Tomorrow our lease if officially up in the apartment that we are living in. My husband and I both have held off on re-signing the lease again but we know now that we really have no other choice.
We absolutely despise where we live, and the expenses to live in this tiny little apartment are insane. Yet, they are raising our rent AGAIN.
So for the past few weeks, we have looked hard for a new place. But, just like every other time, we had no luck finding a place without putting at least first and security down. In our area, this equals out to thousands of dollars just to secure a place. We don’t have that money.
Or if money wasn’t the issue, some of the places we were looking at turned out to either be pending a sale, facing foreclosure, or you can just sense that something shady is going on. We found this many times on our last search.
I got on the phone and pleaded with our leasing office. I told them to look at our rental history and consider what good tenants we are before upping our rent again. Their response was that we should have been upped more, but they took into account that we are good tenants and didn’t raise us that much.
Not only are they raising our rent, but we were told they need to pull our credit and background before renewing our lease. Are you kidding me? If we don’t agree to it, we need to go month-to-month and pay nearly $300 more per month!
The criminal check is understandable, but the credit check?
As I write this, I just feel like loading all of our stuff in a big U-Haul, taking it to a storage facility, and staying in a darn hotel room until we figure it all out. I don’t want to sign another commitment to this place! I know though that doing that would not be a good thing, especially not when you have kids.
I try to look at the bright of side of things and be grateful that we have a roof over our heads, but I am so furious right now.
I will honestly say that I am 100% committed to buying another house. I am going to figure out how to do it…somehow. This is the last apartment I will ever rent!
It is New Year’s Day, the first day of 2011. I anticipate MANY changes this year. Good ones I hope. I thought 2010 was going to be a great year. My bankruptcy was behind me, I got a new job, things looked good.
Well, when our beagle got sick a few months ago, it wrecked us both emotionally and financially. Unfortunately, our pup lost her battle with cancer just before Christmas. 
So as you can imagine, the holidays were anything but happy in our home this year.
I can tell you that my pup put up a great fight until the end. Cancer needs fighters! We had hoped that she would go peacefully in her sleep, which unfortunately did not happen.
We ended up having a vet come out to our home that specializes in animal hospice and in-home euthanasia to help her cross over to Rainbow Bridge. Our pup went peacefully in her bed that she loved so much. It was sad but also relieving knowing that she would not have to deal with pain anymore.
While all of this was going on, everyone in the house was battling the flu. I was out of work for a few days. My husband was sicker than I have ever seen him. The little one was missing school. It was miserable.
To top it off, the lease on our apartment was coming to an end and we had to worry about where we were going to live in a few weeks. In fact, that is a worry we are still dealing with now.
It’s a long story that I will have to write about tomorrow. I will be honest, these past few weeks have been pure hell for me and the rest of the family. I’m surprised that I have written this much on here so far today.
I have cried so much lately that I don’t think that I can shed another tear really. But, I went through a very sad phase, and then I got angry. Now I am at the point where I know I have to stay strong.
I miss my dog so much! Too much. It feels like I have lost a child. We were really close.
I also just want to settle down and not have to move every freaking year. I am tired of moving from place to place! Working two jobs is not so bad, but the late night/early morning hours are draining me and I am tired.
My husband’s work came to a halt over the holidays, but it is now picking up again. Thank goodness. If it doesn’t continue, he knows he has to find something more steady…but then again, what is steady anymore?
I had a really bad panic attack the other night thinking about all of this that it scared the wits out of me. Then I realized that I just can’t continue like this. I can’t. I am a natural worrier. I worry about everything. I always have. It’s not a good thing.
I am also grieving. I keep reminding myself though that my dog is pain-free right now and that she is in a good place. But every single day I think of her and miss her.
So, I sat down yesterday and told myself that I really gotta snap out of it. I also wrote down all of my goals that I want to achieve. I know I can’t achieve them if I sit around depressed and angry at the world.
Many of my goals are financial goals. I will share them all here in the upcoming days.
I hope everyone makes some goals this year, whatever they may be! Goals are good. They keep you motivated.
Yes, it has been over a month since my last post. I just could not close out the year without coming on here and wishing everyone a Happy New Year!
I am sorry for the lack of posting. A LOT has been going on…too much to cram into one post. I promise to update here tomorrow.
In the meantime, I wish everyone a Happy, Healthy, and Properous New Year!
I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. I ended up working the holiday at my outside-of-home job that was offering holiday pay for the day. The problem was, I ended working my old daytime hours and I am not accustomed to working those hours anymore—I was beat when I got home!
But I know the money will definitely help us out and I was home in time for dinner anyway…things worked out OK.
I am counting on this being the last holiday I work though. And I really need to be off the night shift soon…I am so off schedule right now.
Here’s and update on the pup… I have been reading a lot about cancer and alternative therapies lately—too much that I go to sleep and dream of this stuff…more like nightmares really.
I did find something I wanted to try with her that many people have had success with. We figured, all she is on is pain meds to keep her comfortable until the time comes, but what about trying to improve her quality of life while here?
Well, the day we were supposed to start her alternative therapy, we noticed her tumor grew larger…practically overnight. It is nearly covering her whole throat. She cannot eat hard foods any longer and her health is deteriorating even faster now.
We decided not to try any alternative treatment because it would require taking her off her pain meds. She would be in horrible pain if we did. We just had to come to the realization that this is it. It sucks.
Yes, the bad days are starting to outnumber the good. I know I said at the beginning of this that we would not let her suffer if they did…we know what we have to do, it’s just so hard to do it!
As far as everything else, finances are actually going well. They should be, considering I have been working 2 jobs for the past few weeks!
We would be doing even better if hubby’s work didn’t slow down so much this past month. But, it always does during the holidays.
He makes up for it by keeping this house from falling apart while I am working all of these hours. And he is there for the little one while she is out of school on holiday break. We would have to pay to put her in daycare those days, so we are definitely saving money there.
I have other financial stuff to talk about. I’m kinda down though today and can’t seem to get much out. I did want to sneak in an update here since it’s been a while since my last post.
I began writing this last week, but never posted it. Because of everything going on with the pup, my head was just not all there.
When we got denied for the financing through Care Credit, we really started getting desperate trying to come up with funds to get the pup medical care.
We looked into auto title loans and everything, but luckily I have read so much about them on many debt forums that I know no good can really come out of getting one.
Auto title loans and payday loans…I need to stay away from them! Maybe they may work for some, but I just foresee problems later on if we were to get involved with them.
However, in the past few months, we have been getting a lot of pre-approved credit card offers in the mail. As you may have well guessed, I ripped them all up.
We went by our P.O. Box a couple of weeks ago and found 2 pre-approved offers from HSBC Bank—one for hubby and one for me. I took a closer look at these.
Both offers said that by applying online, we could get an instant approval. Isn’t that how they usually suck you in?
Usually I would just chug these offers. I cannot lie, we were desperate to get the pup medical attention so these I didn’t throw in the garbage.
The credit offers were actually better than most junk offers we have gotten. You know the ones where they offer you a $200 credit line and then charge you $199.00 in some kind of whacked fees and high APR’s? These credit card offers were not like that.
My husband’s offer was for a MasterCard and mine was for a Visa.
The MasterCard offer was for 19.99% APR and an annual account set-up fee of $74—no other fees.
