So... where to start...
I'm a self employed mom for the past 3 years since a merger at the firm I worked at led to the downsizing of almost my entire department and of everyone who did the same work as my position. At first it seemed like fortuitous timing as I was due to have my 2nd child about 6 weeks after the last day. And it was too. I was able to collect unemployment, look for work that might fit into the schedule as the babysitting required for just 1 toddler to be looked after was killing us back in my working days let alone the concept of a toddler/preschooler with an infant. And I'd been doing a business part time making a selling food at little autumn holiday shows, so I figured I'd just expand that into more of a sustainable income. Yet a sustainable income never happened no matter how hard I tried.
There's so much of this that is just enough to make me constantly want to crawl into bed and camp there for weeks. Only with a 3 year old and 5 year old, that is totally impossible.
I got into CC debt in my twenties and got myself out on my own on next to no income too. Dollar for dollar paid off paper debt back then. Yet somehow I'm less than a decade after that pay off and looking at having to file Ch 7 on over $150K worth of debt. Means test smeans test. Our taxable income (DH has been self employed for the past 12 years) last year was about $16K. And that was WITH unemployment extensions I was still somehow being eligible for up until April when all that finally ended. Getting food stamps was a nightmare as the food stamp nazis act like all self employed people lie about their income and deductions. On the income we have, we should be receiving over $500 worth a month in assistance. We only get $280 (and I'm thankful for even that pittance as it's still better than zero) and they even knocked a dollar off when the interest rate dropped the payment slightly on our mortgages. Good grief.
I think the worst part of it all is realizing who your fair weather friends are. People I chatted with daily for 5 years just cast me out earlier this year like an errant dog because I dared to admit that getting just any ole job would be stupid for me because it would take away most or all the benefits I had to grovel in government offices to get. Stuff like the medical insurance for the kids (us adults have none since last Spring), the basic milk, bread, and cereal subsidy checks for the kids, the food stamps, the ability to get rotting produce and what not at the food bank once a month. I've been accused of being lazy, my husband has been accused of being a poor father for putting us through this and not just quitting what he does to work at McDonalds (which would be ridiculously worse paying), we're accused of gain saying the system, etc. All by people who will pay lip service to the concept that it's good to have programs in place for the working poor who need it. Only they didn't qualify they meant working poor that aren't self-employed. We didn't take lots of vacations or buy lots of toys, we just made the mistake of trying to fund business expenditures with credit cards when banks wouldn't loan money. We've had multiple yard sales to clear things out, sell things on Craigslist all the time, I cashed out IRAs for a bit until it became clear it wasn't really helping more than just applying a tiny bandage to a gushing wound, had to even borrow a few K from PILs to save our house earlier this year and now come to find out that if we pay them back while defaulting on the CCs, we are being preferential to "insiders". GAH!
It's been very lonely for me the past several months and I'm glad I finally mustered myself out of apathy for a moment to find this forum. Hubby has quite a few of his acquaintances being pretty supportive and I pretty much have zero on the ones I've actually talked to. And it's all pretty scary. Sooooo never thought I'd be doing this after "honorably" getting myself out of debt when I was single and younger.
I'm a self employed mom for the past 3 years since a merger at the firm I worked at led to the downsizing of almost my entire department and of everyone who did the same work as my position. At first it seemed like fortuitous timing as I was due to have my 2nd child about 6 weeks after the last day. And it was too. I was able to collect unemployment, look for work that might fit into the schedule as the babysitting required for just 1 toddler to be looked after was killing us back in my working days let alone the concept of a toddler/preschooler with an infant. And I'd been doing a business part time making a selling food at little autumn holiday shows, so I figured I'd just expand that into more of a sustainable income. Yet a sustainable income never happened no matter how hard I tried.
There's so much of this that is just enough to make me constantly want to crawl into bed and camp there for weeks. Only with a 3 year old and 5 year old, that is totally impossible.
I got into CC debt in my twenties and got myself out on my own on next to no income too. Dollar for dollar paid off paper debt back then. Yet somehow I'm less than a decade after that pay off and looking at having to file Ch 7 on over $150K worth of debt. Means test smeans test. Our taxable income (DH has been self employed for the past 12 years) last year was about $16K. And that was WITH unemployment extensions I was still somehow being eligible for up until April when all that finally ended. Getting food stamps was a nightmare as the food stamp nazis act like all self employed people lie about their income and deductions. On the income we have, we should be receiving over $500 worth a month in assistance. We only get $280 (and I'm thankful for even that pittance as it's still better than zero) and they even knocked a dollar off when the interest rate dropped the payment slightly on our mortgages. Good grief.
I think the worst part of it all is realizing who your fair weather friends are. People I chatted with daily for 5 years just cast me out earlier this year like an errant dog because I dared to admit that getting just any ole job would be stupid for me because it would take away most or all the benefits I had to grovel in government offices to get. Stuff like the medical insurance for the kids (us adults have none since last Spring), the basic milk, bread, and cereal subsidy checks for the kids, the food stamps, the ability to get rotting produce and what not at the food bank once a month. I've been accused of being lazy, my husband has been accused of being a poor father for putting us through this and not just quitting what he does to work at McDonalds (which would be ridiculously worse paying), we're accused of gain saying the system, etc. All by people who will pay lip service to the concept that it's good to have programs in place for the working poor who need it. Only they didn't qualify they meant working poor that aren't self-employed. We didn't take lots of vacations or buy lots of toys, we just made the mistake of trying to fund business expenditures with credit cards when banks wouldn't loan money. We've had multiple yard sales to clear things out, sell things on Craigslist all the time, I cashed out IRAs for a bit until it became clear it wasn't really helping more than just applying a tiny bandage to a gushing wound, had to even borrow a few K from PILs to save our house earlier this year and now come to find out that if we pay them back while defaulting on the CCs, we are being preferential to "insiders". GAH!
It's been very lonely for me the past several months and I'm glad I finally mustered myself out of apathy for a moment to find this forum. Hubby has quite a few of his acquaintances being pretty supportive and I pretty much have zero on the ones I've actually talked to. And it's all pretty scary. Sooooo never thought I'd be doing this after "honorably" getting myself out of debt when I was single and younger.
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