Nomorecredit's Personal Finance Blog

Yup, it finally happened. Rock bottom. I thought getting my gas turned off a few weeks ago (can't remember how long it's been. I had the money to turn it back on and then guess what? I had a HUGE filling fall out and it was incredibly painful and absolutely could NOT wait to get fixed. I'd rather take cold showers and not cook and do laundry at other people's houses than deal with the pain of having no filling!) was as low as things could go, but apparently I was wrong.

I realize it's all my fault that the car got repossessed. I knew I was behind on payments and would pay money here and there. I was in contact with the bank and was surprised that they never said "pay us X or we will take your vehicle" Nope, that never came up in all the times I talked to them, no call, no letter, no nothing.

Wednesday I went to the store to get bread. I was literally in the store for 5 minutes tops. Came outside and POOF, my car had vanished. I nearly passed out. I knew what had happened after about 2 seconds and started freaking out because of the stuff I had in there and not the actual vehicle itself being gone. So anyway, my car loan is through some dinky bank that had no 24 hour number to talk to so I had to wait until the next day. I called the police (just on the very small off chance it was stolen) and they said they had a repo thing so yes, it was repossessed. ARGH!! I can't even explain the feelings that were going through my mind.

So i call my friend in hysterics and she came and picked me up. I called my parents (of course I didn't want to let ANYBODY know because I felt like the biggest loser in the world, but I had no choice) and told my dad what happened... my mom brought me her car to use for work the next day, my dad graciously calmed me down and lent me the $$$ to get my vehicle back so I got it back yesterday, which was a big nightmare in and of itself.

Ugh... bad week. My dad wants to pay off my car so that I can then make smaller payments that I can afford to him, so I have to get a payoff quote from the bank. I really, really, really hated borrowing the money from them to even get my car back and really don't want to take one more thing from them (hello, pride...) but we'll see. I don't know what I would do without my family....

Things can only get better, right?? RIGHT?!?

Just a quick update since I haven't updated in forever.

I have multiple bills in collections since work has been disgustingly slow at my primary job. It's a mess. Just trying to keep everyone at bay and give them at least a little bit to keep them at arm's length.

For the past two weeks I've had no gas, which means no hot water for showers, no stove to cook on, no dryer to dry clothes. The gas company will not budge that they need $210 to turn it on, so until I have that I will have no "luxuries" Never thought I would view hot water as a LUXURY.

Hopefully things pick up soon. Life is just really, really sucky and I am sick of everything.

First of all, thanks everyone for your comments on my last blog... I really, really appreciate it.

So as a comment said, hopefully I can FOCUS now. There really is so much going on... bills and otherwise, so focus is important.

My fabulous mother has offered to lend me $1000... very, very awesome of her! Tonight I'm going to go through all the current bills, all the back bills, so I can try and figure out exactly where it should go. This is sort of the situation, as far as I know.

First, my cell phone has been shut off for nonpayment. It's under contract (ugh!) but I still can pay roughly $300 to get it turned back on. If it's not paid soon, then I'll have to pay the ETF. I'm hesitant about it because the other line is my husband's (read my last blog if you want to know about him...) and I feel like why should *I* pay for BOTH our phones to be turned back on?? I can't cancel his line because it was part of the contract, or so I was told. We pay a huge amount monthly for the phones, and I'm trying to figure out if it would be better to pay it, shut them off, pay the EFT and get a pre-paid phone and use Skype... which is what I have been doing recently because I couldn't afford to get the phones back on. So that's one option that the money from my mom could go towards.

Secondly is this stupid furniture payment thing. I owed maybe $300 or so when I missed one payment, and... well, you know how they compound the charges, took away my 0% interest and the charges keep mounting. I'll have to check a current bill to see how much exactly is owed to them. I could get it current and then start paying the minimum until it's paid off.

Third option is get current on the electric bill... not sure how much that one is. They just seem to be happy as long as they're getting SOME money.

Other option is get the stupid leaky faucet in the basement fixed!! ARGh, I noticed it last night and it's dripping a LOT which would def. explain the disgustingly insane water bills I have been getting. Argh. But that seems to pale in comparison to the late bills and such...

I just don't know what to do. I want to use the money in the best way so that it will take even the smallest amount of stress off my shoulders...

