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steph k's avatar

Partner and I were allowed to get a mortgage right before the housing bubble burst in 2008. Small house was purchased in 2004 with a mortgage that we mysteriously qualified for despite both of us being in school at the time and having P/T jobs.

Fast forward to 2007: We of course could NOT pay our monthly mortgage (which was under $1000 a month) since we had student loan debt to tackle. One day our neighbor strolls over and asks would we want to sell our house? Um YES. I've never said yes that fast to anything.

We told him a price. He said fine. 2 months later we sold and starting renting. RIGHT before the housing market crashed. We would have lost that house to foreclosure for sure if our neighbor hadn't wanted to buy our house. Nothing but dumb luck saved us.

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Hannah Iris's avatar

Ha! That story gave me such a delighted chuckle! This one's mine (via my grandmother):

My grandma was ahead of her time and voluntarily worked a full-time job her whole adult life, even after becoming a mother in the '50s. At some point, in some decade after that, she had a hysterectomy. She had health insurance both through her own employer *and* my grandpa's. And at that time (a very different time!), BOTH policies paid for the surgery as though they were each, in today's language, the primary insurer. And so the hospital was essentially paid double, and they then cut a check back to my grandma for the overpayment. She took that money and ran off to the jewelry store to buy herself a beautiful ring. She left that ring to me and I still wear it today.

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