My Visa offer was for a 0% introductory rate for the first 12 months and 12.90% after the 12 months.The annual fee for that card is $49 and no other fees on that one either.
The Visa credit card offer clearly looked like a better offer.
So after me and my husband went back and forth on the subject, we both applied. My husband got approved for $300 and I got approved for $500.
These amounts certainly aren’t high at all, but we are OK with it. I don’t want so much credit that we get back in the same hole again.
What we were hoping for was enough to get the pup medical attention, but with those small credit lines, it wasn’t possible.
I read a lot about getting a credit card after bankruptcy. There are some opposing views on the whole subject. Me and my husband both have complete opposite views on it ourselves.
He thinks that getting a credit card after bankruptcy is a good thing as far as re-establishing credit and having credit available for emergencies.
Me, I have always thought differently. I felt that credit cards just got you in trouble. Why re-establish credit anyway? Having good credit just sets you up for getting into even more debt.
If you have enough in savings to buy what you need or want, or to cover any little emergencies that popped up, why would you need a credit card?
Then I realized that my thinking may have been wrong about ever getting credit again. Look what happened to my dog. If we would have had the credit, we may have went into a little debt for her care, but with me working 2 jobs and our finances starting to get back on track, we may have been able to pay it off quickly.
I say “may” because who knows how much we would have spent on medical care with the last vet before he realized what was really going on with our pup.
Isn’t that what credit cards are really meant for anyway? For emergencies?
Sure, having money in savings for emergencies is always the ideal situation, but emergencies don’t always happen when you have money in savings.
You do what you gotta do…
So, we got our 2 credit cards in the mail. These are our first credit cards since our bankruptcy. I honestly don’t know how I feel having a credit card again.
Certainly, our credit lines aren’t going to bankrupt us again and we are going to be smart with them. Maybe put little things on them here and there to use them and pay them off right away…just for the sake of re-establishing credit.
As much as I am not a fan of credit cards or credit in general, I understand going through all of this why having decent credit is necessary. That is unless you are really wealthy and don’t need any kind of credit whatsoever.
The saddest part of all I guess, is that even if we got a $100K credit line or won the lottery tomorrow, it still would not be enough to save our pup.
Tags: credit card after BK, getting credit after bankruptcy, reestablishing credit after bankruptcy
I think the title of this post sums it up. After our last visit to the vet, it seemed things just went downhill for the pup.
The pain meds just didn’t seem to be working and for some reason we just didn’t feel secure about the whole surgery thing.
I emailed a longtime family friend that works with pets and knows a heck of a lot about them. I told her about the situation we were having with our pup and asked for advice.
She did not have answers but emailed a few people that did. 2 vets got back to her immediately and said we should get a second opinion.
To shorten the story a little, I told her we had no money for a second opinion right now but will budget for one before the surgery date.
She was on the phone the next minute calling her vet’s office getting us in and telling them to basically put it on her tab there.
I felt like our prayers had been answered and there was a guardian angel watching over us! Nobody ever helps us out. For someone to do what she did, well, that was just awesome.
We got the second opinion. It was not at all what we wanted to hear. Our pup does not need surgery. She was misdiagnosed by the first vet and was being treated for a problem…that was truly never really the problem.
Our pup has cancer and a huge inoperable tumor, in a very bad place. My heart sank when the doctor told us that there is nothing they can do for her.
I don’t think me or my husband could get a word out. We did not know what to say, what to ask. We both just sat there with blank faces.
Gosh, this sucks.
What’s next?
Well, we make life as comfortable for her as we possibly can. She is on strong pain meds until her final day comes. It could be today, tomorrow, next week, next month…
We don’t know…
As long as she is comfortable and not in pain, she will be OK until that day comes. If we see that she is hurting at all, we will end it. We do not want her to suffer.
As much as it would kill us to do it, it would be selfish to keep her suffering just because we don’t want to let her go.
It took a lot to come on here and type this without crying. It’s been rough. I haven’t gone to work these past 2 nights and have a huge project that is due by Friday with my new job.
It’s hard to focus. It’s really hard to focus on anything right now.
I do want to thank everyone who sent their well-wishes our way. Of course, we did not get the news we wanted to hear, but our pup was spared from having a complicated, painful, and unnecessary surgery.
Someone, somewhere was looking out for her…for us too.
Yes, the pup needs surgery. She finished her meds on Tuesday and appeared to be fine Wednesday. In the middle of the night though, she was back to yelping and shivering and was in total pain.
Luckily, we had 2 pain pills left over for her just in case we needed them. We ended up back at the vet today. He wanted to see her before giving us a final “estimate” for the surgery.
I thought to myself “estimate?” That sounds expensive!
But lucky for us, the surgery as complicated as it sounds, is not going to be as expensive as we thought. The total is $1150. I honestly thought it was going to be between $3-$5k—maybe more.
Still, we do not have $1150 for the surgery. We told the doctor our financial situation and explained to him we do not have the money right now—but our dog can’t suffer either.
He refilled her pain meds in order to give us time to come up with the money, so we went ahead and scheduled the surgery for November 30th.
We have no credit, no savings, and nobody to borrow money from. I had hoped the doctor would see how much we have invested in just getting a diagnosis and would offer a payment plan to us.
But I understand too that our pup is a new patient of his and he doesn’t know us all that well to offer alternative payment options. I really think if my dog was an established patient, he would do it. It’s OK though, as long as the pup’s pain is managed, we’ll get it. We have to!
I know November 30th is gonna come faster than ever. We *need* to come up with this money…and fast.
I have 2 jobs now, which will help us get there faster. On top of it all, my husband is going through anything of value in our apartment that he could sell to list on eBay and Craigslist.
I will post our progress here. It is amazing how desperate you get when you need money and how certain material things you thought really mattered to you, don’t.
Over the past few years, we have sold pretty much everything of value that we had to pay bills or stay afloat. I know I have learned what really matters in life, and I just don’t value material things anymore like I did in the past.
We will sell whatever we have to and will work as hard as we can to make sure our pup gets the surgery that she needs to get better.
Tags: help with vet bills, no money for pet care, sick pet no money
Yes, you read it right. I have been so slammed work-wise and family-wise, and I have had so much going on with the pup that I have not had time to update here about another important thing going on in my life.
As I posted a few weeks back, I was offered a job writing for a private company. After all of these years, I finally got offered a great job doing what I love, at home, and with benefits! But it came at a time where I just had too much on my plate!
I was going to pass on the job with everything going on but wondered if the opportunity would ever come my way again. I decided to take the job and put my notice in at my current job I have been at for all these years.
Well, when I put in my notice, my nice boss nearly had a heart attack! It really did not come at a good time for her or the company. One long-time fellow co-worker just quit and another got fired.
I got offered a raise and was asked if I could fill in the night-shift where they were really short-staffed. The raise was nice and certainly more than my starting base pay for my writing job. Even better, I don’t have to deal with my not-so-nice boss going in at these hours either.
See, my writing job offers a small base-pay and then I get paid so much per assignment. However, if I really write I can make some good money.
The fear got to me though. The base pay alone will not cover my bills. And with the pup possibly needing surgery, I really do not feel secure making the total move yet.