Tonight I'm going to do a lot of cleaning, organizing, getting things in order and seeing where I stand... *sigh*

I haven't been here in a while. To say things have been crummy would be the understatement of the century.

On the financial side, my finances are in complete ruins. I'm in such awful shape. I've been a member here for a while now, and things have gotten worse. Work has been painfully slow. I work the second job still, but not as many hours are available as before. Basically work has been so slow my pay checks are HALF of what they used to be. When they were big paychecks I never had money left over, but at least all the bills got paid. I can't even begin to tell you how far behind I am on some bills, how far the interest rates that were already high are jacked up, etc. There's a lot of whining I could do on the subject, but you guys know the gist of it.) I'm just glad I can pay the mortgage, keep the electric and the heat and water on...

This is SO incredibly stressful, just everything right now.

On top of the financial issues, on a more personal note, my husband and I are separated. A few months ago his health issues started to disappear, which I was super excited that we could FINALLY be a 'normal' couple and he could get a job again!!! YAY, right? No. All I will say is "secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets hurt someone." After he said he wouldn't go to marriage counseling, I told him I think it would be best if he left, and he happily went. We're just in limbo now... he's still not working and I'm here by myself trying to pick up the pieces... glad I stuck by his side endlessly while he was sick all these years, being the only one working and supporting us!! Nice way to say THANKS. >: (

Think I'm going to go clean, balance my check book and try to figure out how I can pay some freaking BILLS!!

There's a card that was WaMu (forgot what it was before that a loooong time ago) that I never ever paid late ever but they kept hiking up the interest rate like crazy. Sigh. Least year I owed something like $9,000 on and had a minimum payment of $291 a month... ouch. But I've gotten it around to $5,000, a little more than that. Very surprising giving our crappy financial situation as of late.

Annnnnnyway, today I get a statement in the mail for April and it's from Chase and after being confused for a few minutes I realize it's my WaMu account. They dropped the interest rate 10%!! Instead of $170 a month the minimum payment is $113 a month. Wow!!!

So yeah, I hope it's not an April 1 joke on me!!

I'll do a more detailed update later...

So I thought after our GIANT tax refund we got last year that I managed to adjust my withholdings so that I would get just a very small refund (like $200 or something) as like a pillow to make sure I didn't owe.

We went to do our taxes today. Last year we went to stupid H & R Block and paid like $250 or some INSANE amount to get them done. I do NOT trust myself to do my own taxes, NO WAY, so I have to pay someone to do it. Just not that much. My friend referred me to a place and I went there and it was only $60 : ) Plus the tax lady was just awesome.

Well, with state and federal we're getting back like $4100!! AHHHH!! I really thought we'd get like $500 back tops and almost fell out of my chair when she told us how much we were getting back. I would have rather had the money throughout the year and have no idea how we're getting so much back. I asked her if she was sure and she said yes and went over everything with me.

So I guess I'll be able to get current on bills, pay the little piddly cc's off that we owe a few hundred or whatever on, AND once again have the $1000 emergency fund. So yay!

So although I've been trying to get better with debt and up until recently have never paid a bill late, like a lot of people right now there are circumstances that are causing me to miss payments, miss bills, etc. To put it bluntly, it sucks. I've been getting a lot of calls... I got up to date on a few things this week though, so I anticipate a lot less calls. As far as I know these things haven't actually gone to an outside collector, which is good. I have to call later on an account and I'm dreading it... I feel like such a deadbeat : ( I'm especially pissed about this certain account because I only owed like $400 on it but it kept falling behind, compounding late fees, etc., and now I don't even have the $$$ to make the account current. ARGH!

One thing that is VERY VERY annoying is that SOMEONE is calling me and when I pick up it says "blah blah please hold for the next available agent blah blah" HELOOO, you called ME. I'm not waiting on the phone and wasting minutes to wait for YOU when you call me!

I'm so beyond stressed out. My hair is literally falling out : (

So I went outside today to see a handy pink flyer on my door. Yup, water shutoff notice. Saying we owe $600!! WTH, I had no idea we owed so much!! I'm seriously going to start limiting our tenant's water usage or just jack his rent up insanely. (In our area landlords ALWAYS pay for water, btw. I know it doesn't work in most places like that, but here it does.) So I started freaking out, called the water authority and had to pay $200 in order to keep our water turned on. That's a massive $200 that was supposed to go to somewhere else.

