Hello all! I really need to kick myself in the head for not spending time here.There is some great reading here!

Okay never before have we been in this situation about what bills to pay first, but here is the deal. Of course some unexcepted bill (or should I say extra cost) came up about 3 months ago. It is really starting to kick us down and get behind.

Now the morgage is due, but so is both our car insurance, car payment, and gas and electric bill. A couple are behind now. I don't want to take the chance of losing that stuff!

Would I be better catching up all the major bills first and then risking being a month behind for awhile on the house payment or vice versa? I am sure the morgage laws may very from state to state.

We have never been behind on the house payment, but this could be the first time ever! I am thinking catching all the bills up on dh's next check and be behind a payment on the house? gah!

What do ya think? Anyone ever in this boat to decide?

Personal note - this would not effect my credit score.

TIA!

Does anyone know how long lenders will give you a grace period over a month on a house payment.

I am sure there is more detials I could share. Insomnia sucks. lol

I would definitely make the mortgage payment. The most important thing is a roof over your heads. All the rest I would make payment plans. I've paid electricity bills late plenty of times back when I was worse off and you get warnings before you're shut off.

IMHO in this order:

Mortgage, Utilites, Car Insurance and Car Payment. I don't think the power company can turn your heat off in the winter time but check into that.

A roof over your head is first and foremost, HOWEVER, in this case if it's a one time thing and you're SURE it'll be overcome soon maybe you should talk to the bank about skipping a house payment and adding it on to the end of the loan. I know this is something others have done in the past.

The utilities I know you can work with and they won't turn them off in the cold months.

You REALLY need the insurance on the cars, it's illegal not to carry it and can get you in a TON of trouble. Do you normally pay insurance in 6 month payments? Maybe check into doing it monthly until you get caught up. (might cost a few dollars more monthly but help in the long run).

Sorry about the unexpected expenses, always seems to happen that way doesn't it?

kj

I would pay my mortgage first then car insurance. I would contact the utilities and car payment personnel related to making late payments. Are you paying the 6 month premium on your car insurance if so could you pay just one month of car insurance versus six months? Just a thought :va:

I would call and make arrangements with the utility companies, they are usually easy to work with. Before I didn't just pay the mortgage I would call them, if you have never been late before they may let you just make an interest payment or say it is ok to skip this payment and add it on to the end of the mortgage. As for the car insurance, every company we have ever used, it has said somewhere in small print that if the payment is not received by 12:01 am that the insurance will be cancelled. So if my payment was due today, they would need the money by 12:01 am tonight. I know here in NC if I don't have insurance on the car the DMV charges you $50 to reinstate the regisitration on the car.

I would say pay the mortgage first - shelter is the most important thing. The car payment especially if you're down to one vehicle -you need transportation to & from work to pay the rest of your bills. To make things a little easier, you can check to see if your auto ins. co. will let you make monthly payments instead of paying in one lump sum- that may help free up the extra funds to put on your other bills.

I have always done monthly payments on my car insurance, I have never had a enough to pay it at the time it's due. You might want to try this until you are caught up with the other bills. You might also want to just call around to these companies and see who will work with you and pay the ones who won't work with you first. I have had to borrow money from family before when I was in a tight spot, not a great experience, but just wondering if there's anyone who might be able to help you out a little. Good Luck!

I would definately make the mortgage payment first. The rest of them I would try to negotiate. Have you considered if you can go down to one car? If you can, you could sell the second one to get money to catch up on your bills as well as save on insurance. Anyways, what ever you do good luck and I hope it all works out for you.
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Krissy

Guess I'm the odd one out. I've gone as many as 3 monthes without paying the mortagage but then I've known I'd be able to pay that big lump by the 3rd month. My mortage company is National City and they will call and bug you. When you tell them you don't have it they don't care. They let you get 3 monthes before they start eveiction process. It will show on your credit record that you've been late. But so will all the other things.
Here in my county the power company turns you off if your 10 days late. No questions no partials. And we all know how insurance companys can be. In Fla. if your policy lapses its a $200.00 fine and your license is supended. Learned that one the hard way.
So if it was me and I knew for a fact I could cover the mortage and the late fee in a month I'd opt to pay it late.