So what am I doing? I am working both jobs starting today. Actually, I started working the night shift (very crappy hours but awesome money) last week. It has been difficult because I am on a total opposite schedule than my family is.
There is some dead time and I have breaks at my other job where I can take notes and get my writing ideas together for the next day. In the morning, after everyone goes to work and school, I write.
I know I will not be able to do this long. I am holding out until at least the end of the year. As much as I want to have my perfect hours writing at home, I also know we have bills, no emergency fund, and a pup that is under medical care and may possibly need a surgery that I have no money for. I have to do this for now.
There is no doubt I am going to be tired. I am tired now just getting into the groove of working nights. But at least I have the opportunity to make the money now while I can.
I just couldn’t give up the opportunity to write professionally for a company, because that is something that I want to do long-term. But, I couldn’t say no to a substantial raise at this job either, especially when I need the money.
As much as I have hated my job for years and have wanted to leave, I know I have to stay a little while longer to get ahead financially.
It is amazing. There are so many people right now that have no work at all, yet I have work coming outta my ears! I can’t complain and I need to take advantage of the situation while I can.
The good thing about doing it this way is that I have time to test the waters with this writing job, while saving up money to get ahead. And I don’t have to worry about staying afloat until I get my first paycheck from them because I will still be getting paid from my other job.
If I see it is too much and I start slacking somewhere and not giving one employer or the other 100%, I will quit working nights altogether and concentrate on writing full-time.
As I wrote in the previous post, me and my husband applied for Care Credit in an effort to get some money up to obtain medical care for our sick pup. We were denied.
Being desperate to get our pup seen by a vet, we were going nuts trying to find anything we could sell, pawn, whatever. It seems that we have been in so many binds these past few years that we really had nothing left to sell or pawn, except for our paid off car.
I was even tempted to get an auto title loan!
Anyway, I didn’t get a title loan on our car. I wrote as much as I possibly could to earn some extra cash, even though I was under extreme stress this week. I was able to make a little, not much though.
Our dog ended up waking us up in the wee hours on Tuesday, and we ended up in the vet’s office. She was shivering, yelping, had a high fever, salivating everywhere, and had not eaten or drank anything for over 24 hours.
We explained our financial situation and told the vet we cannot see her suffer anymore and we needed to know our options. Only then and there as he was examining her did he hit the “sweet spot”. The source of all her pain.
He told us what he thought it might be but to confirm it he would need to take a few X-Rays. So we paid for the X-Rays…and all-be-darn, we found out what was wrong!
So the pup has an infection and a blocked salivary gland. Apparently this is extremely painful, making her not want to eat or drink whatsoever. She is on a cocktail of meds, including pain killers. If all goes well with the meds, we will be fine. If not, she will need surgery.
I don’t even want to think about surgery right now. We have no money for surgery. Our fingers are crossed that these meds do the trick. It has been a few days now and so far, she is looking better!
All we had to pay this time was for an office visit, a few X-Rays, and her meds. The total was just under $300. Yes, $300 is a lot of money in these tough financial times, but paying the $300 may have saved my pup’s life! Luckily I wrote over the weekend and had the funds. If not, a bill would have went unpaid for the month.
It’s the price you have to pay when you have no savings or credit cards for these types of emergencies…
One thing I will tell anyone who has a sick dog and wants to turn to the internet for help diagnosing the problem—don’t! Judging by her symptoms, she could have had anything from canine meningitis to a ruptured disk and back problems.
I even watched Youtube videos of dogs with certain conditions and caught myself saying “She is doing the exact same thing that dog is doing, she’s got that problem!”
But what she has was nothing I even considered.
I admit, I am one that tries to diagnose every health problem online without the visit to a doctor (which I know is not good!), but I think with humans it is a lot different than with animals. We know where it hurts, they can’t tell us the source of their pain.
It stinks, especially for those folks that have no money to take their pet to the vet or get them medication they need. I know. I have been there and will be totally screwed if my dog does need surgery.
One thing that did upset me when visiting internet forums and reading blogs about people in need of getting medical attention for their pets, but had no money, was the rude comments! The backlash was HORRIBLE. So many people were mean and said things like:
“You shouldn’t have an animal if you can’t afford to get them medical care.”
“People with no money shouldn’t have pets!”
The best was:
“Would you let your kid suffer like you are letting your cat or dog suffer?”
Some of these comments really bothered me, and it is one of the reasons I usually don’t post in open forums anymore. I felt really bad for some of these people.
There are tons of folks that weren’t always without resources. Maybe they bought their pets when they were doing better in life. I mean, how many people do you know right now that are down on their luck? Got laid off from their jobs? In the process of losing their homes?
And the last comment comparing animals to kids. Well, if a child was really sick and needed medical attention, but had no insurance, they could easily be taken to a hospital where they cannot be turned away.
With pets, you don’t have that option. If you do not have the money to get your pet medical attention, you are out of luck. It’s sad really.
Some people recommend surrendering your animal to a local no-kill shelter or the SPCA to get the medical attention they need. But, you lose your pet. Others recommend giving your pet to a family that can afford their medical care. Me, I didn’t want to do either. But I would have to do it if it meant the end of my dog’s suffering.
I did find a website that offers resources for people with pets that need help. None of these great resources were available in my area, but I wanted to post the link up here just in case someone ever needs it.
Here is a little update to my last my post. My pup is still not right and will only occasionally eat. On top of that, our pet guinea pig, that showed no signs of any illness, died suddenly on Wednesday.
We have been driving ourselves crazy wondering if whatever the dog has, the guinea pig may have had. Or if our guinea pig’s death was totally coincidental. We have a few other guinea pigs we are caring for and they are fine. If we have to bury another pet this year, the family is really going to be devastated.
I finally took the plunge and applied for Care Credit. I figured if we got it and could get the dog help and have the credit line open for a medical emergency, it would be OK. I read all of the details about the credit line and the terms and conditions, and they were pretty cut and dry. I also liked the fact that they offered no interest options too.
It took me until today to finally give in and apply for this Care Credit. Believe me, if I had the savings to pay the vet costs, I so would rather pay cash for it than ever apply for credit. But I don’t have the cash and I am desperate.
I have always said I would stay away from credit forever. But this is no purchase. This is to get my pet medical care that she needs. She has been sick for almost a month now! Not just a little sick, she has been really sick.
We were told that if my husband and I apply together, we had a higher chance of getting approved. Well, we applied online and got denied immediately. It appears they did a credit check with Equifax and here are the reasons for denial:
- Total balance on all credit accounts too high – highest percent of credit limit used on revolving accounts is too high
– Number of bank revolving accounts w/ % of credit limit used of at least 75% is too high
- Too many adverse public records or collections items
Huh? The first two reasons should not even apply to me or my husband. All balances on any credit cards were wiped clean in the bankruptcy.
Apparently the “too many adverse public records or collection items” reason is for any pre-bankruptcy collection information that may still be left on either my credit report or my husband’s credit report.
I am pretty sure that I cleaned all of that off my credit report. I did not finish cleaning up his though. Looks like we will be ordering our free credit report that we are entitled to because of the denial. I am going to wait until next week, if funds are a little better, and pay the $7 or $8 bucks for an updated score too.
So, Monday I will be on the phone calling around vets seeing if anyone is willing to work with us. If not, I will take my pup back to the original vet and discuss our options. She cannot live suffering. She just can’t.
