After spending a week virtually on my own - I lost a lot of hair and I don't have much at the best of times. I followed that darn book - it didn't work on many of the processes. I left work several days knowing that I was going to be fired because I couldn't do what I was hired to do. Not only that, but she left in the middle of a closing cycle . . . . . . .

I survived despite the rocky start and they seem to really like me. It's been almost 9 months and I worked hard to have updated processes and to make the job easier for whoever follows me.

We are still struggling with debt - and probably will for some time. It's not a lot better, but we learned to deal with collectors.

We began by sending each one a note that we could only afford $10 each on our trade accounts. Credit card accounts were already on payment plans but we continued to struggle to make the house payments and to cover our current needs.

One of the things that Dave Ramsey talks about in his course is to let the person you owe the debt to know what your circumstances are. Make a plan that you can stick to and stick to it. Don't let the debt collector force you into making payments more than you can afford. AND always remember that you have to eat and get to work - don't set bill payments so high that you are not able to eat as healthy things and you can get to work.

It takes guts - these guys (and gals) are very good with the intimidation factor. I learned how to say "If you don't want what I can pay you - I will give it to the next person. By the way, please put your denial of acceptability of what I can afford to pay you in writing, that way I will have a record of it."

Surprisingly enough, no-one actually refused any payments that I was able to pay. Are things better? Somewhat . . . . . . Are we out of the woods? Not even close . . . . . . . but we are not disparate any more.