Defeated.

I woke up this morning like I wake up every morning these days. Early and worried. My stomach hurts alot lately. I can't seem to shake these pounds that have taken up residence all over my body. I can't get a good, interupted night's sleep anymore without waking up sweating and terrified.

Our finances have beaten me. I feel completely defeated and I feel like I am so lost in what to do that the only option we have anymore is to see a finance counselor at a consumer credit counseling service to tell us what she thinks our options are. I don't know, maybe our finances aren't as bad as I think that they are. Maybe they are worse. I really don't know. All that I know is that I've researched all I can, I have attempted to gain some control over the situation but all I seem to be doing is making things worse. I feel like I have no control over our finances and it's making me absolutely nuts.

Thinking back, I can't remember a single year of my adult life where I wasn't receiving collection calls. I don't remember a single year of my adult life where my finances were 100% in order. I've never had a savings, ever. I've never mainatained a positive bank balance of more $1,000 in my bank account in my entire adult life. Ever. Not counting the days I get paid. I think I've always paid bills late. I've always worried about money. I've always worried about not having enough money to pay my bills. I've never been unemployed. I've never had a major loss of income. Yet, I have never had extra money. When I used to spend frivolous money, I would bypass paying bills to go out. So while I looked like I had tons of money, something in my life would be sacrificed to not get paid.

I remember my first collection notice. It was a phone bill when I moved in college. I remember seeing it and ignoring it. I remember thinking that I didn't have the money to pay it. And I didn't. I never seemed to have money, yet I would spend a night out, spending $50 or whatever, yet I couldn't afford to pay a $115 phone bill. I just thought, "what a dumb bill to pay. I don't even have that phone anymore." To me, it made sense to spend money on going out, even if it was every last penny I had. I thought nothing of spending $100 sometimes. I guess because it was fun. I don't know. I don't really know if I can explain my thought process on it. But that's how I was 12 years ago.

I guess I could say I am alot like that now, only, since I have kids, I really don't do that much anymore. We feel like it's a splurge to spend $30 on a night out. These days, all we are trying to do is maintain.

For a while, when my husband was laid off (both times) and we were living in an apartment we couldn't get out of (and couldn't afford), we were doing our best to not be evicted or have our cars repossessed. I felt a sense of succes when after a year and a half of this, we still had most all of our possessions. We had pawned or sold anything we could just to keep our apartment, cars, electricity on, and food on the table. My engagement ring is still in the pawn shop as we speak. But, we did it. Now, we live with more of a salary and less bills each month, yet we are still in the same boat we've always been in.

Something's got to change.

Ever since I could remember, I've looked at TV shows and movies. I've seen in a movie, where the main character would have a death in the family or some type of emergency, which would require her to buy a plane ticket, at the last minute. And I would always think, "How does she have hundreds of dollars just sitting around? If that happened to me, and I was required to pay something like that in the blink of an eye, I would not be able to do it." I envied those characters who had disposable income and income saved up where they didn't have to worry about stuff like that.

But, that's my life. My life is one big "no" lately. My first response to anyone who says "we need to get together and go out!" is "I can't afford it." Maybe that's the first step to acheiving financial freedom. But, the crazy part is that now, I'm so depressed, so joyless, that I would still spend money going out if I could just to get relief from the constant struggle that is my financial life.

My financial situation has taken my joy out of living. It's like, I've given up on the hope that I will ever be able to do take a vacation with my husband. Or go see a professional basketball game with him, which is what he's wanted to do ever since we've been together. Or go shopping. I haven't spend more than probably $150 on clothes and shoes since we've been together, which is almost 3 years now. I would love to be able to know that I am working to enjoy my money instead of working for the neverending creditors and debtors that call me almost constantly.

What I am most mad at is myself. For not knowing how to fix the problem. I look at people who have their life together, who seem to never have money problems and I just wonder how they got that gene and I didn't. My parents always lived life fiscally responsible. I can't remember them ever having a talk with me about HOW to budget, I just knew they never had a problem with debt and always paid their bills on time. Even now, I can't always have conversations with them about it. I know they went through their hard times, too, where they were broke. But I think our generation's parents didn't have the same obstacles we can today. Credit and all of that just didn't have the same impact, nor were there so many avenues that would lead you to trouble.

I hope that Monday can give us some relief. I hope that we can learn how to properly get out of this hole and get past this era in our lives. I hope that we can get some money into savings and go on a trip that we didn't feel completely and totally guilty for. I hope, I hope, I hope.