I have loads more to update and will do so tomorrow. Besides the dog issues and my guinea pig dying this week, I have a major dilemma with my work situation and the new job. I have so many decisions to make. My head hurts and I just want to stop thinking for a little bit.
Tags: applied for credit, credit line for medical emergencies
Shortly after I last posted here, my dog became extremely ill, was vomiting blood, and required emergency care. Yes, we just lost our family dog that was getting up there in age. Now, our pup that is not even 7 yet, is sick…seems to be really sick.
Last time she was sick, and it was nothing compared to this, I put it on a credit card. This time all we had was cash and our little savings. Since her normal vet was not open, we found another vet that offered a same-day visit with no extra charge.
Yes, I had to ask if they charged extra. It’s sad I can’t just worry about getting her treatment, but rather worry how much they are going to charge to find out what’s wrong with her. Our animals are our family, but if you don’t have the money, vets will not make them better. At least not any vets I know.
It’s sad really…
So the vet visit was under $50. We were actually able to bring in the blood she threw up so they could test it. They did additional blood work, took x-rays, and were in the process of admitting her to the pet hospital to put her on IV’s and perform additional testing, when my husband and I both looked at each other and said “You ask…”
You ask, meaning…how much is this going to cost? I felt like a total ass. When you love your pets, you shouldn’t need to ask how much it is going to cost to save their life. You just pay for it. Right? But, what happens if you can’t pay for it?
So we go out to the reception area and get an estimate of what our bill is up to now…almost $900. Needless to say, I just looked at the office manager and told them “we don’t have it!” We don’t. The waiting room full of people heard it. Oh well. What can you do? I then had to ask what was medically necessary.
I was given a pamphlet for Care Credit at the vet’s office. I have read about Care Credit before. It is a credit line you open to pay for things like dental, cosmetic surgery, vet bills, etc. I was told that I might be able to finance my dog’s care.
First of all, the word “finance” made me cringe. Second of all, Care Credit is provided by GE Capital. Yes, the same GE that I just included in my bankruptcy. My husband and I were desperate, but we already knew getting this Care Credit was not going to happen.
I wish vet’s would finance the care in-house! I would do it if I were a vet. My husband and I both work, had little savings, and still couldn’t afford the medical care for our dog. Imagine people that are laid off right now who can’t afford the necessities. Do you think they can afford to take their pets to the vet?
After going back and forth, we were able to negotiate our vet bill down to just what we had in savings. Yup, the $500 is gone. This meant that we would take her home and give her fluids ourselves, feed her a special diet, and give her antibiotics and some meds to stop the bleeding.
Without the additional testing, the vet was not really sure what he was treating. All the tests they took were fine. So she just finished her round of meds and her special diet. And while she is not throwing up anymore, she is not right.
In fact, we caught her crouching under the table shaking and just acting strange. She has now lost her appetite. All of our savings are gone. I am working hard day and night to replenish our savings that may just go right back to more vet costs.
I am praying she gets better soon.
While all of this is going on, I got offered a job. A dream job in fact! One of the companies I write part-time for as a subcontractor, offered me a position with their company!
So while I should be jumping for joy, I am down with all that is going on with our dog and really finding it hard to deal with right now. If I don’t show interest, this opportunity may NEVER come again and I could be stuck in the hole where I have unhappily been for years.
That is what’s going on so far. I will update as things change. If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, it seems something always changes from post to post anyway.
Coming up with a budget and sticking to it is really helping us out. I also kicked it into high gear and pumped up my writing a little more.
I am still not a fast writer, but I managed to make my monetary goal for the week to get all the bills caught up and have extra money left over for savings.
So, in total we have just under $600 in savings! Yippee! I really want to get to $1000 before the end of the week. With $1000 in savings, I will feel a little better.
Changes to our budget included less trips to the grocery store. You know the ones where you are just supposed to run in and grab one thing? But you never really grab one thing, do you? Neither do we!
Every grocery store trip is $30-$40, easily. We cut it down to once a week, maybe twice.
The little one loves her drive-thru Chick-Fil-A a few times a week after school, that was limited to once a week, and we plan to cut it out altogether soon.
What else? Oh, I am keeping up with my coupons again and buying necessities like toothpaste, toilet paper, and dog food for pennies after coupons.
My husband already lowered our cable bill and internet so we stand good there.
We narrowed down our main budget-busters: Electricity, Rent, and Water. Since we have moved into this small 2 bedroom apartment, our living expenses seemed to have gone up rather than down. It really should be the other way around!
We pay more here in this tiny apartment than we did in our decent size house!
I seriously think this little apartment is more of a money-pit than anything. The appliances are old and the ac doesn’t work right, which I am sure are the reasons for the extremely high electricity bills.
The water bills were also so high we disputed them. The apartment complex we live in handles the water and swears they checked for leaks and checked the meter to make sure it was operating correctly, and apparently it is. So we are kind of stuck there.
The rent is average for our area, but still is high for what we have. Our lease is up in a few months, we are definitely getting out of here and looking for something cheaper!
Our cell phone plan is the last thing we are working on. We have been with the same company for almost 7 years and they just will not budge on pricing anymore—even when you threaten to cancel.
As we speak, my husband is comparing a few cell phone companies. The problem is, we are a little worried about the credit checks they are going to conduct.
I am reading a lot about cell phone companies requiring HUGE deposits from people with bad credit. I wonder if filing bankruptcy puts us in the bad credit category or what? I mean, technically, we have no credit.
I would love to just get on a pre-paid plan but without a home phone (we use Magic Jack occasionally), our cell phones are important for communication. Hubby also uses a decent amount of minutes for work so prepaid probably will not work for the family,
So we’ll see….
All we have left is our car payment and insurance, which is under $500 a month for both. There’s no negotiating the car payment and we actually pay very little for car insurance.
We don’t have a lot of bills so keeping them under control should be a lot easier than before when we had so many. The key is to make sure we stay within our budget so we can keep up with them.
I can say that I am sure happy we have some savings again!
Tags: budget busters, budgeting, saving money, savings
This girl in debt is still around. Geese, I can’t believe we are in September already, and it has been over a month since I have last posted here. It sure doesn’t feel like it.
You know, I got my renewal notice for this site the other day and when my husband seen it, he asked if I still even posted here and if I thought about whether or not I wanted to keep “girlndebt” going.
I didn’t hesitate for a minute to tell him that I am keeping this site going, but I do feel a little bad about not posting as much as I should here.
Then I started thinking about it…I am really not a girl in debt anymore. I am technically not even a girl with debt either. I have my car to pay off—that is it.
But, when things feel bad around here, I look back at some of the old posts I have and realize that things can always be worse. No longer do I worry about repo trucks coming in the middle of the night, or creditors hounding me day after day. Yeah, we are still broke, but not as bad as some are out there.
So looking at these old posts here on girlndebt.com does two things for me: it reassures me that things always work themselves out—somehow, and it shows me just how being in debt can affect a person’s life and the lives of their loved ones, and how I never want to be back in debt…ever again.
Yeah, money is tight as anything right now. These last few months my husband and I have been busting our tails trying to catch up just our basic bills, which we just about have. I will be working all weekend writing to raise just enough money to pay one last bill.
