Today I woke up and went to fill out some DHS paperwork that I have to get into them so we can continue to get food stamps. Since in October I made some actual money - there's a chance we might not continue getting food stamps, or get a much more reduced amount. I'm hoping I can talk our case lady into letting us keep them.... since w/o them we're totally fucked.
In addition, for some reason I'm not sure of the employment department has denied my benefits. I need to call them and figure out why, and what I can do to get them. I'm working 20 hours a week -- making LESS than my UI insurance was. It would have been better for me just to not have a job...
Our bills for the month... phone, rent, w/s/g, electric, etc. are 100.76% of John and my combined income. Which means that there is absolutely no wiggle room... None. However, even with throwing whatever else (gas, food > FS, etc.) onto credit cards (which I hate doing!) we'll still be that .76% short. Not too terribly much, but still.
John is crazy super sick. Like... death. He coughed up blood and is crazy congested. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do except put cough drops and the like on CC and hope that he gets better.
The Mazda... well you know about that.
Debt in general. We're barely staying afloat, and a large portion of that is because of CC and car payments. Without them, all we'd have to worry about is phone/internet/tv/rent/w-s-g/electric. I tried to consolidate all of the debts (totaling close to 10k) into one loan so I could pay it off at hopefully a lower monthly payment and free up CCs for those 'just in case' moments. However, because of the amount of debt I have - and the Mazda's late payments, I was denied.... so we'll keep charging stuff on CCs to stay alive because we're spending so much on payments.... Ah, now I see why people say to avoid the mother fuckers.
I'm thinking of looking into claiming bankruptcy. Yes, it would fuck my credit for seven years, but I need to do it before John and I get married if I'm going to do it. I need to pay off car first though, because I can't get that repossessed.
Did I mention we're planning a wedding? Somehow I have a feeling that it's not going to happen. I mean, see all the above and tell me how to pull over 4k out of that? You can't. I can only hope that we get a lot more help than expected.
John still doesn't have a job. He says that he's looking and applying everywhere, but there's hardly a callback. He hasn't even been on one interview since he was laid off in April. Not one. This is rather depressing as I've had half a dozen interviews and two separate jobs since then. Stream is ramping up again - so we'll see.
To top it all off, I'm freaking out and John's telling me to have faith. Have faith that his plan will magically happen. I have faith that if we don't pay rent we'll get evicted, I have faith that if he doesn't get employed by ... next week we're fucked. He seems to think everything will be okay - but I just don't see it. So he's being an ass about me being upset, because that's helpful.
Good things? UH... right.
I have a job. It's not doing anything but fucking me over for now... but it should flip to full time soon - which will help if John gets a job too- because we'll lose some if not all of food stamps once that happens.
The check I wrote my grandparents for rent hasn't gone through yet. This is our main saving grace for making it through November. If they had cashed it when I wrote it then we'd have no money at all for any bills. With that still in the air we'll be able to make it through November... unless of course they cash it soon... In which case triple fucked. However, I can't bear to ask them not to, they're not doing too terribly hot themselves I don't think. I'll just roll with it and see what happens.
Love. Yeah, love is good. It's nice to be able to turn to my fiancé and know that we're together regardless how the chips fall. It's put a lot of strain on everything worrying about money and plans and such, but we're still together. If I had to go through this alone, I think I would have given up by now.
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