My checking account has overdrawn. Again. I have a little bit of money I can put in it, but my savings account is down to nothing. I had $12,000, and it's gone. Because my fucking job doesn't pay me enough to live on. Because gas costs $3 a gallon. Because I like to occasionally eat out or buy a little something for myself. I don't think I'm an extravagant person. I drive a car that's paid for. I'm making do with the clothes I have in my closet. I buy shoes when my old ones wear out. But I can't make ends meet on what my job pays me. That's pathetic, and I'm really at my wits' end now. I don't have a financial safety net anymore. Yes, I used some of it for things for my house and for me - new dishes after K moved out, some new clothes (just a few things, not a great gob of cash, and some of them ended up being sent back anyway), an iPod (gasp! extravagance!), stocking the freezer with meat (food, what was I thinking, spending money on that? I should just fast), a new heat pump (I should sweat in the summer and freeze in the winter, right? I could have saved that money). But a lot of it has gone because my check doesn't last from one pay period to the next. It's some consolation knowing I won't have to come up with great wodges of cash for property taxes and homeowners' insurance - escrow will take care of that. And I should get a fairly decent tax refund in the spring. But that's a long time off, and I don't know how I'll survive until then. I HATE this. I spent all that time and money going to law school, which I didn't like, to become an attorney, and now I've got this rotten job that doesn't pay me what my education is worth. The company doesn't believe in cost-of-living raises (at least I don't suppose they do - we don't get them), and if you aren't one of the chosen few, you get no raise at all. I have no resources left to draw on, and I'm feeling fairly frantic right about now. I am going to have to try my hardest to cut and scrape and scrimp even more, and I am so damned tired of that, I could spit. Right now I'm just trying not to lose it in front of J.
And I can't help but thinking - all that time we were together, K had that crappy temp job that put such a strain on finances. I told him to put off moving out until he was in a position to take care of himself financially. Now he's on his own, with a better job that pays him decently, so he's doing all right for himself. If we were still together, he wouldn't be spending extra money on rent and utilities, and we'd be in pretty good shape. Better than we had been at any other point in our marriage, anyway. But he's on his own now. How ironic, I was the one trying to hold everything together while we were married, and trying to give him time to get his financial footing. Now that we're separated, he's the one doing fine and I'm the one who's falling apart.
I need a miracle. I need to win the lotto. Something. I can't keep doing this. I've done it for the past 11 years, as long as K and I have been together. When do things get better?!
And I wonder why in the world God gave J to me, but I can't obtain the resources I need to take good care of him.
I feel like I could cry all night.
2 comments:
Oh Sweetie, I feel your pain so much. Is there anyway K can help you with expenses?
Why aren't you practicing as a lawyer?
K does help. He helps pay for daycare, and we split costs of some things for J. I just hate to ask him for more, because I know he's got financial goals of his own.
I'm not practicing because I like having a life. I have no desire to sell my soul to some firm that expects me to work 12-14 hours a day or more, 6 or 7 days a week. I can't do that with J anyway. And at this point in my career, I'm not even sure I *could* get on with a firm - I'm 12 years out of law school, and from what I understand, lots of firms would have a hard time thinking of me as a "new" attorney in terms of whatever field I go into. They'd likely think of me as a 12-year attorney, even if I hadn't actually practiced in whatever field I was hired in, and they'd think my lack of knowledge was appalling. I apply if I find something that sounds interesting, but I'm not giving up time with J. Bad enough that I *have* to work, and more money wouldn't do me a bit of good if getting it took away all my time with him. Some might say I could open my own practice, but that would also take a lot of time and effort to get started, and it wouldn't bring in much money for the first little while. Besides, I don't like people that much. LOL
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