UGH. I'm beyond stressed out and want to rip my hair out. Who knows how I'm going to make up that $$$ to pay the other bills....

Hello, fellow Savingadvice bloggers. I'm back. Obviously back blogging, but I mean back in the sense that my "woe is me, I'll never pay this all off!" has changed into "Ok, man up and DO IT!"

I had a few horrible awful months. Seriously... just.. yeah, just bad. Don't want to get into details. Let's just say this month is rough.

I'm even MORE up to my eyeballs in debt without even charging anything more.... Sad to say with our rough few months that a lot more things have wound up being late. Late fees SUCK. I'm getting back on top of things. Sometimes I seriously just DID NOT have the money. No other choice. I hardly answer my phone. I'm getting back on top of things, I promise!!

Still working two jobs. BUT everyone WISH ME LUCK on THURSDAY!! I have an AMAZING opportunity coming up... *crosses fingers*

I eat oatmeal every day for dinner. It's all we can afford : ( Although I must admit that homemade oatmeal with brown sugar and syrup is yummy ; )

So uh... yeah. The husband is feeling better. He's been blanketing everywhere with job applications. He thinks he's going to get a job really soon. I don't have the heart to tell him the state of the job market!! I mean, doesn't he watch the news?! But I'm certainly not going to be the one to burst his bubble when he's so optimistic!

So I'm just trying to get caught up, back on track. *sigh* When I see late fees charged I want to bawl. I always call and ask them to waive it, but apparently things don't work like that anymore. Knock on wood, but I have not paid any bills late in March...

Oh yeah, I started running. I'm getting pretty fat. I take rescue dogs that are cooped up all the time in the shelter with me as running partners, so it looks like we all win : )

Ok, maybe that's being dramatic. ; )

I decided to call Citi about my interest rate jumping from 6% to a whopping 24% on a card I've never payed late ever. I had learned about this a week or two ago (there's a blog entry about it, too lazy to go check out the date) when I logged in to pay the bill that our interest rate went up. We owe thousands and thousands on this card... *sigh* The jump from 6% to 24% was just huge and added over 100$ that we DO NOT have in any way, shape or form. So needless to say, I was upset.

I decided not to call them when I was upset. I was looking at the Door O' Bills and decided I had to call them to see what was up. I warned my husband before the call that things might not work out my way and I'd be in a bad mood the rest of the night.

So I called, asked what was up with the interest rate. I was shaking because I was so nervous and expecting rejection, them telling me that my credit is bad so they're not going to lower the rate, blah, blah, blah. BUT NO! The girl on the phone said something about some letter I was supposed to get in the mail and I could reject the change of terms to the account. Well, I honestly open and read every single piece of mail that we get here. No foolies. I do not remember anything of the sort. I thought that now we were REALLY screwed because I didn't get some letter in time and that we were now doomed with a 24%+ interest rate.

There really was no thinking about it. I know closing (or whatever they did... I think she said I could use the card until it's expired, which I don't use anyway) the account is a hit to the credit report, but my credit probably is crappy now anyway. And 24% vs 6% on a card where we owe so much on, there wasn't much to think about.

So the only caveat is that this month I have to pay the higher minimum payment. I have no clue how that's going to happen... but at least next month it will be back down to the 6% minimum payment. It's a HUGE load off my shoulders.

Phew.

I thought maybe SEEING all my bills in a VERY OBVIOUS spot would help me 1) pay them on time being that I wrote the dates on the outside and 2) be a reminder of what I'm doing, WHY I'm doing it. When I get a bill in the mail, which seems to be ALWAYS, I can tape it up with the rest of the bills and the due date written on it...

So, on a door that goes from the living room to the back of the house, I taped all my bills up there. How depressing. I don't even think these are ALL the bills/statements/late notices, etc

So yeah, here's my door.

Focus, focus, focus.

I think I'm getting an ulcer.

I MUST MUST MUST get current on bills. It's SO DIFFICULT with the last few months we've had and it being so slow at my main job. I got absolutely slammed at work the last week, and this upcoming week will be like that too. At least I have a backlog of work now, which is very, very good. I have a TON of work sitting on my desk right now under my laptop that I've been chipping away at all weekend. I really could use a shower, LOL!