Next thing you know, October will be coming around the corner and it will be time to do it all over again. It is kind of depressing living paycheck to paycheck and not having any savings.
I realize though, some of this may be our fault. We are going to have to sit down and review our budget and see where all of our money is going each week.
We need to start cutting back somewhere so that we can catch up. And, we may just need to work a little bit harder to have money saved up again just to have some breathing room.
Gosh, having savings feels so nice! I loved that feeling of having just a little bit in an emergency fund.
Anyway, I don’t want to change the name or give up this site—so I am not going to. I am going to renew it and post a lot more. I am also going to start posting little debt elimination articles here that may help others, and every once in a while throw in some of my own personal stuff…why not? It’s my therapy.
I just got on with a company writing bankruptcy articles for their websites, which I am totally happy about. Of course, I ghostwrite for this company so I’ll never get the credit, but I love the fact that some of the sites they own are top bankruptcy sites, with good info on them and not garbage.
Since the articles need to be factual, I do a lot of research for them. I am learning more about debt and bankruptcy than I ever thought possible. I want to share more of that knowledge here too.
So starting next week, I will write at least one post a week. No more slacking. But in the meantime, I gotta go work on my budget and see what is going on there!
Tags: Bankruptcy, Debt, saving money
It has been just over 2 weeks since my last update here, and shortly after I updated…things just went haywire.
Where do I even begin?
My husband no longer has a job with the company he was working for. That was brief, huh? The sale of the company was going through, then it wasn’t going through. It was a mess.
They then started bouncing checks and going on a COD only basis with many vendors my husband would encounter on a day-to-day basis. Not only was this embarrassing but it had my husband worrying when his paycheck was going to start bouncing.
He made a couple of calls and sent some emails out and secured some work doing what he does best. One of the companies that ended up having a lot of work for him was the one he had to cut the cord with a few months back.
I am glad he did not burn his bridges with them but let them go nicely. They are not the easiest to deal with at all, but when they pay, they pay, and the checks never bounce. He just knows he needs more than that egg in his basket.
It is good he is back doing what he likes doing and has a flexible schedule doing it. Our youngest starts school again in a few weeks and we were worried about who would care for her while we both worked. We looked at after-school childcare options…wow have prices gone up!
My work schedule…well, it has been interesting. A long-time coworker was fired and I was asked to cover some really wild hours…including overnights, weekends, and a few very long days covering for my bosses while they were out of town.
I figured that even though it totally screwed up the family’s schedule, I would be getting paid overtime to do it. Nope. It turned out that I did not get overtime at all. In fact, I was asked to stay home for a few days after busting my tail so that I wouldn’t get the extra money.
Well, I guess that was their way of saying thanks.
I really don’t think I am going to have to quit this job. It looks like financially, this company is not doing so well either. Luckily, I have my writing on the side which I have always wanted to make my full-time source of income anyway. Looks like it may just be happening soon.
Yes, I know I have been complaining about this job forever. The truth is, I have been so scared to quit because of the job security and the steady paycheck—even though I am currently hired on with some pretty good writing companies.
But now with everything going on, it doesn’t look there is so much job security there anymore either. Why can’t I just bail? I get so nervous. Look at how many companies my husband has gone through in the last few years? It is scary out there!
As I write this, we are totally flat broke. You would think with all the working and writing that I do that we would be caught up. Nope, but I am working on it.
Besides the normal stuff, a few things happened over these past few weeks that emotionally and financially drained us…
Our family dog got sick and our oldest daughter dropped a bombshell on us.
Not having money in savings for either, I ended up having to sell my engagement ring for quick cash. Something I thought I would never do.
Well, our dog ended up dying—crushed the whole family. He was sick and he was getting up there in age. A few days later, our oldest daughter moved out of state. Our family has totally done a 360 in a matter of a few weeks.
There is so much more to add but I have already written so much, and really don’t want to turn this post into more of a somber post than I have to. Isn’t this a financial blog anyway???
I think I have cried and made myself sicker than I ever thought possible. For what? There are just some things in life we just can not change. So why flip out about them?
My daughter is doing well in her new hometown, and my dog is in heaven wagging his tail and probably eating everything in sight like he always did. That makes me happy.
All of these things that happened, would have happened whether we were the richest family around or a family that had zero in the bank(yup, that’s us!). That’s life.
However, the process with my dog especially, would have been a lot less stressful if we had the money in-hand to pay the vet fees and not have to worry about finding a way to get the money up to treat him.
If I had a credit card when all of this was happening, would I have used it? You betcha. Now, if I had the right emergency fund up, I wouldn’t have needed credit. Which is just a strong reminder that emergencies can and will happen…so be prepared. Have that emergency fund up…because you just never know.
Did I know any of this was coming when I last posted July 15th? Nope.
Things are moving fast here on our end and I have way too many updates! I will try to keep it brief though because I have loads of work to do and so very little time to do it. I just do not like leaving this site sitting dormant. I enjoy posting here, and again, it helps keep me stay accountable for my financial actions.
I am now working part-time at work and full-time at home. 
How did that happen? Well, to make a super long story short, cuts were being made at work and I hopped on the opportunity.
Eventually, my hours would have been drastically cut anyway so I chose to dive in and take this opportunity to give my writing a chance while still being able to make enough at an outside job to cover the bills. Yup, the economy is finally affecting even my line of work, crime prevention—go figure!
My husband is still working at the job he got making peanuts he says, but it helps us financially. No word yet on his other application. He still looks for other opportunities but they are just not there. He loved what he did but right now the money is not there either. Not until the housing market picks up anyway. Who knows when that might be.
I finally got my credit reports all 100% updated, but my husband’s credit reports look like they are going to be a task to tackle. I will post more on that this weekend too when I finally get some free time to do it!
Any other time posting this news would be dreadful for me to do, but since bad luck just seems to follow us…what the heck, right?
So in my last post I wrote about my husband getting a job and we were finally catching up again. Until he got that first check from this new job, we were literally screwed.
I had to ask for our first payment extension for our electric bill. We actually had the money to pay it from an item we sold on eBay, but a scam artist buyer put an illegitimate dispute in to Paypal resulting in a hold put on our account.
Our Paypal account was in the negative and it was a MESS. We had to close our bank account that was linked to the Paypal account…yuck. eBay and Paypal figured it all out after a few days and our money was returned, but the money came a little too late. I learned a lot from that experience and I will write about it in the next post.
It was our first really bad experience with eBay, but a bad enough experience to pull all of our ads until we decide if we want to sell there (or buy there) anymore.
Luckily, we had a stockpile of food I had from all our couponing trips. It wasn’t the greatest or healthiest week of eating, but we all ate.
Then my husband got his first two paychecks, combined with my check for working overtime and payment for some writing work, we were 100% caught up.
My husband, only a few days into the job, called to tell me a few observations he noticed. He went to pick up some supplies for the company and was told there is a note on their account that it was “COD” only.
A few stops later, another company told him that they could not do business with his company because they were over 90 days past due with them too.
Warning signs? You betcha!
How the hell does this happen to my husband? This is the SECOND company in what, less than 2 years? I want to point out that these two companies that have done this have both been in business for years in our area…at least 25.
So this past Friday, he reports to work anyway. Right away he sees employees chattering and feels an awkwardness in the building. Everyone just found out the company has been sold and changes will be happening.