Laurie in Bradenton

I agree that shelter is the priority. I would call the mortgage lender and ask if the payment could be added to the back of the note. If you have never been late before I bet it would not be a problem to do. I know that you can only do that a few times over the life of the loan so that might figure into whether you want to use that avenue or not. The utility companies will probably work with you on your utility bills, just call and asked them. Hopefully if you are able to skip the mortgage payment and add it to the back of the loan and pay a partial on the utilities that will give you enough to go ahead and make the car payment and the insurance.

I hope it all works out for you. :hugz:

You may also be able to have the car loan put this months payment at the back of the loan. Try both. I think that mortgage companies right now don't need anymore houses to try to sell so if you are upfront with them about things they will work with you.

Guess I'm the odd one out. I've gone as many as 3 monthes without paying the mortagage but then I've known I'd be able to pay that big lump by the 3rd month. My mortage company is National City and they will call and bug you. When you tell them you don't have it they don't care. They let you get 3 monthes before they start eveiction process. It will show on your credit record that you've been late. But so will all the other things.
Here in my county the power company turns you off if your 10 days late. No questions no partials. And we all know how insurance companys can be. In Fla. if your policy lapses its a $200.00 fine and your license is supended. Learned that one the hard way.
So if it was me and I knew for a fact I could cover the mortage and the late fee in a month I'd opt to pay it late.

Laurie in Bradenton



I was going to say the same thing. I guess becuase we both live in Florida we have the same deal with utilities. Here they will cut off your power in 10 days period. I guess because its not that cold so heating isn't that vital.
You also have to pay that car insurance or you can't drive your car ,on top the the penilties. I would pay the morgage late .

Not sure what ins. co you have but we have State Farm and they will let you pay half (plus a $3 or so fee) and then the other half is due in about 6 weeks. HTH

Thanks everyone. It is a catch 22. First we do pay our insurance monthly and it is State farm. I think a couple years ago we did do one of those skippy payment things on our house. Not sure if we could do it again of even if that would be a wise choice. I guess we will have to call them.

I was looking at the calendar and we get payed the 18th and then the 1st. So that would put us exactly one day past the 30 day mark on our house. Then we could use the other pay day for bills again and then there is an extra pay day in Feb that I just noticed. Still it is hard to catch up once behind, but with 3 pay days in the month, we could then pay feb house payment at then end of the month before another 30 days would expire. Did that make sense?

I pay it on the net so it would come out the same day.

I know our electric is tuff here. We have been late here before and they gave us a 10 day notice to shut it off. We got it payed on time. It is the gas bill that we will be late on by next week. I can pay the full amount to catch up on that if we don't pay the mortgage. Not sure how strict they are as I have never dealt with them.

I guess I am lucky though that my parents bought us a ton of groceries to help get us through till we catch up.

As far as the car payment, if I do not pay it by the end of this month we will be 2 months behind, yeah! Paying personal propertiety taxes was one reason that the car is behind. That is just for starters.

:toast:

I'm sorry youre struggling:hug2:. I've been there, and it's no easy task.

I would pay in this order:

1. car payment (do not let it go 60 days behind- will tank your credit score, and prevent you from ever skipping a payment in the future)
2. utilities
3. car insurance
4. mortgage- see if you can send them at least a few bucks- a partial payment (with a letter attached is a good idea) should buy you time until you get your paycheck to pay in full- then work like he** to catch up on all payments before your March payment is due.

Just do your best, feed your kids, put gas in the car, and save every last cent you can to stay upto date for next month. The stress of being constantly 1 month behind on everything is a killer.

good luck! My heart goes out to you.

You know it is a weird thing to me when this kind of thing happens. It must be Psychological or something. Would I rather have like 8 bills payed and one big bill to worry about or one big bill payed and have another 8 to worry about. :confused:

I wonder if I am the only one that can think like this.

I do that too

I would first call all the places to see about payment arrangements to see if it could free up money to put on something that cannot wait.

I wouldn't mess around with the mortgage. I'd finagle all the other bills by making calls, but I wouldn't even go there with the mortgage. I just have a HUGE fear of being behind on my mortgage. I also think that since the mortgage is the biggest payment, it would be that much harder to catch up with it if you let it slide.

I really hate to burst anyone's bubble on this but
YES Utilities will turn off power/water/whatever in cold months in cold states unless you can prove you have a medical life sustaining need. I have a neighbor who is a good example. She and her kids spent December living with various people until she got enough money to pay the bill. I got a cat out of the process. She simply thru the poor thing out to fend for itself for a month. Cat wouldn't go back to her. Various cases also have made the news is local papers all over the country.