Getting current on the bills is proving to be very hard. It's amazing how you can't pay one bill one month and it turns into an awful reverse Dave Ramsey snowball. So that's my goal this month, to try to get bills current.

I'm still very upset about the credit card interest rate hike (see last blog post) and haven't figured out what to do about that. I've been scared to open ANY bill with the fear they ALL have done that... *crosses fingers* so far, so good.

We're telling our tenant his rent is going up $50/mo. It's time. His rent is WAY too cheap. If he does decide to move, we already have a couple willing to rent the place, so I'm not too worried about that.

I have everything all together for our taxes. I think we might be getting some $$$ back, just a little. I adjusted the taxes this year so we'd take home more and not get a huge refund like we did last year. So I can't wait to get them done... the problem is that I don't have the money to get them done!!! ARGH!

I've just been trying not to think about everything and focus on work. I love being busy at work. Last week my boss asked me if she was giving me too much work and I wanted to laugh at her... I mean, we work on 100% commission, so NO, you probably CAN'T give me too much work!!! You'll never hear me complain about that!! I got some great cases to work on and Monday and Tuesday alone, when they're finished for me to get paid for them, will be in the $2000 range (usually it's not that much, but there were a LOT of lawyers involved which means I get paid a lot more) so that will help for next month.

Here's to better times ahead, my friends. I love this site and the support I get. It's so hard not being able to talk about any of this mess in real life.

Well, I've hit rock bottom. I don't know what to do anymore. I've been working so SO hard at my two jobs, my budget is already bare bones, I HAVE NOTHING, have sold everything but my soul.

A cc that we owe a bajillion dollars on, the interest rate nearly doubled. We're screwed. That's on top of all the other crap we have to pay, of course... I don't HAVE an extra HUNDRED DOLLARS a month. I don't have an extra FIVE dollars a month.

I can't do it anymore. I can't. I have no idea what to do. I hate myself for this mess I've caused and wish I never saw a credit card in my life. How could I be so STUPID??

I have officially hit rock bottom.

OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!

Guess what?!?! Guess?!

MY HUSBAND HAS A JOB!

There's a few catches. He'll be on a two-week probation period. He explained his health issues, so they're giving him two weeks to see how things go, if he can handle it, etc. It's going to be interesting... he has been out of work for a long time. I forget exactly what the pay is on the probation weeks, but after that they'll discuss his regular pay if he's staying on. So we're not sure how much he'll be making yet... I'm nervous for him and hope it works out.

It's going to mean HUGE changes for us here at the home. Like we only have one vehicle right now (there's a second in the garage... some beat-up old piece of crap that will run though. Someone gave it to us and there was no point in putting it on the road) He's going to work 8-6 five days a week. I work from 9-whenever. At my second job it's literally a one-block walk, so I'm not worried about that in the least. But anyway, the place he works is maybe 3 minutes from my downtown office. So I'm going to ask my boss if I can come in at 8 and leave an hour early, because I don't want to have to drive downtown, drop him off at 8, drive 15 minutes back home and then have to be downtown by 9... that's just silly. I'm sure my boss will go for it. He could take the bus to work, but I know he's going to need all the time in the morning to get his health stuff straight, so the bus isn't an option..... so we'll see. Maybe he can make friends with someone who lives near us and carpool.

So uh... yeah. Yay! We're not sure when he's starting yet. Possibly as early as next week! We've lived SO long on one salary, this is just going to be awesome for our debt payoff : )

Well, if you read my last blog (or second last... whatever) Anyway, I had said I was going to see how long I could wait in 2009 to not spend anything, but finally of course there was stuff I had to buy... I needed gas, toilet paper as well as shampoo, so I did have to spend money on the 10th. Boo. Ten days is really good though!

I came home, got the mail, which I always dread. There was something from my insurance company and I opened it and it was a check for $250!! Woohoo!!

Of course, I don't get excited about it when I remember my car deductible is $500, and that was what I had to pay last year when my husband was in an accident (other guy's fault and the other driver's ins. co disagreed and didn't want to pay me my whole deductible, blah, blah, blah.)

But regardless, I now have an unexpected check for a nice $250 : ) WOOHOO, I need it SO BAD with how crummy my checks are this month!! YAY!!

