Okay I guess I'll add a happy post. I bought my house about 18 months ago. I opted to set up an escrow account for home owners insurance payments and county/school district property taxes. This way I pay an estimated amount each month along with my mortgage payment rather than having to scrape up the whole amount at the end of the year. The mortgage company consulted my insurance company for estimated insurance amount and looked up the previous few years of property taxes paid on the house to estimate that amount. Well I was finally able to get the county to approve and apply two exemptions to my property taxes about a year ago--homestead and disability. But it takes forever for adjustments to trickle back to the payee. Finally this January I called the mortgage company after they paid my annual property taxes and pointed out that they were considerably less than had been estimated 18 months ago. They agreed and long story a little shorter they sent me a nice refund check from escrow for 2016 and they lowered my mortgage payment by $98/month! Woohoo!

A few days later my hot water heater went out. It started leaking, but I was able to shut it down and stop the leak before I had any water damage. The HWH was installed in 2003 and was a 6 year model, so it was at least 7 years beyond its life expectancy. My home warranty covered about half the cost, but the escrow refund check arrived just in time to keep me from having to dip into my savings. And I had enough left over to buy my iPad Pro 9.7 and Apple Pencil, and still put some into savings.