Call each and every creditor. Explain exactly what is going on and that you need to work out a plan with all of them to allow you to come up to date and that you plan to do so. Ask them for help in working out the plan. They will 99% of the time be glad to do so. Work it out with them, then stick to it. With rising costs you can bet they understand. However make sure that everyone knows exactly what is going on. It's best for all. They want their money. You want to pay it. They will work toward helping you do so.

Car insurance can be broken down into smaller payments over the period of time also. And you might want to start shopping for a cheaper plan. My last insurance company charged me 325 for six months. When they sent me by mail a contract for the new period of time and I read it I got ticked. I was a safe driver and they were saying "If you wreck and if blah blah blah" and basically handing me an unsafe driver plan. I grabbed the net and got some quotes. I about fell over when the one plan said it was 98 dollars for six months with what I wanted. So instead of paying 650 a year, I pay 200. I have places that 450 can go besides insurance.;)

Utilities will turn you off here.

If you have a shutoff notice you can try to fill out a SER form from the Department of Human Services and they possibly make your payment for you.

I know my electric and gas company will allow me to make payment arrangements so that might be worth a try.

I would call them all tell them whats going on and that your behind and see if they will not work with you.. the one who will not work with you pay first and so on.

Telling them ahead of time is always better then getting behind and them hasseling you and you not answering the phone and them not knowing and then starting to move paper work to the bad.

I would talk to the mortgage company and see about skipping a payment and adding it to the back. If you get back on track you can always send in an extra payment.Good luck. I would take care of the house first as you would not want to lose your equity and then the car and last the heating.

Cover the "4 walls". Housing, food, utilities. I would put off everything but the mortgage and then make sure there is food in the house and the utilities are kept on.

i would pay the mortgage first. it gets pretty hard if you're late in paying it...

I would pay the mortgage and car payment. You do need car insurance, but try calling and see if you can get a better rate or check prices with other companies. Many years ago I had GMAC, not great customer service because they were not local and everything had to be done by calling their 800# but the rates were very low.

I think for your other bills if you call and talk with them about your situaion most companies will be willing to work with you. For your utilities many companies have budget plans that allow you to pay an average amount year around. This might lower your winter bills enough to free up a little extra money for your other payments.

Good luck and I hope things get better. :hugz:

Maybe I'm weird but I say pay the car insurance first and negotiate the rest. No one ever plans on being in a wreck, but just say you did have an accident and hurt someone else...and you have no mandatory insurance on your car. You, my friend, are screwed.

If someone injured me, DH or Momma in a wreck and didn't have insurance I would do everything in my power to have their license revoked and their tails put in jail. I'm sure most people (if they really stopped and thought about it) would feel the same, particularly if their child were injured by an uninsured driver. JMHO

I know that Chrysler and Ford will both allow you to waive a payment and put it at the end of your term. I think you pay a fee of about $75 but that is far less than the whole payment. I have done that before and it never affected my getting another car loan. Up here if your mortgage payment is made within the first 30 days they don't make a big deal about it. Just be susre the next one will be available on time. As for the utility companies, see if they will accept a partial payment plan. They will generally work with people if you call them before the shut-off notice arrives. Further than that DON"T lose your car insurance - it is illegal and not worth the fines. If you cannot pay it do not drive your car!

Eek. The "do not drive your car" part above sounds harsh. I don't mean it that way. What I mean is that you are far better to park your car for a month aand use other means of transportation (be it public or carpooling) than to be caught driving uninsured. Imagine if you had an accident - you would owe the rest of your car payments on a car at the junkyard!

Ok... please don't all attack me... but I am a bill collector! And when I say we are here to help not harass I am SERIOUS! All companies... including your mortgage company, utilities, car, etc… have payment programs or as we call them "hardship" programs... CALL ALL OF THEM!!! The worse thing you can do is ignore them. If you call them before you miss a payment they can give you advice... a lot of companies offer what's called a "payment holiday" ... if you wait until you're behind it will only be worse! TRUST ME! I've dealt with this everyday for the last 7 years.

Mortgage first (unless you and yours want to sleep in the car). Then Food, Utilities, Car and related expenses.