Oh yeah, I STILL haven't spent any money. I probably will have to get gas tomorrow though, so....

I still haven't spent any money in 2009 yet!

Yesterday I was going to swing by the store and get a cup of cappuccino, and I had a buy one get one free coupon, but I figured no sense in throwing off my whole game for $1.07, or however much it is.

I realize I should have made an exception for gas money... oh well. I haven't gotten gas yet and have a full tank still so it will be a while. It will be interesting to see how long this goes!

Just got home from work at the second job. Worked a very early shift so it's nice to be home early. Getting ready now to do the one thing I REALLY look forward to every single week (which is free) which is going to the shelter to volunteer! I adore those shelter dogs to death.. it seems like such a small thing, but ALL WEEK I look forward to Saturdays and going down there!

Ahhh, a new year! GOOD RIDDANCE to 2008, I say! I think it was the most difficult year I've ever had.

So it's 2009, a new year, a new start. I was just thinking this morning... I wonder how long I can go without spending any money?

There's some little "rules" I've made for myself. I know it might seem like I made the rules so I can say that "oh, I haven't spent any money in 2009!" months from now, but there's a few things I decided were okay.

One is that I am allowed to spend gift certificates and have them not count. They are gift certificates and not money, so technically it wouldn't count ; ) But any cash I get for my birthday (it's my birthday today, btw.) or got for Christmas

Two is that, obviously, paying bills doesn't count as spending money! Heh, I would be out of my own game later today if that was the case.

Three is that the money I pay for parking for work doesn't count. I know, I know, it's money out of my pocket. But I make an exception to this because... well, I have to work and maybe three days a week or so when I go somewhere for a job I have to pay to park. I really don't have a choice.

So we shall see how long this goes... and when I DO spend money, I'll start the "game" all over again.
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My friends came over last night and one of the birthday gifts they gave me was this budget workbook thing http://www.amazon.com/Budget-Kit-Common-Management-Workbook/dp/079318794X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230826304&sr=8-1 it looks awesome! Good way to start off the new year, I guess : )

So Christmas has come and gone... we didn't get gifts for anybody, not even ourselves, and told everyone not to get us anything. But of course people still got us stuff, which is cool : )

I had mentioned that our friends gave is a $100 gift card to Wegmans, the most awesome supermarket ever. My parents did as well, so I had $200 in gifts cards to Wegmans. Although I love food and would love to shop there... I thought perhaps the $200 could go elsewhere and I could do our food shopping at Aldi's or Save-A-Lot like I have been. Even though I could have bought amazing delicious stuff at Wegmans, I instead decided to take those two gifts cards and purchase two Home Depot gift cards from Wegmans as you're allowed to do that. $200 at Home Depot will help fix a LOT of little things around here that need to get done or that I'd like to get done... I do feel sort of bad though as I know they wanted to give us those cards for delicious food, but... like I said, I'd rather shop at the cheaper places and fix this stuff that's driving me bonkers. So now I have $200 to Home Depot. Also someone gave us $150 gift card for Lowe's (Wegmans didn't have any Lowe's gift certificates...) which means I have a glorious $350 to spend on fix-it stuff. Awesomeness.

We also got a gift card to Applebee's and the movie theatre. Our anniversary is tomorrow so we're going to use those then : ) I seriously cannot remember the last time we went out to dinner and/or a movie, but I'm sure it's been YEARS!

We also got two boxes of nice new towels and washcloths. It sounds stupid, but I was soooooo happy for that!!!

Oh yeah, AND a $125 gift card to Game Stop. I LOVE LOVE LOVE video games as does my husband, but it's something that we never spend money on anymore and I don't know the last new game we bought but I'm sure it's been a LONG time. So we're going to go to Game Stop and buy each other "gifts" with the Game Stop money. So although we did no Christmas and have no money for anniversary gifts (or birthday... my birthday is in a few days) it still FEELS like I'm going to be getting all this fun stuff.

My friends and family are awesome.

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Enough about Christmas. I hardly had time to enjoy Xmas cheer. If you've read previous entries you know I was FREAKING out about not having any work this month. I got SLAMMED at the end of last week (the week before Xmas) and in order to get paid for it in January I have to have what I need to get done by Monday. So I've been working at the office like crazy, working from home like crazy, and then also working my part-time job as well, AND training our deaf and blind foster dog. So yeah, things have been insane. I didn't realize how tired and haggard I looked until someone showed me a pic they took at Christmas dinner!!! UGH, I look like I haven't slept in MONTHS. Think I might take a nice bubble bath tonight if I get this work done...

