Tammy DeWitt - 183060.00
I do not gamble with our money it isn't worth the risk. I would love for someone to take a gamble on me & win! I always thought good things happen to good people, but God is always putting us to the test. I don't always make the best financial decisions, but I try. I have been married to the same man for 27 years, we have two wonderful grown sons, we work hard some time pay check to pay check and I always try to the pay bills on time. In the last 10 years my husband & I have had 2 surgeries each and at the time I was self employed with the state of Indiana working with kids birth to 3 with developmental delays, if you do not work you do not get paid and with no sick pay for time off either. We did refinance on our home with a flex interest rate to consolidate our entire debit. As luck would have it that very next year the rates went up and every 6 months up and up until we had payments over 1500.00 per month for a house valued at $150000 with interest rates over 9% and being locked into a early payoff agreement for the first 3 years. After the 3rd year we refinanced again but only to lock in that current interest and move from flex to fix. This was the best deal our mortgage company could do at the time. Just this past year our loan was bought out by Chase and they agreed to drop our rate to 8% while that has helped some it hasn't helped with our home value in today’s market it is way under our loan value. So we thought lets do some home improvements and try to increase our value. We wanted to turn the garage into a living room and the old living room into a master bedroom, we would gain a dinning room, office and 2nd bathroom so that should increase the value. We knew we had a roof leak and thought it would be simple to fix the leak and convert two rooms. As luck would have it the rood leak was major and had damaged our ceilings, front and back exterior walls not to mention my kitchen cabinets were ruined with mold and water damage too. We even had to replace the floors in two rooms all the way to the joists. So last July we began the repair/remodel and have made a lot of progress but we still have tons to do. We had saved for a year and it only took 3 months to spend the $4000.00. We have spent about $300 the past two months on heat since our ceilings are still open to the attic in two rooms. Then today I found out the school I work for may do cuts and my job may be one of them. Last but not least our furnace and air conditioning need to be replaced too! And my dryer isn't working so I hang the clothes out in the laundry room then put them in the dryer to fluff them. I have often thought of applying for the make over show but the families are always much more in need than I feel we are. My mom heard about this on Fox and so here I am. Placing my first big bet! I do not ask for help very often and this is something I haven’t even talked to my husband about! Not that he would be against it just not wanting him to get his hopes up only to be let down again. We both have grandmas that are 86 years young and they do not drive, so we spend a lot of our spare time helping out when we can. They both would help if they had the money but they don’t, but the thought is nice. Thank you for your time. Tammy