Debt
I have a lot of it. Well, I did before bankruptcy. I’ve had to declare bankruptcy twice. It’s not fun and the decision wasn’t made easily.
For the most part I’m back on track, altho I just found out today that I owe about 2,500 in back taxes for 2008. Will probably owe about that much for this year as well. So … by the time I come out of bankruptcy in the new year I’ll have a debt close to 5,000 dollars. Nice.
Why am I thinking of all this now? Well, last month I forgot about my car insurance, I haven’t done that in a long time. Anyway, the cheque bounced. It’s the first time I’ve bounced a cheque or had to put a stop payment on anything in years. And even before then I wasn’t one to bounce cheques. Heck I didn’t even have a chequing account for a long time.
Anyway … I go to cash my pay cheque today and there’s a new teller so she had to get authority to deposit my cheque and give me back 100 dollars cash. It’s pretty ordinary because she’s new, but it was a big problem because she said I had a hold on my account. I hadn’t had a hold on my account for years. Or maybe I did and they were just ignoring it because I hadn’t bounced any cheques. I dunno but it upset me. She had to go talk to her supervisor who took forever to make the decision. At one point I thought by their body language they weren’t going to do it.
It pissed me off. I mean I could go to a cheque cashing place and pay 20 bucks to cash my cheque and then come back and deposit cash. What the hell’s the difference. It’s stupid. And I was getting angrier. Then I felt the tears start to come. I had to turn away.
Finally the teller came back and said there was no problem and it was because she was new, but I also know it’s because of my credit rating. It’s just that before today I didn’t think there was a note on my account.
I took my cash and left. The tears were flowing by the time I got to the car.
I hate that feeling.
I hate being in bankruptcy.
I hate that my car is about to break down and I can’t get a different one, one that works better. And to top it off my car started making that knocking noise today of all days, after not doing that for months.
I dunno.
The thing is I don’t have anything. I don’t have nice things. Not that having nice things are important, but it would be nice to have half decent things … something to make my apartment feel like a home. Everything I did have prior to going into bankruptcy is long gone from when I was divorced like 14 or 15 years ago. My ex-husband didn’t have to declare bankruptcy but that’s because he found a good job with benefits and a pension. One he found because of his education that I helped him with and that I never benefited from. I worked my entire life. I left my job of 14 years with a pension and benefits (a government job) to relocate with him and then two months later he leaves me for another woman. Nice.
I don’t think about all that too often, or very much, but on days like this when I’m sitting here on the couch that once belonged to my parents I just feel sad. This stupid furniture is over 30 years old and falling apart. And I mean really falling apart. I don’t have a bed. Well I have one but it’s been destroyed and needs to be taken to the dump but that costs money so it sits in my room unusable. That’s a long story – too boring to share, but it’s just not usable. So I have to sleep on the couch.
I don’t have a nice home. I used to – but all that’s gone. He has a nice home. I was too devastated to really fight for anything at the time. He didn’t take stuff from me I just left it all. Plus I really didn’t want any of it – I wanted a clean break. And at the time I was naive enough to think that things would work out for me because I had always had a job. I’ve been working since I was 17. That’s 30 years and I don’t have a bed. It’s annoying.
I take responsibility for where I am, I’m just bitching right now. I know I made a lot of stupid financial decisions after my divorce that put me even deeper in debt. That I own. But it’s still frustrating. And today’s incident at the bank coupled with my tax info just threw it all back in my face big time.
Every month I’m so careful about what I do with my money. My rent is more that 50% of my income so it really doesn’t leave me with a lot. And I’m living in one of the cheapest apartments around. I know – I did the research. Plus I’ve moved around several times to save on rent but after a while that gets expensive because you have to factor in the cost of the move and all the set up fees for utilities, etc. But for what I pay in rent I’m actually in a nice building, it’s clean and there are no party animals – which is rare for a low rent building. Where I used to live it was a bit scary, to be honest. But when I think about the house I used to own when I was married – well there’s no comparison. And when I think about the fact the he owns a home … well … I can get pretty upset.
I’m trying to think calmly and focus now though. I mean I was upset but there’s not a lot I can do about anything. I finally have a good paying job, no benefits but the hours are good and the pay is okay. The work environment is better than previous jobs I’ve had. My apartment isn’t like my house, but it’s better than any other apartment I’ve ever lived in since my divorce, and there’s been quite a few. I don’t waste money. I don’t save any either. But I use what I have wisely. I’m not looking forward to having to pay my back taxes because that’s going to be difficult and probably take years to pay off. I don’t know how I’m going to afford it because right now I haven’t been able to renew my prescriptions this month – the pharmacist called twice to tell me they’re ready. But I haven’t had the money to pick them up until today, which was pay day. So for the past 10 days I’ve had no medication. That’s not good.
Anyway.
I know I’ve taken all the right steps to get things moving forward in a positive way. It’s just on days like this I realize how far I have to go and how many steps I have left to take to get myself back to where I was 20 years ago. But I can’t let the frustration and anger get to me.
That’s why I’m glad I have this blog to type it all out.
I’m still feeling a bit anxious but not as overwhelmed.
Baby steps. I just gotta keep moving forward slowly … taking positive baby steps.