I have about 150 pages left to finish. Not bad considering I started with 935 pages that had to be proofread and edited. It's crazy that I'm successfully managing to squeeze 3 weeks' worth of work into one week.

It's amazing to see what you can manage to do when you have no other choice...

Last night our friends came over. We had made the NO CHRISTMAS gifts rule very clear. And they're probably the only people who know us in real life who know our crummy financial situation.

Well, when our one friend handed my husband a card and me a card, I figured it was just that, a card. But no! There was $50 cash for my husband and.... a $100 gift certificate to Wegmans, absolutely the BEST supermarket ever. I LOVE it there, they have the most amazing wonderful food. And although they do have great sales from time to time, their prices are still miles above Aldi's or Save A Lot, so I haven't been there in ages. I'm looking at the sale paper now trying to figure out how to make the most of this. She made me promise to buy at least one extravagant meal that I never would spend the money on otherwise and can't wait to find something really good to make. : ) She's awesome.

I have so much to do today. Yesterday the husband was having a good health day (he's had a few this week, and I can't tell you how good it's been to have him "back") and I had a shorter day at the second job, and we spent hours and hours cleaning and organizing the house. AHHHH, it's SO CLEAN (although I keep noticing stuff that needs to be done, LOL). I love it! I made a box of stuff that I want to put on eBay, so I might do that later today. It just really improves my mood to have things no so cluttered around here.

We've had tons of snow lately... ugh. More to come today.

I deposited my bonus check on friday... it was for $640, or something like that. Today I really have to sit down with the bills and figure out how to make the best use of it. I already paid 100$ towards the overdue electric bill. Now I have to figure out what else.... *sigh*

Things are not going well right now, I'm sad to say. We have been deathly slow at work. It's very VERY VERY bad and making me stressed out and insane. I keep trying to distract myself and telling myself hopefully it will get better before January, but at this point I'm just very nervous what my January checks are going to look like.

Tomorrow is our office Christmas party. Ugh! Sorry, I don't like office parties one bit. It's going to be a huge swanky affair at one of the most exclusive places in these parts. Just not my style... I hope I can pop in, make an appearance, then leave.

I did get a bonus check for $650 this month, which is cool. But with work being so slow it means that I'll need it really bad next month!! I think I can feel an ulcer forming when I start to think about how slow work has been *sigh*

No Christmas. Our anniversary (3 years) is between Christmas and New Year's, no anniversary celebration. My birthday is in January, no birthday celebration : (

I'd like to talk about our two most awesome friends. They are just great... I'll have to make a whole separate post later about how wonderful and generous they are.

I should go get ready for work. I hope today is a very long day so I can make some $$$!!

So I am mailing in an application to take the civil service test to work in the actual court system, instead of freelance work!!! There's no scheduled test date yet, but word in the court reporting community is it's coming up soon.

If I get to work for the courts, I'll be SALARIED, no more of this commission stuff making life so stressful day to day wondering how much my checks are going to be for. A salary would be awesome! Also a HUGE thing would be the benefits that I assume state or county employees get, and being that we pay $450 a month for my husband's health insurance, that will be HUGE. The salary starts around $44,000, BUT I would also get paid for the transcripts that I do produce which could be anywhere from an extra $10,000 to $30,000 a year, depending. So that combined with the benefits AND *gasp* paid vacation would be AWESOME!!!

I'm actually not too worried about the test, although I will practice at home for it. Not to sound all high and mighty, but I know I do my job very well. The test is 225 words a minute for 5 minutes and I have to transcribe that, and then that's what it gets graded on. Then you get put on a list according to your score and they go down the list when they need people...

So yeah. It would be great. : )

I spent this week relaxing and cleaning up, looking for stuff to sell. I was happy that the house was in a somewhat good order for once. Our last foster dogs, the mom and her puppies, of course caused a LOT of mess!! I do miss them though. I was considering not fostering for a few months or so just to take a break, but then I got a call about a deaf AND blind one-year-old dog. I haven't met him yet (later tonight) but how could I resist not helping that poor soul?? I guess he's been living outside all his life. So a deaf and blind dog with no house manners whatsoever. I'm up for the challenge.

