"appraisal fee, survey fee, paperwork fees," Wrong. They are added to the cost basis, but are not deductable directly until you sell, and even then if the house is a principle residence you have the 2/5 250k/500k write off.

Thanks for all the responses. Housenewbie-I found out a stop payment on an ACH is different than one on a check. It's either the "amount" or the "vendor". But, after making numerous calls and FINALLY getting to speak with someone in the ACH dept of the bank who actually knew something. Apparently standard practice at my bank is if they try to put though an ach and it is nsf they "hold" it and (on good customers like myself) check the account every couple of days waiting for the $$ to be there. They try it 3 times themselves before they send a rejection back to the mortgage company. So that's why the mortgage company never had a record it it being rejected and me paying it 2x. So-I HAD to do a ach stop payment (over the phone thankfully-not dealing with the branch again) because the bank would have tried a 3rd time and taken the $$$ that was in there-shorting all my other bills for the month with all getting late charged. Or if not enough $$ then try another nsf ($20) before they would reject to the mortgage company who then would've tried 2 more times - so this really would have snowballed. And the ACH person on the phone was nice enough to reverse the 2nd nsf fee I was charged. I got the email from the mortgage company today that my payment was rejected. (But remember, I am already paid so I'm not worrying - much). Also - a revocation can be revoked. (They didn't tell me this at the branch). So-big lesson learned. CAREFULLY check before you hit that "SUBMIT" button RA

Bill, Thanks for the comments. Yeah, seems kind of weird, at one point our van was worth more then our house. But looking at old tax records, house values have really dropped here, while farm land has gone up. Not sure what the deal is, but not much I can do about it. Our house has dropped by almost half in the last 4 years. I think that is in part to a lot of houses are sold by auction around here, and things normally do not sell for as much then. When we got the van, a few years back, we lived in a better house, in a different town, and my wife was making more money, and the government was giving annual raises on SSDI, not that I like using it, but finding a job is next to impossible.` I agree on the taxes, I like to have it $100 or so either way. This year she have filed exempt, so there are no Federal taxes coming out. The bulk of our refund is from the EITC, which is part of the reason the country is in so much debt, but I don't think they will let us just give it back and say no, sorry put it towards the national debt. Her school does not do advances on the EITC, but yeah, that would really help. Your thought on the car loan is a good one, but if we can't get a home equity line through our bank, I doubt we could get a personal loan. Seems that would have the potential of putting us in a worse situation as well, if things didn't work out just right. If we could get 16,800 on the house, which is 80% LTV, I could free up $575 in monthly payments. At 15 years 7% that would be a payment of 151.00 a month for a cash savings of $424.00 per month. I could actually pay off about $625 worth of monthly payments if I paid off a few medical bills that are not charging interest, for a savings of $474 a month. If I put $100 towards an emergency fund, $74 towards the food budget, because ramen noodles get old after 3-4 times a week, and the rest to the remaining revolving accounts, they would be paid off in no time. Then in 3-4 months when we get our tax refund, I could pay off about another $200 worth of monthly payments. So, in less than a year, we would be revolving debt free, with no need to increase that again. Then I would start paying off the installment loans starting with the highest interest, which would be our van. After the van was done, I would add $200 to the emergency fund account, instead of the $100, and put the remaining $600 to student loans and such. Of course, some of the cash saved each month would need to go to heating bills for the winter, but I still think, in a year or year and a half we would be revolving debt free. So, I have done some thinking and figuring on this, it is not like I decided, "hey, lets borrow against the house to make ourselves go in to more debt". For our situation, it is what seems to work the best for now. I have discussed things with a credit counseling agency, but they can't really reduce my monthly payments by enough to make it worth it. They can't do anything about student loans, auto payments, or the medical bills. On the revolving accounts they could save us about $100 a month. But, if I ended up with a high heating bill, I have to decide between paying the heat, and paying the CCA to keep the contract good with them. At least this way I have more control over our cash. Not that I have done the best job lately, but I do have a plan to fix it. Michael

The costs that you'll be saving are mortgage company 'junk'fees, things that may be called underwriting, warehousing, document preparation (different from attorney & title co doc prep), closing fee, anything at all. Years ago, I had a closing in which the lender charged a 'faxing' fee. They're just money that you pay to increase the lender's yield. If your attorney draws the documents, the title company shouldn't charge a doc fee, & depending on your state, your attorney may be able to do the actual closing. Do be sure that you have a title policy, & read it to find out what the exceptions/exclusions are; you can often pay an additional fee to have them covered. & if the sellers don't have a survey that they'll provide for you, get a survey yourself.