[slwilson6]

Refinancing a mortgage may not be the best alternative for managing your monthly finances, but it beats the alternatives. gas, food, insurance, and utility prices are all going up and there is no releif in sight right now. Leaving my monthly budget as it was and not changing spending habits, gradually put my monthly expenditures greater than my monthly income. no bonuses were given and no annual pay increases either. something had to give. we had long since stopped using our credit cards, but they still had balances and were not getting any smaller. we have now refi'd our mortgage, took some cash out, paid off all revolving debt, and the interest rate for new mortgage was a lot less. we have also now begun eliminating luxuries because even after the refi, the economy has not recovered (at least not in the construction industry in which i work). no more home phone, no more HDTV, no more napster, no more satellite radio, cut backs on our car insurance coverages a bit and eliminated some of the unneccessary coverages, changed our eating habits to trim our grocery budget, and my wife and i now carpool to work every day. my titan sits in the driveway every day and eagerly awaits my return home that i might take it to get a haircut every couple of weeks or to go to weekend extra jobs that i can find, etc. i am still holding out that the economy will recover sooner or later and bonuses and overtime will pick up again so that i don't have to part with my titan. We are still not in the best financial situation, but we have not lost our house or our vehicles, we have not defaulted on any loan or credit card, and now our savings is increasing again. we also have not had to touch our retirement, yet. times are tough, but so far we are making it. people do what they have to do.