Looks like all the good thoughts for today from you folks pulled through ; )

I went to work and was told the job WAS NOT going. I was pretty upset. Like VERY upset. I sat there and worked on what I had to work on while trying to not burst into tears. Then my phone buzzed around 12:30 and said the job WAS going and I had to get there ASAP!! I was SO HAPPY. And it went until almost 4:00 so it should be fairly long. I won't know how much I am going to get paid for it yet because I don't know how long it is, but I'm assuming it's around 130 pages (a conservative guess) then it will be an extra $315 for me next month. Which is good. I do have my fingers crossed that it's longer though. It was really fast so I'm hoping!! But I am SO GLAD it went : )

Well, I'm just rambling now. I have others news to babble about, but more on that later ; )

I'm trying not to panic, but I am. I just got the mail, bill, bill, bill, bill. That's fine, I'm used to that. And I'm used to trying to scrape the money together to pay them to the best of my ability.

Unfortunately, work has been SLOW. Today I added up all the work I did this month, after tomorrow I will be all caught up and out of work and being that it's a stupid holiday week, there's nothing going on and no jobs to go on.

When I get my checks next month, they will be HALF of what I'm used to get. Yes, that's right, HALF. I have no idea what to do. I've sold everything except my soul. I have nobody to borrow any money from.

I try to stay positive, but this might be the end. I mean, I know if I miss ONE credit card payment with the amount that we owe on the credit cards it will make the interest go to high that we'd be unable to pay it. $7.00 in the savings account.

I'm scared : (

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As soon as I was about to hit publish, my phone rang and it was the office saying that I'm on STANDBY for a job that "might" go tomorrow. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEEEEEEEASE cross your fingers for me that this job goes so I can get paid for it when I so desperately need the money!!! Sometimes they go, sometimes they don't when they're standby cases. I NEED this to go!!! *crosses fingers*

I got a letter today from the bank that holds my car loan. It said I could defer December's payment! Normally I wouldn't even think about it... but it's a $30 fee to defer my $323 car payment.. We have been painfully slow at work this month (which means less $$$ next month) so I am going to do it. I'm not too happy about it, but with paying the $30 fee and NOT paying the car payment, I SHOULD be MAYBE able to catch up on the bills and then start off 2009 on a GOOD note.

We've told everyone, once again, we can't afford to do Christmas. We'll still go visit our families though. For Thanksgiving we're spending it here, because I don't want to spend the gas $$ to be driving 4 hours, 2 hours there and 2 hours back. Plus now that I'm an adult (or something, LOL.) I thought it would be nice to spend a holiday at home with just my husband and our dogs. We sadly won't have Thanksgiving dinner though, unless I can find really, really cheap stuff to make it. But anyways, like last year our family insists on giving us gifts, even if we can't give them in return. Just like last year : ( it makes me feel like a heel. Although my husband said his mom was getting me new tires for my vehicle, which I need and haven't been able to afford. So that will be super sweet.

Our anniversary is coming up!! I've been trying SO HARD to think of something awesome and cheap to do for my husband and am coming up blank with any good ideas.

I've decided we're going to raise our tenant's rent. I REALLY REALLY REALLY hope he doesn't move. His rent is way too cheap though and he's had it for a while. If he does say he's going to move, we're screwed. I'm trying to figure out how much I can raise it and have him decide it's worth staying here.

I really do. I stink at it. If I made the same amount month to month it might be easy, but every month it's something different. The way it works is I bill the company for all the work I did for, let's say, October. Then for November, they divide that total up by four, take the taxes out, so I get four equal checks dated on the Fridays for the month.

I don't know why it's so hard. I think because things overlap (like the last check from X month goes towards paying the mortgage for the next month, etc.) And if I could get current on the bills, then I think that it would be easier to budget. I'm just so bad with numbers. I do think next week I MIGHT be able to get everything current, which would be a HUGE load off my mind.

I'm so paranoid because work seems really slow this month. I hope December is busier, but usually it's not

I'm so stressed. Going to go take the dogs for a nice cold Sunday walk.

