dewdrop's Personal Finance Blog

...in my Financial Workbook. Grrrrrr. I'm actually afraid to list all of my debts. It's so scary. I get so mad and discouraged at myself. Good news is there will be "some" money coming to me soon but not nearly enough. Perhaps in a few weeks???? Don't want to go into detail but it sure would make life simpler.

I'm listing stuff on ebay like a crazy woman but my darn computer is sooooo slow. But, I'm thankfull to have this outlet to be able to atleast try and make some money.

Always good and bad, huh? Guess that's just how life is.

Whew, I've been gone a while, lol. Things have not been good but are sure to get better. I found a job! I'm disabled and am not supposed to and am not able to work but heck, some times ya just gotta take the bull by the horns and wrestle him to the ground. So, I'm working. Need to call SSD and let them know. I will make about $1000.00 a month. So, dh's check and my disability check will be used soley to pay bills. This means, for the next few months, 6 is what I planned, we will live off what I make at this new job. There will be no new purchases and we will do the snowball method. Once my house payments are caught up, yes, I'm behind on that too, I will work on getting utitlties and credit cards paid on time, ahead and paid off. In the meantime I will also start putting $50.00 into my saving account per month, more later if I can. This will give us a cushion incase something happens like we need a new water heater or something like that. I can work and make as much as I want for about 6 months before Disability cracks down on me so I may have to quit my job then but by then I should be out of debt for the most part and able to replace dh's work truck with another 2 to 3 thousand dollar truck. That's my plan. Ofcourse, I'm not taking into account that I may be too sick to work the whole 6 months because, I just HAVE to do it. God only knows how, but I will. The food bank director said she takes in the "working poor" on Saturday mornings so I took advantage of that today and got quite a bit of nice food and even some opened meats like fully cooked chicken breast, nuggets, and corndogs for free. They were donated by the fire department and I'm not too proud or prudish to accept opened foods. We got enough stuff from her for about 5 meals plus a gallon of milk and some great veggies! Yey! The director also gave me 5 pairs of dress slacks and some really nice winter gloves for work. I feel so blessed! Life is so wierd when all you do is think about money and surviving till the next bill due date. I wonder sometimes what it was like years ago when we didn't have these problems. We had a paid for house, money in the bank, nice cars, then, we moved and it's been a struggle since. Hmmmm........

Yesterday I accomplished some things. Made up a notebook to list personal and financial goals and included a monthy/daily entry list of "Things to Do". I turned off the TV and put on some music and concentrated on these things. I also found my workbook on household budgeting from a class I took back in 1998. This will be a big help. When it got too overwhelming to think about, I took a nap.....

I was able to figure out how to get to the hot water heater and turn down the thermostat. Waiting for dh to take a shower today and see if he complains. If he doesn't, I will turn it down some more. I have a $300.00 electric bill for last month and yes, it's normal and I've had the electric company here and they say everything is fine. Only thing else they suggested was hiring an electrician to come out and check everything. I have a newer heat-pump AC/Heating unit and I've had my home weatherized and have those expensive sunscreens on all of my windows. I change the filters frequently. I keep the AC on about 78 during the day and dh turns it down to 74 at night. I do have an older freezer which is probably costing me about $20.00 a month to run but can't replace it right now and I really need it as I have a side-by-side fridge which has little freezer space. During the months when I'm not using AC or Heat my bill is about $165.00.

Called my Mom yesterday. She lives in a different part of the US and says life is pretty much the same there for them. Little Sis and Little Bro are living with them along with a nephew. House is crowded and Little Sis has major mental and physical problems and I heard her being verbally abusive to Mom. She won't kick them out and so is left to deal with it. Little Bro is working but is selfish with his money. Just too depressing to think about. Big sigh.

Almost 8:00 am here and I've already read my bible and made coffee, checked all my email accounts and now I'm here. I've also made a huge decision on my part to stay off the computer more. For a while, this will be the only Website I will come to. My reasoning is, if I continue to frequent my usual message boards then I'm still hiding my head in the sand and am not concentrating on fixing my problems.

I made $13.00 on ebay today. I already owe them over $80 for fees for last month and now $140.00 for this months invoice. Last months payment bounced from my bank account so I assume they will lock my account untill I pay them. Afraid to list any more stuff to sell till I find out incase they won't let me sell and check my account. Don't know how this works.

Progress on the yardsale was at a standstill yesterday. Can't really have a complete outside yardsale due to winds blowing everything into my neighbors yards so I will "gut" the garage and set up tables in there. The big door won't open cause it's broken but I can use the side door. Think that will work better. It was frustrating to figure out what I could do but now that I've figured it out, I feel better. Now to pull everything out of there that has been stored for several years. I am assuming this will take me longer to do than to just pull stuff out and set up like most people would do so it may set me back another week on opening the sale. I've only got 6 days to do it and place the add in the paper and I'm not sure if my body will hold up to that much work. I will try and meet the challenge.

Off to straighten up the house to get dressed for my day. I find we both feel better when the house is clean. Dirty houses are depressing.

4:00pm Update
1st Grrrr... Just one grrr after another today. I worked about 3 hours pulling stuff out of the garage and then got tired so needed a nap to refresh myself. Dh said he didn't want me out in the garage today anyway. When I asked why? He said "because, I'm not doing anything today and when you're working, you make me look lazy"!

