Ok, so despite everything with the rental - I still feel very blessed. I called my MIL (who can be very doom and gloom) and she couldn't understand why I was so optimistic. Yes, the situation to be frank - sucks - but I know I'm going to do what I need to do to take care of it and I have a plan in place to get it taken care of.

Visiting my family in Hawaii is OUT. No questions. I'm likely not refinancing the house since we were just mailed another assessment that our house value went down. Bonus is, less taxes I need to pay.

So, here is what I've been faced with:

1) Rental needs to be replumbed & a new HVAC system installed. It'd also be a good idea to get a termite protection plan in place (would cover it for 5 years).

2) I need to pay for my tuition and finish my master's degree this year

3) Visit with my family (I know I said Hawaii is out, I didn't say meeting them halfway was)

4) Visiting with DH's family

5) Daughter's braces

And I think that's it.

So ok, I'll probably need to put the rental expenses on DH's CC. I have a plan to have it all paid off within 12 months, the whole situation is not ideal as I said - but I want to get that property back up to my standards, get a good tenant in, and have it be to a point where I don't have to worry about anything going wrong (a pipe bursting, the HVAC system giving out, etc). After this the only thing that COULD go wrong with the house is the roof. Practically everything else has been replaced (floors, windows, water heater, doorknobs, appliances, security system, mailbox).

I will need to do student loans this year for the remaining 3 classes of my master's degree but any surplus I'm going to apply to pay down my CC.

For visiting my Dad, I proposed possibly doing Vegas. DH is supposed to take a few trips in the Summer & get per diem for it. We have plenty of free miles with a certain airline that we could get 2-3 free tickets. Then it would just be a matter of the 3-4 tickets, hotel, food, and MAYBE a rental car (although last time we went to Vegas we didn't use a rental car and just took the shuttles). So that would be MUCH more affordable than Hawaii.

We'll be going to visit DH's family next week. We're driving, the hotel we're staying at has free breakfast, a kitchenette (so we're taking food with us so we don't have to always go out to eat), and we will be paying for the entire trip with cash.

For my daughter's braces, I'm going to be paying for 1/2 with cash and the other is with no-interest monthly installments. Its just partial braces for now & when she is 15 she needs full braces.

I still plan for us to be debt free within 3-4 years. Well, non-mortgage debt. As I said, I plan to be CC free by February of next year. The original plan was this year but thats been pushed back due to the rental.

So why do I feel blessed?

Because we are able to handle all of this in this type of economy. I can face up to a 3 month vacancy with the rental and not worry about it. I know we'll be okay & it'll likely get rented quickly because of the condition. I could even rent it for cheaper than what I currently am and it wouldn't really hurt us too badly or offset my goals.

My other thought is always that once we do get our non-mortgage debt paid off, we could live on just the rental income & DH's pay. He's supposed to get a pay raise in October, likely in January, and if he gets promoted thats another pay raise.

My career is sort of up in the air, I know I could lose my job before I realize it. But with DH's career, reliance on my job is less and less.

So, yes, I acknowledge the situation is not ideal. But life never is, its about taking the curveballs you're thrown and making the best out of them & having the confidence to handle them.

The other nice part was, my property manager has really stepped up in this whole process. I used to always wonder what they did & why I paid her, but now that something like this has come up I am glad I have a big company behind me to make sure that my interests as a landlord are looked out for. I talked to an owner of the management company and I had his full assurance that they will get this taken care of and I have nothing to worry about.