Sundays, when I sit down and pay the bills for the week. I used to do it Friday when I got home from work, but it got too depressing over the weekend knowing there was like 1$ left in my bank account. So I started saving it until Sundays so I can cling to the hope maybe there's an extra $20 in there for something.

I actually have today off, a RARE thing. Between the two jobs I can't remember the last day that I had off! I hardly know what to do with myself, so I've been cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. The mama dog I'm fostering and her puppies are all ready for adoption, so things are going to be very quiet (and clean!!) around here without them. Of course for every foster dog that leaves, there's another to take their place, and then some : (

I can't wait for December... I really hope I get a decent bonus check. Last year I think it was around $700 and I could REALLY use an extra $700 right about now! I'm hoping that between next month and this month I can get current on the bills and then STAY that way. I've been paying the cc's and loans on time, but utilities and other things I haven't and I'm pretty sure we're very behind. So my first priority is getting current on all those.... I haven't turned the heat on yet, and I don't plan to until it's current. No way. We have sweaters and blankets (thank god we don't have kids, no way I could get away with this if we did) so we should probably be fine.

Blah.

Things have been rough lately... very rough. Lots of stuff breaking, necessary things that we had no choice but to do, unexpected medical costs, blah, blah, blah.

I got the dreaded WaMu statement in the mail today. When I started this blog we owed roughly $10,000 on it. The interest rate at that point was 9% or so. Then one day they jacked up the interest (for no reason whatsoever... never made a late payment on that card even once, and I at that point had never paid any bill late) to 19.99%, which they wouldn't change under any circumstances..) Anyway. on the statement today we owe a little bit over $5,000 : ) Still a crapload of money, but HALF of what it used to be : ) : ) : )

I am a professional. I make $56,000 a year at my full-time job. I put on a suit, do my hair and go off to my pretty well-respected career in a highly trained skill.

In order to get out of debt (at this point we're trying to even just get current on bills. We've had a LOT of bad luck lately) I needed a part-time job so that we even had a chance of surviving. My husband can't work because of health issues, and he doesn't get any assistance, so it's all on me.

I looked for other part-time jobs. I put in a lot of applications. Everyone said I was overqualified. Then I figured "geeze, why I don't I work in fast food?" I put in application in at BK, much like I did 10 years ago when I was sixteen. Being that I was willing to work crummy hours, they hired me.

So yes, I work at Burger King. It's a block from my house so I don't have to drive. I work 40 hours a week at my full-time job and I work 20 hours at BK. I also am fostering a mama dog and her litter of six puppies that were dumped at the side of the road somewhere (those costs are paid by the rescue, they cost us nothing but time... the puppy kisses and the look in the mama dog's eyes saying 'thanks for saving us' is worth everything.) I also take care of the house when the husband is having one of his episodes, which is frequent. All that medical care adds up fast.

Sometimes people come into Burger King that I know, whether it be through work, family, friends. They act embarrassed for me, as if I somehow should be ashamed that I'm wiping down tables and mopping floors and saying "would you like fries with that?" for measly pay. Funny, I'm more ashamed that we can't pay the bills.

So yeah, I haven't written in like a million years here. (well, since Feb. or so)

Things have gone from bad to worse. We have to start all over again. I was doing really well for a while, then I had one awful month at work (I work on commission) and needed major repair work done on my car (bye bye, emergency fund.. there's $6 in it now) and my husband STILL can't work because of his health problems.

On my crappy month at work where I made MUCH less than I'm used to, I spent nothing that wasn't a necessity, and I mean nothing. I paid cc's and loans that absolutely had to be paid or I'd see my interest rates go up to one million percent. Being that I needed the EF to fix the car (can't be without a vehicle, I need it to drive to and from jobs so I can make $$$) and that the money I made wasn't enough to cover all the bills, I wound up using cc's for gas, a meager amount of food, etc. Really, I wished there was another way and I'm sure people might think there was another way, but really, seriously, there wasn't.

So the loans, mortgage, etc., all got paid on time. Any bills I could pay I did, but there were some I didn't pay just because the $$$ was NOT there one bit and I can't pull it out of thin air. Electricity, water, phone, etc., didn't get paid which means THIS month I've been scrambling (even though I made my usual amount of $$$ and not like the month before) to now play catch up and I'm not doing a very good job. : (

I am miserable and desperate and absolutely sick of this.