by Hope
It seems like a lifetime ago that I did my last debt update, but it was just two months ago.
Debt Balances as of Feb. 26
(as of 10/14/17) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Car | $8,273 | 7.00% | $308 |
| Credit Card | $5,014 | 17.00% | $36 |
| Summer Camp (2018) | $1,431 | 0.00% | $0 |
| Student Loans | $34,073 | 2.88% | $307 |
| Taxes (State) | $5,800 | 0.00% | Re-negotiating |
| Self Lender | $679 | 10.57% | $97 |
| Collections 1 (Medical) | $186 | $0 | |
| Collections 2 (Apartment) | $499 | $0 | |
| Collections 3 (Ex-husband) | $5,821 | 6.25% | $246 |
| Computer Equipment | $0 | 22.90% | $0 |
| Amazon | $0 | 26.99% | $0 |
| Total | $61,776 | $994 |
Cash on Hand
As of today, I am down to my last $200 in my everyday account. I have not received my final paycheck and have not heard whether my unemployment benefits have been approved. The local career center for the Georgia Department of Labor representative told me to call back tomorrow. It sounds like my employee is continuing to dispute my claim. No words!
They are also still holding my 401K hostage with their approval process. It’s been two weeks since I requested the move. I made another phone call to Voya today, and they said since I had already called the employer, they would prompt the account manager. I don’t know what good it will do, but my hands seem to be tied.
Next Steps
Needless to say, I’m applying like a crazy person. I think last count I have applied for over 153 jobs through LinkedIn and have now added Indeed, Guru and several other job sites to my daily hunt. Do you have any other suggestions of places to look?
I will begin drawing from my savings at the end of this week if nothing else comes through. This makes me so sad, but also so grateful. But mostly mad!
Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.
Sorry to hear this. It sounds like you may be urgently wanting to get your 401K moved. If at all possible try not to draw this out, you’ll end up paying so much in taxes and penalties. So there really isn’t a need to rush to move it. Even if your employer isn’t above board, they won’t be able to get their hands on your 401K monies.
I agree, don’t sweat the 401k move as much.
Good job paying off the Amazon and computers! It’s nice to have those minimum balances off of your monthly costs.
Minimum payments, I mean
It’s time to review the rules on your “self lender” and see if you can stop paying on it and instead pull from it to pay down your credit card. That card is going to accrue interest pretty fast. As it stands 17% ap r on 5000 is 850 a year in interest. You need to pay twice your minimum to keep up with interest alone. You might call your lender for student loan and see if they can help either lower the payment or eliminate it while you job hunt. Likewise with ex husband debt. Reach out and let them know that you are unemployed and may need to stop payments while you job hunt. It’s not ideal since there is interest accruing but your priorities should be shelter, food, transport, or the essentials( with that credit card being a fall back). Bureaucracy moves slowly. You should though verify if you need to supply them with any documentation to support your position that you were employed there. As it stands if your employer is still disputing your claim you will likely have to go to arbritration. It will be on your employer to prove they fired you for cause and you will get a chance to refute those claims. More often than not when employers realise you are fighting back they don’t even bother with the call with the arbriter, at least that has been what I have seen here in SW Virginia.
Definitely get the student loans on deferment – that cuts out a huge monthly payment for you. If there’s any chance you can get your ex to pony up some cash to help with the collections account that seems to be related to him in some way, that would help you out as well.
Thats true about the ex. Not sure what the situation is, but if these are his children he needs to clean up his debt AND pay child support! It doesnt matter why you split up. File with the state to have his wages garnished if he won’t pay within a couple weeks. You can’t afford to be accomodating right now.
List your resume on zip recruiter as well!
came to say ziprecruiter as well. My state unemployment department has their own site that employers post legit jobs with too. Lastly, you could get registered with temp agencies (although if you WILL be getting unemployment, you don’t want temp jobs to mess with that income…) Many of the big employers in my area use temp agencies as a sort of ‘trial’ run, and then hire on if folks do well.
Temp jobs won’t mess with unemployement. They can be helpful because they can actually extend unemployment. Say you make 500$ on a temp job one week. They will reduce unemployment that one week. But you will still be entitled to the full bucket of unemployment money. They will just extend out the number of weeks you’re eligible.
Even if you pick up a contract job for a few months it essentially pauses unemplpyment. If you are awarded unemployment and your contract job ends you just restart the claim with the remaining bucket of money you’re entitled to.
I agree that you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT afford to pay your ex’s debt anymore. I understand that you just prefer to just pay his debts than deal with confrontation with him (like with the car you paid off for him), but you are not in a position to be generous with him anymore. It’s him or the kids, you can’t do both at this point.
Best wishes to you.
PS Can I suggest that you move down the debt that is paid off, and move up the current debt? It would be easier for you, and your readers, to see what you still owe.
Not to mention he should be paying YOU to help support his kids. I’m kind of confused how you even have debt of his that you are reasonable for since you’ve been divorced for years. Was there some joint credit cards or something that didn’t get separated?
He and I have had some conversations about this, but last he said “give him a couple of weeks.” We will see.
And yes, I can reorganize the debt table, thanks for the suggestions.
And I may be mistaken, but I seem to remember that your tax debt it due to your ex as well. If I’m right, that’s nearly 12K that is HIS debt, not yours.
The tax debt is not his. It’s from the state, they somehow looked the old federal return and said I mis-filed. The IRS had removed all my child tax credit, etc. because the twins last names were not changed by the social security administration when their adoption was finalized, etc. Got it cleared up with the IRS…now having to do the same with the state. It should go away on it’s own. We will see.
Also, I know you don’t like confrontation, but some of this mess is due to the situation with your father about the house you/he owned.
I think you need to learn to stand up for yourself … not FOR your kids, but TO others … your ex, your employer, your dad.
I realize this may sound flakey but I firmly believe that until we learn to deal with certain (unpleasant) situations, the universe keeps trying to teach us the same lesson, over and over and over, until we learn it and we can move on. And that’s the impression I have always gotten from you, since you started posting. You don’t want to confront your dad or your ex, and they keep screwing you over. I do think you’re confronting your former employer, and that’s great. But you can take that new-found strength and apply it elsewhere too.
Substitute teaching might be a way to bring in some money if your unemployment gets delayed or turned down. It would also keep you freed up for interviews since you basically get to decide when you work. I’ve done it before when I was in between jobs.
Hi Laura,
I thought of this as well. Called about it today and this district only accepts new substitute applications twice a year, the next one is in July. I’ve already set a reminder for the end of June to look into it…but hopefully, I will have steady income by then. But we shall see…I’ve been here before.
You might also want to try job boards that cater to a specific industry. I’ve been pretty lucky with the job boards below. Good luck!
https://www.higheredjobs.com/search/default.cfm – if you’re interested in working for colleges and universities, most colleges/universities offer free tuition to children of employees who get accepted
https://www.idealist.org/en/?radius=40000&type=ALL – if you’re interested in working in the nonprofit industry