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Refinancing homes has become all-too-popular in recent years. Popularity in the twenty-first century, however, likely parallels notoriety. When hordes of people flock to something, your personal homeland security monitor should start wailing. The tired adage of nothing existing for free will not get the golden handshake this century because it and its fraternal cliche "too good to be true" have to work like inner-city public school teachers in this day when we are all trying to survive month to month on lower incomes and higher taxes.

The choice to refinance in the last decade indicates a desire to augment the family cash flow rather than improve the financial interests or equity in one's home. That was the case with my family. My wife and I are fairly absent-minded in terms of finances. The market had risen so quickly, just months after we had purchased our 2000 square-foot ranch house in the Antelope Valley, that we were faced with high bills and a good mortgage payment. Instead, we saw the elimination of our credit card debt as a feasible reason to dash our current mortgage payment for one that was a little higher. We weren't concerned about the long term effects of our financial decisions. We were just trying to finance our living expenses. We were quite taken by the misleading sales pitch, "Well, how much can you afford to spend monthly?"

Boasting about my inability to manage money is more humility than I care to acknowledge; however, these ignoble experiences should prove useful to mortgage novices hoping to gain an upper hand in the refinancing arena.

Avoiding the path that led me to financial ruin outweighs the desire to avoid the embarrassment of admitting the truth. Allow me to share some tips that may help make refinancing decisions easier.

First of all, if mortgage companies are calling you ten times a day (no joke-we received 5-10 calls a day for all two years we spent in our last home!), then whatever they are selling doesn't benefit the homeowner. These telemarketing hounds promise that they can work with anybody just to get you to give over your information. When we got to the point where we were two months behind on the mortgage payment, I started to entertain myself by challenging these telemarketers. Few let the bad news of my credit problems deter them. They were sure they could help. Hanging up is a good decision.

Clearly, the decision to refinance should be initiated by the homeowner after lengthy deliberation. Persons outside your circle of

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