2nd grrr. Dh just left to go get ribs to make for dinner. At first he wouldn't tell me where he was going. Reason being, we had a discussion on Friday night about how expensive ribs were even on sale as they are so wasteful. I said we didn't need them! So now he not only left to go get ribs but also took my car which has less than 1/2 tank gas when he could have taken his truck which the company buys gas for weekly. Also, dh has $100 and I only have $5.00. When I suggested I might need some on Wednesday, he said no because he already gave me almost his whole check. I told you, he has no clue!

I'm so angry but can't show it so will put my energy into working around the house for the rest of the evening and I guess, cooking ribs.

Already 10:00 and all I've done is drink coffee and read online this morning. I need to get motivated and get some stuff done.

Today I will sort more stuff for a yardsale. Need to turn on the radio to take my mind off how tired I am already. No money will be spent today. Have to take my medicine and try to stop worrying and start working. Dinner will be veggies and meat cooked on the grill. Lunch will be leftovers and/or sandwiches and soup. Breakfast? Maybe I'll have some toast.

I'm making a commitment to pay all of my bills and not waste any money and think about every purchase for necessities I make. I will seperate out some of my gallon of milk and add instant dry milk to it to make it stretch further this week. Dh won't drink it but I will so that will save money. All of my laundry is done for the week or at least untill Wednesday. I vow to hang clothes up instead of using my dryer next week. I think I will save money doing this. Dh has 2 more days off so I'm going to get him to help me set up the yard for the sale. It will be like pulling teeth but I've got to have some help cause I don't know how to move trailers around. I already told him I needed it done but will have to remind him a few times. Oh well.

There is a food bank I can go to on Monday to get semi-fresh veggies. Think I have enough for this week so may wait till Friday and see what I can get while I run my weekly errands. I go to a needlcraft class once a week but think I will stop going for awhile as it does cost money for class (altough not much) but add in the gas and it's pretty much a luxury but has been my saving grace for chatting with people in real life.

Got my telephone bill down to $121.00 a month now and that includes all the long distance I need on my home phone and 3 cell phones. Can't get out of the contract without oweing them over $150.00 and with my child in another state now and still being so young, I need the daily contact. If I cut off the cells then I would just add more worry to my life and I don't need that right now.

I asked dh to turn down the water heater thermostat for me a couple of weeks ago because it's way to hot but he has yet to do it so I will figure out how to do it myself today. That should save me some money. Just got word my internet service is lowering their fee to $9.95 a month and not billing until the end of this month so like getting a month and 1/2 free service. That will help.

I'm pretty much in this by myself. My child knows our financial situation better than my dh does. That's sad but it's a reality and not one I can change. Dh is already on anitdepressants and I can't risk making him worse. I have tried to broach the subject of our finances with him recently and he just says, "pay the bills" "I don't want to hear it" and "I want the collection calls to stop this month!." Sigh........

Ok, I got that out, now off to work on the yardsale!

Well I know it could be worse but things are not well with us financially right now. I feel as if I'm in my own State of Emergency.

About 2 months ago, due to medical issues with me and my child and my child moving away from home (with no money, no car, no medical insurance, and no job) we finally hit rock bottom and couldn't pay my electric bill. For the first time ever I borrowed money from my older sister to pay my electric bill. Thinking I would have it paid back within the month, she lent it and I assured her I would get it back to her right away and now I feel like pond scrum for not paying her back quickly. I am now 2 months behind on my house payment and can't pay again until the 3rd Wednesday of September. I have a $300 electric bill due next week or will face shutoff. My trash collection bill is so far behind they will be coming to pick up my rented trash can next week. Dishnetwork will be shut off next week.

I've made nearly $700 on ebay selling stuff from the house since the middle of July. You would think I'd have paid my sis and caught up on some bills....nope....More emergency money went to my child and the rest has gone to insufficient check charges to the bank and paying bills which were on auto pay out of the bank. I owe ebay $82.00 in fees and they sent that through my bank on Thursday and I was already overdrawn so that bounced. I'm now $135.00 overdrawn in my bank and no way to cover it. If I use money from dh's check next week then I can't pay the electric. Arghhhhh!

Dh makes $480 a week and I get $925 a month for disability. This is enough to live on and pay our bills if we are carefull. Dh has no clue that we are behind on the mortgage or any of the above. Actually, he doesn't want to know. He just wants me to handle it and pay the bills. He can't deal with "any" stress and especially the kind of stress he can't do a thing about. This is not all of it but sure gives me a good start on spilling my guts to world.

So my plan of action is....1. Cut off the kid. My child now has a job and is staying with friends so is completely "cut off" from any money from us. 2. Have a humongous yard sale weekend after next. 3. Do not drive to town for anything except for one day a week. 4. Join a different online auction site that doesn't charge listing fees and sell stuff to pay off ebay and other bills.

Ways we save everyday....Dh rarely eats out at lunch unless he has to. He takes his lunch and I always eat a sandwich or leftovers at home. We "never" eat out at dinner. I cook pretty much from scratch. I occasionaaly make my dogs food when they are running low on dry food from a receipe I got online. We never rent movies or go out to the movies. We never go out for drinks. We haven't had a vacation for 2 years. I am great at reusing and making things last and repair clothes that are worn to get the most wear from them. I only buy clothes at thrift stores. I don't remember the last blouse I bought brand new. I always ask for samples of medications from my doctor.

I guess this is enough for my first post. It's certainly more than I can deal with right now. Off to watch "Forest Gump".