There was very limited information given and everyone had all weekend to worry about this crap. Why do companies do this on a Friday? Worst of all, if this was happening, why did they just recently hire my husband?
Today he got answers from the guy who hired him, who swears this was a total shock to him. The company that bought the company my husband is working for is a well-known company in our area, but isn’t doing well themselves in this economy. So we all know what is going to happen.
They are making the transition and all employees from the company my husband works for need to apply to this new company and go through the whole application process. My husband and I both agreed he will not do this. So, he will work as long as he can to collect a paycheck, and then on to the next.
We all know what happens when companies buy others out. They use the existing employees to help with the transition and then “can” their asses. That’s corporate America for ya.
I tell ya, this economy is crazy. No job is secure anymore…no job. Even poor teachers here are getting pink slips this summer. Teachers! We need teachers!
I am not freaking out. Not at all. In fact, this is just another chapter in our lives, or another hurdle to jump through, as some might call it. As you see, we get through it and come out stronger in the end.
We are still waiting to hear back from the family friend about the other job my husband applied for. If he doesn’t get that one, we’ll keep on looking.
I wish I had time to update here on a daily basis so I wouldn’t have to write a “book” to catch everything up. I really need to work on that.
Let’s talk finances first…
After I posted here about my husband having no work, he got emailed a ton of work. The problem is, the work was spread out all over South Florida. What that boils down to is my husband driving all over town putting wear and tear on our car, wasting gas and time to make less than minimum wage…and making tax time for me a nightmare.
The bad thing about getting all that work? We didn’t even have the money for gas for him to even complete it—even if he wanted to. That’s how broke we were.
I mentioned my husband had an interview on Tuesday. Well, he got the job. This was not the job with the family friend, although there is still hope for that one. This job doesn’t pay much at all but it will get our bills paid until better opportunities come up.
So the work that got emailed to him, he had to decline. He had to cut the cord with the company that has let us down once too many times.
He started working last Wednesday and will get his first check tomorrow. Yay! The only hitch we ran into was childcare for our youngest this last week of school. We honestly did not think my husband would get the job so quickly, but he interviewed Tuesday and started Wednesday.
Since I am working a million hours for my boss while she is on vacation next week, I worked it out to leave early to pick up my daughter from school these past few days. It has been hectic driving across town to work and then back to pick her up. It all worked out though.
As far as childcare for the summer, I am clueless as to what we are going to do. Camp is so expensive, my mother-in-law is not doing well health-wise, our oldest will not be here most of the summer to help…I just don’t know.
We were so broke this past week, I can not tell you how crappy it felt. Getting a steady income coming in to have all bills paid will feel nice and we can finally start saving again. Figuring out childcare is going to be an issue but we need the money so we need to figure it out.
Money, Money, Money…
I will totally disagree with anyone who says money will not solve your problems. The only problems in my life revolve around my lack of money!
I don’t how it has been nearly 2 weeks since my last post. Boy does time go by so fast. Here’s my mixed bag of updates.
In a quest to get ourselves in better shape (uh, lose the fat!) and get healthier, my husband and I both made a strong effort to eating better and exercising more.
I especially wanted to do it because I need to stay well. If I get sick, we are up the creek without a paddle for sure. Sucks not having savings and only one income coming in. That alone puts stress on me.
Anyway, to the story: I guess I overdid it and injured my foot somehow. Yeah, kind of defeated the purpose, huh? I don’t know how I did it since we don’t do any strenuous exercising, mainly just walking and bike riding. But I did it, and one day last week I woke up, went to put my foot on the ground, and I felt a pain like…WOW!
It’s been about a week and the pain is slowly subsiding. I am pretty sure it is nothing serious; actually, I am confident it is nothing serious. I did a lot of research…yeah I am self diagnosing again—not good I know. From what I am feeling and from what I have read, it seems I may be suffering from plantar fasciitis.
I couldn’t go to the doctor, partially because I don’t have one now. Also, I don’t have the money for the high co-payments to see a doctor/specialist. Since I got the cheapest insurance plan available, I pay out the wazoo for things like this. On top of it all, I don’t like going to the doctor. I am sure there are some great docs out there. I just haven’t found one. Maybe I need to.
Next update: Hubby’s work
We are waiting to hear back from a job my husband applied for that was recommended to him by a family friend. This guy seems to think my husband has a chance of getting hired. I have my fingers crossed. It is no glamorous, high-paying job by all means. However, it is stable income with benefits. You can’t find that around anymore.
As everyone knows, you can’t put your eggs in one basket though. So we are continuing to look for more job opportunities. There are a lot of jobs here in South Florida, but there are also a lot of people out of work. So for every job that opens up, there are thousands of people applying for it.
I helped my husband update his resume and we are hitting it hard and sending it out to every job that looks decent. Out of the many inquiries we have emailed or faxed, he has gotten only one response. However, that response got him an interview next week. So out of these two jobs we are waiting on, something has gotta give.
We are OK for now. All bills are paid for May and it looks like we will have rent covered on the first of the month for June. I will just need to keep working hard to make sure everything else gets paid. Hopefully one of these jobs will come through for my husband so we can breathe a sigh of relief…
Oh, it would be such a relief.
I don’t like writing these types of posts, I prefer to report only good news. But then again, this is a debt blog and from day one I planned on documenting the good, the bad, and the ugly.
So here it goes….
With less than 30 days until our lease is up, we have no choice but to stay put where we are. We had a couple strikes against us trying to move out this month:
- We just couldn’t find a rental that fit our needs…the dog, the school district…
- My husband’s work came to a sudden halt. Actually, he has been without work for 2 weeks now. 2 weeks with no income. We used any money we had saved up to move to pay our bills.
So there went the savings. There went any safety net we felt. Without savings, I get nervous…very nervous. My husband I can tell is beyond nervous. He looks like how I did over a year ago when I was stressed. He is usually the calm one too. His face is breaking out, he looks stressed, and he is quite uptight.
I’ve had to step up my game a little more and get out of the “comfortable” mode. Since my bosses are away again, I was asked to put in more hours. I do. When I come home, I woof down dinner and begin to write. I write until I am tired. I wont write when I am tired because I notice the quality is just not there when I am writing while half asleep. I wish I could, but I can’t.
I am grateful I found ways to make extra income from home or else we would really be screwed. That is partially the reason I am not freaking out. The work is there, I just need to do it. Hubby hates the fact that I am pulling all the weight and it bothers him as a husband and a father, not being able to provide for us as a family. Hey, how many other dads are without work right now? I am OK with it. Really.
My husband is a little pissed off at the company that he has been subcontracting for. Months ago when they really needed him, they told him there was a ton of work and they had even more projects coming up. Well, he has since found out there isn’t.
Basically, they promised him future work so he would plow through the time-sensitive projects they had. Now that they have nothing for him, he doesn’t hear from them. They don’t give a crap that he has a family to feed and is stressed about how he is going to pay his bills. Companies suck. I am sorry to say, they just do.
This is the same company over the past few years that screwed up his checks, left us without money one Christmas because they failed to process payments, and just play games with people. It’s not right.
While he did not tell them officially to bug off, he is out every day applying for a real job. Right now it’s what he has got to do.
