Update

So our bank fucked us over.

Our house that we're buying may be in jeopardy, even though we were preapproved.

As we went to finalize the application, they missed that our house in Home City was a short sale, thus rendering the VA Loan unapprovable, even though they had already approved us. What we got was a "oh, we're sorry this happened. Someone will get feedback on this mistake. If you have $12,000, we can get you a conventional loan." If we had 12K, we wouldn't have applied for the VA Loan. And as I'm sobbing on the phone, "well, I hope you have a nice weekend."

It took everything in me not to say "fuck you and your weekend."

I then spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening trying to get another loan. The problem? The VA Loan does not require a down payment. All other loans do. Did we put money aside for a down payment? No, because the VA Loan doesn't require one.

What we have now is an FHA Loan, which, well, apparently is a pain in the ass for sellers to deal with and requires a minimal down payment, but the guy who helped me worked very hard to get me even this. The J cannot even be near the loan because the house was in his name and thus the short sale affects on his part of the application, so it's all me.

Now, because we know what a pain an FHA Loan may turn out to be for the sellers, who are our friends, I will talk to them tomorrow, and the J and I agreed that if they wanted to back out of the sale, we would understand and allow it to happen. He doesn't seem to think they will because they are anxious to get rid of their house so they can move and relieve the commuting burden on the wife, and the J seems to believe that the FHA inspection isn't going to be any more of a pain than an VA Loan inspection would be, but it may be a mess.

I have never felt so poor and so incapable of being an adult as I do now. I know the stigma attached to an FHA Loan, and I feel the pain of embarrassment of my financial incompetence and our lack of planning (because, duh, no down payment for the VA Loan), and I am swamped in grief and sadness at the possibility of the home we want slipping away when it was so close.

It's really in the hands of the sellers now. We will understand if they want to go a different route, and there will be no hard feelings on our end, but it just has me really really sad and stressed that this may all be gone in a matter of 24 hours. I will probably try to pop over there sometime this afternoon if they are home. So we may know something by tonight. Sigh.

I have done very little other than cry and drink since Friday night. It's all very distressing because I'm one to think of things like this as a sign from the universe. If the house falls through, then that means that the universe is indicating that I won't get tenure and we'll need the mobility to move. But the problem is if we stay in this house, with its high utilities and rent that will actually be more than the mortgage (not by much, but on top of the utilities being lower at the house which is significantly better insulated, and we wouldn't have our storage unit anymore, we're looking at maybe about $3200 a year in savings, which isn't much but adds up over time), it means that our ability to save is far lower because just that extra $272 a month that we could save is wasted. So, it all just makes me want to puke, because that $3200 a year over two years would be part of a down payment on a house in another city if he have to move. It also means that if I don't get tenure and end up unemployed, that extra $3200 a year may make the different in living off ramen or you know, being able to feed the kid while I look for work. I know this is all worst case scenario stuff, but please don't say "maybe it's not meant to be." Because that means worst case scenario in the future.

Oh well. We'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted.