An Update

So, we went to see a credit counselor. While she didn't say to us, "Wow, you guys are really doing much better than you think, I can't even believe you walked in here today!" She did tell us that there is hope to our situation. I asked her if she thought bankruptcy was an option and she said, "NO. NO. No, no no no no no, please don't do that. Bankruptcy is for people for massive amounts of debt with little to no income who can't even afford to pay for food and have no hope of that changing any time soon. You guys could COMFORTABLY afford to pay off your stuff with a small payment each money towards each and be done in under two years."

When I heard that, I was relieved.

Our first order of business, before tackling the large mountain of collections, is to get rid of our pay day loans, pay our tolls, and get our checking account positive. I have decided that since all of these people are working with us, NONE of them are asking us to pay everything, right now, all at once, that this is something we need to just be patient and not overpromise. It's hard, because I want this all to be over. But we didn't get into this situation in one day and we won't get out in one day, either.

So, here are the totals for what we need to take care of sooner rather than later...

Two payday loans, which they have frozen and are not collecting any more interest: $1800

Tolls: $2300

Overdrawn Checking: $900

Total: $5000.

We are paying about $500 a month on the payday loans, so those will go away in a few months.

We hope to be paying $200 in tolls a month, so this will take a while.

I am hoping to deposit all of our tax return in the checking account, making it more than current, and putting the excess into a savings. Hopefully, a substantial emergency fund will help lower the risk of any of our stuff getting this way EVER again!!

After we pay off the loans, we will be putting that money towards our collections accounts.

Our student loans will just have to wait. I just got them consolidated, so I have a while before needing to pay those off. As long as I pay on time, this will help our credit substantially.

I am going to also pay $100 for each car extra each month so we can try and get those paid off faster.

Hopefully, my husband's commission for May will be quite large and we can figure out where that needs to go.

Bottom line, it's getting there. We still kick ourselves from time to time because bad habits creep up on us. Those bad habits, they will get you every time. But, at least it's manageable for right now!

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.

Treading Water

Remember how I said that we took out payday loans? Well, now, on top of that, our checking account has been hit with about 7 $35 NSF fees. I switched my direct deposit to another of our checking accounts because if I hadn't, the entire check would have been eaten up and our car payments wouldn't have gotten paid. I am very frustrated right now. It seems like we are just treading water.

Thankfully, our tax return is coming up soon, so hopefully, this will get our checking account back positive and get our pay day loans paid off, which would free up about $500 a month. Kind of sucks because I was hoping that tax return could put more of a dent in actual debt. but at least this will help eliminate some of the immediate issues.

I thought about this today. We make about $80,000 a year. With no credit card debt. And yet still, we always seem to be in this same situation. Well, hopefully, I can put an end to all of this stuff this year. It just takes time. And learning from past mistakes. What really stinks is knowing that all of our extra money is going out the door every single month. But I just have to keep the long term in mind - all will be fixed in time.

Now what?

I haven't written on this blog for a long time. But I am here to tell you that things HAVE improved substantially since my last post. How, you might ask? Well, let me tell you!

As I was telling you my story, let me break down a little of how our finances looked. We owed (and still owe) quite a bit of old debt that neither of us was paying for. We have about $16,000 in student loan debt. My husband still owes $9,000 on his car. My car was paid off as of July, but it was a two door car that was falling apart and that couldn't fit my daughter in the back seat with her seat required by law, so we had to finance another one, which is about $13,000. We were living in an apartment (stuck is more like it) that was costing us around $1400 a month. We had take home pay of about $3400 monthly. We were paying $660 monthly for childcare. So, just with daycare, car payments, auto insurance, gas, and rent, we paid about $3000. This doesn't include diapers, groceries, or incidentals (tolls). With all of that said, there were many debts that just fell by the wayside. Our needs outweighed what we were making.

It was going to cost us money to get out of our apartment. We were in desperate need of space, but getting a house seemed out of the question. We put a status on FB one day about needing a house. We had someone offer us a rental property, at half of what we were paying in rent, with no security deposit. It was in a lower income area than where we were currently living, but it was closer to work and wouldn't cost tolls (which were equaling about $250 monthly!), We moved a couple of months back. I got another job, so our take home pay has increased from about $3400 a month to about $5000 a month. So, we increased our income and reduced our monthly expenses by about $700.

So, NOW WHAT?

Against my better judgment, we took out a couple of payday loans to help cover some costs we were behind on, which was the dumbest thing ever. The fees are not worth it. But now, we owe them back. So, that's something to consider. We had to get a fridge and some new furniture for the living room, as ours fell apart the first month we were in the new apartment. Like, the leg fell off on one couch and the bar came through the top of the cushion on the other. We decided to finance new a new fridge and new furniture, as we would keep them a very long time. We also have alot of unpaid tolls to pay for, as we were using the tollways out of necessity but couldn't always afford it. Right now, these are our top three things to catch up on, as they are the most pressing.

We are still behind on most of our bills, but all by no more than 30 days. We are still getting charged fees, though. So that is another place we need to fix.

Right now, our goal within the next six months is to stop paying for additional fees and interest and to pay off all tolls (which is about $2,000), as these can lead to citations. So basically, all of our extra money will go to old debt and past due bills. Yuck, but necessary.

It still feels like we are about two years away from getting all of this figured out, but I am trying to chronicle the steps along the way.

I don't feel discouraged anymore, nor do I feel hopeless. I feel hopeful, actually, like there is an end in sight. We'll see!

Our Story

I started this blog because I had so much to say about money. Having money, having NO money, credit, processes, etc. I wanted to share with the world the things I have learned in the past couple of years about knowledge I've gained from experiences I've been through. First, let me share my story with you.

We’ve had a number of things happen that we’ve had to contend with that have included loss of job, having a new child, moving, and months paying close to 50% child support, despite a reduction in income.