I took a break from writing for a few minutes to post here. I have been writing and researching on the same subject for days and just need to talk about something else…:)
This is a reminder that money comes and money goes. It is important to have savings, and we need to get our savings going again.
As I sit here now, I have all the bills that need to be paid for the month sitting in front of me. When I start writing and feel like stopping, I look at the bills we need to pay. As I finish a project, I put it towards each bill. It is helping so far. Sometimes I just want to come home and relax. But right now, I can’t.
It will all work out though. I know it will.
Tags: Financial distress, out of work, savings
With the economy in such shambles, I guess it is only natural for scammers to be and about causing more headaches for everyone. Like we don’t have enough to worry about already. As I have mentioned before, our lease is almost up and we have been looking for a rental. What a pain it has been.
99.9% of the rentals that we inquired about were bogus ads set up by Realtors who tried to show us other properties they had or scam ads. Yup, scam ads. Brilliant little scams that even I almost fell for. Luckily though, I know what to look for and caught it before we got dooped. However, I think this scam is worth mentioning here so others don’t get screwed.
Before I give the scenario, I want to point out that I have always enjoyed using Craigslist to post things for sale, inquire about jobs, and have even bought things from others on there. Lately though, I don’t know what the heck is going on. It seems Craigslist now is a portal for scam artists and people out to screw you in some way or another.
The last few times we have listed things for sale, we got bombarded with emails from people telling us they are sending a friend with a cashiers check…blah blah blah…SCAM!
So since our local paper and flyers aren’t showing too many rentals, we turned to Craiglist. Immediately, I seen a house right down the street from my daughters school. I recognized the house right away because we drive by it every day.
Anyway, the ad listed it for rent for $1200-By Owner and dogs allowed. The only way to contact the person who listed the house was to send an email through Craigslist. I did. No response.
I figured the house rented. I moved on to look for another house. Guess what was re-listed at $1000 a month? Yup, the same house. So I am thinking…SWEET! It is in our price range, close to the schools, they are OK with dogs, the house has a yard.
This time the ad had a full name of the owner, an email address with the owners name in it, and cross streets for the home. Sounds legit.
Maybe my last email went to their spam box? So I emailed from another email address. This time I sent our phone # too. I wanted this house.
A few hours later we received an email asking if we were still interested in the house. They even gave us the exact address and told us to drive by and see if we liked it. I took it a step further and looked up county records, etc. Just to see if the house is pending foreclosure, etc. Everything looked good. Yes, the name on the ad and email address matched the real owners name.
So we emailed back that we were very interested. He emailed back immediately with a story on why he is renting the house. This email was full of broken English and gave some story about working in the UK under contract for 3 years and…well, it just didn’t make sense and sounded fishy.
Next email we got was a rental application from this guy (or girl…who knows?) asking us every bit of personal info you can imagine. I decided to research this a little more. I wanted that house but something didn’t feel right.
I “Google” the phone # he gave us. Immediately I found someone posted about a UK rental scam going on. They posted the EXACT email info word for word that I got! So right then and there, we knew it was all a hoax.
I wanted to see though why the heck they picked this house in our little area. So I searched the address, and sure enough, the home is on a real estate site for rent and gives the owner info.
So basically these scammers go on sites and steal pictures and listings…whatever they can get, and make bogus ads and email addresses (with the owners names in them to seem more legit) to get people to give out there person info.
I am sure they probably would ask for a deposit wired to them or something but we stopped it right there.
Incredible.
So needless to say, I have a month and we are having no luck. If we stay here month to month, they will charge us hundreds more per month. The least we can renew for is 7 months. Yuck, I can’t stand this place.
My daughters have resorted to calling our apartment complex “gangster’s paradise” and my husband and I are just fed up with the garbage and thugs that are moving in. In the last few months this place has gone even more downhill. The apartment next to us sits vacant and I can only wonder who is going to move in soon. I guess it could always be worse, we could be homeless.
It’s like Forrest Gump says” Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get.”
My parting thoughts:
I have since gone on Craigslist just to test my theory and found quite a few scams within the last few hours on there. So for anyone out there looking for a rental, be very careful. Not just on Craigslist but on any website. These scammers might not ask for money upfront but just giving them your personal info is enough to cause you identity theft problems that will take forever to clear up.
Tags: rental scam
After weeks of waiting for our apartment renewal notice, it came. They upped our rent just as we feared they would. Again. Luckily it was only $30 per month this time vs $55. But even $30 a month is just ridiculous.
Like before, they did it at a time where half of our building sits vacant. I started to look up homes for rent and ran across advertisements by my complex offering incentives to new renters. They are even offering our apartment for a cheaper rate.
So, seeing that ticked me off more. I responded to a few ads on Craigslist for homes for rent only to find that 99.9% of them were offered by Realtors. After my short sale, I don’t do well with Realtors.
I took a chance and set up a few appointments with a few Realtors anyway because they seem to dominate the rental market now. Where the heck are the private owners advertising nowadays anyway?
Our first appointment was suppose to be a 2/2 condo: dogs and kids allowed, private entrance on the 2nd floor, nice…
The Realtor brought us to a 1/1 no dogs, no kids allowed, on the first floor smack in the middle of a busy hallway. Yeah, I knew the day was going downhill from there. And it did. That condo never existed, neither did any of the properties that were advertised. It was more like “Oh yeah, that one is taken but let me show you this one”.
I later found out from a coworker that dated a Realtor that these are pretty much “bait ads”. They were bait alright. Wasted my weekend. Now that I am hip to this practice, I see it clearly. If you are looking for a new home on a site like Craigslist where it is free to post classifieds like real estate and rentals, proceed with caution.
With our move-out date fast approaching and little money to deal with as far as 1st month, last month, security, and a pet deposit, I have a feeling we are going to have to stay here for a while and pay the extra money. Unless we find a private owner to work with us. I did send an email off to our existing rental office though in a last ditch effort and asked them one last time if they wanted to deal. We’ll see.
I tell ya, I am so sick of moving. I drove by my old house the other day on the way home from work and realized how much I miss having my own home. I did not have an attachment to the house because of all the debt that came along with it; but if I had it now, boy would I appreciate it. Especially after living in these past 3 apartments.
Renting is OK. Not better than having your own home. I wont even begin to complain about our apartment because I know there are some people these days living out of their cars and on the streets, things could be worse.
We’ll just have to see how this one plays out.
Tags: renting in a bad economy
You know, even after our bankruptcy, I still receive a lot of email and correspondence about debt relief, debt settlement, and even get periodic newsletters and “tweets” from some of the credit bureaus. Usually, I will skim through it just out of curiosity. Other times I just discard it.
Well, after reading for the “umpteenth” time about how I should not file bankruptcy and how it is so bad and sooo traumatic, I thought I might weigh in. Wow, is this a rant week or what?
First of all, filing for bankruptcy is NOT as traumatic as some people make it out to be. In fact, once I stopped listening to people that were saying comments like the ones below and figured it out for myself, filing bankruptcy was the BEST thing we could do!
I got all kinds of comments about filing for bankruptcy. I am sure you have heard some of them too:
Bankruptcy will ruin your life!
Bankruptcy will ruin your future!
Bankruptcy will ruin your marriage!
You will never get credit again after bankruptcy.
Filing bankruptcy is one of the top life changing events–and not a good one.
