The Agony of Debt

This post is mostly for my own sake...just venting. If you want to read about how completely pitiful and hopeless my financial situation is, read on.

I had very few scholarships for college. What I did have *might* have purchased a few classes worth of textbooks, but I doubt it.

When Mike and I got married in 2005, I had a job at Bath & Body Works, but it didn't pay me much and I got so few hours that it almost COST me to work there, because it was clear across town and, while gas wasn't as high as it was recently, it certainly wasn't cheap. It got to the point where I was so miserable working there (poor pay, bad bosses, bad hours) that I quit. It quite literally wasn't worth it. I worked for a little while on campus during the movie showings, but again...not much pay, and only two nights a week. I didn't mind it because I was basically being paid to watch movies. That was really the only job I even had time for, too, because of my classes. Mike wasn't able to work while he was taking classes at all, so we lived off of our student loans. Completely.

I graduated in December 2007 with EIGHTY-SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in student loans. Just me. The 6-month grace period ended and found me jobless, so I deferred my payments. Now, they're harassing me again, and there's not a thing I can do about it.
I also have a house payment of $200 (this is recent...it was $320), a monthly car payment of $170, and a mastercard that is maxed out at close to $2000. I have utility expenses as well...gas ($60-ish), electricity ($120-ish), water & sewer ($40-ish). I'll have to renew my car insurance soon as well, and that will be another monthly payment of I-don't-know-how-much.

In addition to all of that, in November I paid half of the attorney fees to divorce Michael, which finished off what little was still in my bank account at that time.

I went a year without a paying job. Daddy and I were trying desperately to get our Shoppe off the ground, but new businesses typically don't start profitting for at least a year, if not two to five years. That meant no paycheck for either of us. That meant I had to find something else.

I applied for food stamps, and DHS expedited my case upon comparison of my expenses versus my income. A week after I applied, I started receiving roughly $180 in food stamp benefits. So at least I can eat...for a while there, I was entirely dependent on my parents for food...my refridgerator was empty, due mostly to the fact that my electricity got shut off and everything went bad.

I started a job at the first of this year as a receptionist at a counseling clinic. There's not a whole lot to do, but I get paid and that is wonderful. I know how lucky I am to have gotten it when I did, as the job market is the worst it's been in my entire lifetime, according to NPR, anyway. Still...I get roughly $200 every week. That doesn't cover much, considering I'm having to dig out of a pretty deep hole. I've gotten two paychecks so far, but my bank account is lower than when I started. I have, I think, $64 to my name, and $150 that'll be taken from my bank account on Saturday by the vultures at Sallie Mae.

Speaking of Sallie Mae...that $150 dollars is a "forebearance fee" to allow me to put off further payments, but it'll only go through March 1, and not a penny of it will be applied to the amount I owe. It's just so that I don't have to pay over $300, which would put me in the red in the bank. I asked, while on the phone with them this morning, about consolidating my loans. They're all through Sallie Mae, but there are several of them and it's really confusing to keep the payments straight. Their website is confusing and will give different numbers depending on the page you're looking at, and the paper statements don't line up with anything else either. I need to get them all into one, on paper, so that I only have to keep up with one track. However, they no longer offer consolidation. They decided in March, according to their website, that it was "no longer economical" to offer that service. Right. It's SO much better to have people default on their payments because they can't keep them straight. And apparently, even filing bankruptcy won't get them off your back...they really are vultures, preying on the injured or already dead.

Where is the "economic stimulus package" for students? Where is our bailout? What are the people going to do who haven't been even as lucky as I have in finding work? There's no way out.