the end of the alley the shadow of something coming up from behind him, and he immediately assumes it’s a seven-foot homicidal giant who has anger issues and a penchant for cartoon characters’ blood. At that moment, the character has the choice to remain standing with his back to what’s behind him and resign himself to what he believe is about to befall him, or he can turn around and face his fear. Now, if you watched the right kind of cartoons as a kid, when the character turns around, he sees that it’s a small child or person whose shadow only LOOKS menacing –perception and reality are two separate things.

Recently, an agent referred a friend to us who needed some serious help to get a mortgage. The friend was disabled, but his wife had a job that covered their bills – just barely. Because they were just barely covering their bills, any unexpected expense that cropped up dug them into a hole – and the gentleman who had come in to see us had done some serious digging. More on that in a moment.

They had, like many people, student loans, a car payment, credit card debt, a mortgage, etc., that needed to be addressed on a monthly basis. As I stated above, all of these financial commitments were being covered by the wife’s income with little to nothing left over to set aside for a rainy day. Well, prior to coming to see us, this friend of the agent had been rescuing animals and racking up fairly hefty veterinarian bills for the care of these wayfaring furry friends. Due to these bills, and unbeknownst to the wife, the husband had missed three mortgage payments. The hole he was digging was getting deeper by the minute.

We sat down with him and went through all his financials and found that he had a retirement account that had approximately $40K in it from before he became disabled. Looking at his entire financial picture, we suggested he liquidate that retirement account, take the hit on the taxes, and address his financial commitments. His immediate response, understandably so, was, “If I liquidate my retirement account, what will I have later in life?” Gently but firmly, we explained that if he continued down his current path, he wouldn’t be able to sustain himself and his wife to get to the “later” in life, financially speaking.

Ultimately, he followed our advice, and he was able to catch up on his missed mortgage payments, wipe out the student load debt he had, pay off his car, and erase his credit card debt and still have some money left over. If that isn’t cool enough, by doing this, he and his wife suddenly have an extra $1,200 per month, and he and his wife easily qualified for the purchase of the new house! As part and parcel to all of this, we recommended he file for disability, which he had never done. He was reluctant, but we convinced him that without that additional income, his rescue efforts would have to cease entirely. He understood.

Before he came to us, he was like the cartoon character with his back to the street looking down the alley and seeing what he thought was a giant waiting to destroy him – and had he not come to us, the giant that goes by the name of Crippling Debt (a good name for a pro wrestler) would have gotten him. Instead, we turned him around and had him face what he feared, which he found was actually the solution to his problem that should be embraced immediately. And as we walked him out of the alley, we made sure we looked both ways to make sure we didn’t get run over by a roadrunner being chased by a coyote holding a bazooka or have a piano dropped on us from above.