Sure, these scare tactics worked for a few years. I avoided filing bankruptcy like the plague. My husband and I wasted away our young adult years working our butts off to try and do the right thing and get our debt paid off. We sunk deeper and deeper.
Being in debt was ruining our lives.
Being in debt was ruining our future.
Being in debt was putting stress on our marriage.
When we stopped listening to the naysayers, and started looking beyond the box, we realized filing for bankruptcy was a way out of our debt hell. After all was said and done, I don’t have one regret. I am not glad we ever got into debt in the first place, but I am so glad that we no longer have that black cloud over our heads.
Endless collection calls, credit card minimums that were larger than most people’s car payments, and the endless “what ifs” were driving us nuts.
Now, over 1 year after filing bankruptcy, I realized that most people that told us NOT to file for bankruptcy were people that:
Did not know anything about bankruptcy.
Had something to gain by US not filing bankruptcy. (Debt settlement programs, credit counseling firms…creditors)
Of course there are some people that say they regret filing bankruptcy for their own reasons. I am not one of them. Either is my husband.
Look what is going on in the word today. Filing bankruptcy is nothing compared to being homeless, having no food to eat or clothes for your children to wear.
I didn’t write this to advocate filing bankruptcy. I just want anyone who may be looking into their options to know, that from our firsthand experience, filing bankruptcy was not a bad thing.
Tags: Bankruptcy, Debt and Bankruptcy
Our taxes are done and we owed. Luckily, I got it down to a little over $100 vs. owing a couple thousand. I was nervous. Boy was I nervous. Yup, it seems that the more you make, the more they take.
I have come to the conclusion that working more doesn’t benefit us…not at all. And while being self employed or owning your own business gives you some perks (i.e., no boss breathing down your neck, demanding schedules, office politics), you end up paying come tax time, unless you try to cheat the system…and even then you will eventually get busted, so why bother?
There are tons of people who say they benefit from tons of business expense write-offs and home office deductions, hmmm? Granted, I claimed the car allowance, deductions for my husband’s office supplies,and other things we were entitled to. But all that did was lower what we would have owed. Taking those deductions also puts us more at risk for an audit…so what are the benefits really?
Maybe I am wrong, but I think being considered “middle class” or making any kind of real money is a joke. Why work harder and put in more hours if it is just going to go to the government? Then the government turns around and bails out companies that don’t need it(uh, AIG, Citigroup, BOA— just to name a few) while the middle class and those that don’t make squat are losing their houses…and it goes on and on.
Sorry for the rant. Taxes and this whole broken economy just piss me off. On top of that, I watched Capitalism: A Love Story by Michael Moore last night which only fueled the fire! If you get a chance over the weekend, watch it. You will know where I am coming from.
Tags: capitalism, taxes
Yes, I am still here. I just can’t stand when I don’t post for a while and by the time I do, I have a million updates.
First update: Taxes. You know. Since my husband became self-employed, doing our taxes is something I absolutely dread. Most people like tax time. Mainly because they are expecting a big refund. I don’t want to expect a big refund, because for one, that means I let the IRS hold my money interest-free for the year. I rather have my money right now-not next year.
Last year we got a decent tax refund for a few reasons:
- Child Tax Credit
- My husband’s work was slow so we had less income
- We qualified for the Earned Income Credit
- I claimed the home office deduction for the first time
- We claimed the depreciation of our car and anything work related for my husband’s work. I was always scared to for fear of an audit-but hey, why not? I am not lying.
- I did not have my exemptions right taking out too much from each check. I updated them last year.
We are definitely not getting anything back this year. Did I take out too little? Nope. The exemptions are fine. Here’s what I have got so far…
- My daughter turned 17 at the end of 2009. So she is no longer eligible for the child tax credit. She was 16 all year… We are legally responsible for our kids until they are 18 but lose the tax credit when they turn 17? What is that all about?
- My husband had more work this year, resulting in more income—not a lot but enough to surpass the Earned Income Credit Limit.
- We fell into a different tax bracket-HA! So “the more you make, the more they take” is even worse for the so-called “middle class”.
Just these factors alone has caused us to owe THOUSANDS. I actually got so irritated doing our taxes, that I just stopped doing them. I will deal with it this weekend. I am going to pull out every single receipt, every single donation and claim it to lower our tax obligations. I am really ticked by this.
I didn’t want a refund, but I didn’t want to owe either. Yuck.
Second update: Work. I took some vacation days off last week. It wasn’t planned but the opportunity presented itself. It was more of a take it now or take it after everyone else takes theirs…so I took it. Besides, I got to stay home and watch the little one while she was home from school on Spring Break. I worked the whole time (writing) but took a day off just to hang out with her. It was nice.
Third update: Our living situation. So far it looks like we need to move in June, but we are waiting to hear from the property managers for more info. I inquired already but was told they will have more info closer to my lease end date.
Apparently our complex was sold to a group of investors in February and they are in the process of changing a lot of things. They assumed our lease but other than that it, who knows what they will pull when our lease is up.
All I see is moving trucks every week…more than usual. So I am thinking it might not be good. Gosh, I am really sick of moving. We were not planning on moving until the girls were out of their schools next year. Moving is not only a pain but it costs money…so I don’t want to move this summer. I really don’t. We’ll have to wait and see.
Other than that, it’s been the same old around here. I just figured I would update here. Gosh, my last post was weeks ago. My next post surely will come sooner than that.
So how are things going since my last update? Ya know, they are going OK. I am feeling better than I was when I wrote my last post. Let’s see, I posted last Sunday. Monday came, and I felt no better. To sum up a long story…I finally had my little break down or whatever you want to call it. I did not make it in to work pretty much the whole week.
After a talk with my other boss (the nice one), I went back to work. However, I am sticking to my guns. June is still the month I plan to, no I am going to leave. I am cutting the cords. It’s done.
Why June? Am I waiting for the stars to align or that perfect time to quit? Nope. June is just a convenient month to do it. It’s the summertime and the kids are out of school. It also helps that I have an actual job reference for potential landlords to call on because as you know, our credit isn’t the best right now and we need to move to a new place. It also gives me time to work on my writing and other stuff while working and getting a guaranteed paycheck.
Oh, did I mention? It gives me time to cash in my last vacation time before I lose it. Is it unethical? Nope. I don’t think so. A boss that walks up to you and tells you to “speak” is unethical and flat-out rude. Yup, he actually told me to speak like I was a dog or something. Naturally, I completely ignored the “command” until I was spoken to with more respect. If you think that one is bad…I got plenty. But why reminisce?
I can not tell you how sad, depressed, worthless I felt these past several months. Several years really. It all goes back to taking whatever I had to because I had so many bills and debt that I just could not afford to take the leap. I sure as heck can now.
You know the saying ” You Miss 100% of the Shots You Don’t Take”? That’s kind of where I am right now. Some people say if you don’t take action on certain things in your life, you regret those decisions 5,10,15…years later. It’s true. I regret many things every day. But I will not dwell. Luckily, I am still at an age where I can make life fun and exciting for me and my family.
Being debt-free makes it that much easier to do. No more depression, sadness, whatever you want to call it. No more “waiting for the right time”. There is never a right time. That is one thing I have learned out of this whole ordeal.
Well, until my next update…Have a great week everyone!
Tags: motivation
