My battle with depression has been been going seemingly well since my last meeting with the doctor. That is, until yesterday. I hit a really thick wall and crashed about the time that Daniel came home from work.
Drew was crying and I couldn’t remember if I’d just fed him or if I needed to feed him again. I couldn’t remember if I’d eaten or if I’d had a shower. It was as though I had blanked out for a few hours. My worst fear had come true. That I’d blanked out and forgotten to take care of Drew. 🙁 But thankfully, after a diaper change and cheerios he was perky and wiggly again. My amazing husband swooped in and took care of everything for about half an hour while I drank ice water and tried to calm myself.
It was much later that I realized what had triggered everything. When we got the mail yesterday, we got a letter from the IRS mentioning the amount we were going to get in the stimulus payment. It was a happy moment because we’ve been really counting on this money. But after Daniel went back to work and I read the letter again, I saw something in the fine print that troubled me. It looked as though if you owed back child support or owed the government any money then you would get that deducted from the stimulus payment. We are still paying back taxes from the two years that Daniel worked as a contractor in web development and I suddenly realized that this money was possibly going to that instead of direct depositing into our account. Sure enough, the IRS site clearly states that if you owe back taxes, then you are out of luck.
I almost threw up. We are not doing well financially at all and we’d been looking forward to receiving a stimulus payment of about $1,500 any day. And now it looks as if we’re just going to have to keep scraping by. After realizing this, I started to slowly fade out and the rest of the day is pretty dim even now. It’s as though I was paralyzed and could not think straight about what I needed to do next.
I think most people would admit that when you have money troubles, it can affect everything in your life. And for me, it’s a clear sign that one of the issues that triggers my depression is finances.
When we got married, we both had good jobs and were living in a nice apartment near Greenville. We had a bit of debt but it wasn’t too overwhelming and we were paying above the minimum payment on everything. The only real concern as the time was that we felt we’d made a huge mistake in getting a loan for our wedding. I’m not sure if I’ve even heard of anyone else doing that. It was stupid. It was crazy. And our wedding cost way too much. If you aren’t married, please listen – do not go into debt for your wedding and do not spend an arm and a leg on your wedding. Elope if you are even THINKING about it. 😉
In August of 2006, I quit my job and to cut costs we moved back to the Valley and moved into the Moho. We also stopped using our two credit cards completely and really thought that our finances would totally work. I found out that I was pregnant within weeks of moving and suddenly we started feeling the financial strain.
By the early part of 2007, we were living paycheck to paycheck as we had to fork out a lot of money for some unexpected expenses. And then one month went by where we stopped paying about 80% of our debt. We just spent money on groceries, gas, and a few bills that are automatically drafted out. I was terrified as we went past the 30 day mark, the 60 day mark, and the 90 day mark. Knowing full well that this is affecting our credit, we had a few rocky months as we wondered what on earth to do.
It has been over a year since then and we have made very little progress. We are still paying only a few of our debtors (and getting horrid phone calls from the other ones) and are struggling to keep up with the rising cost in gas (although we aren’t having to pay as much since we don’t drive that much) and food. I’m also trying to eat healthy but eating less healthy is WAY CHEAPER. Which is quite discouraging, I might add.
Of course, the obvious question is why don’t you get a job, woman?! Honestly, the past few months have been a struggle in my heart over whether I should leave and go back into a career and put Drew in daycare. I HATE the idea of daycare but I know it can work. I know that I could find a nice, reputable, and clean daycare in this area but the paycheck that I would be getting would be mostly eaten up with daycare costs and gas money. The $200-$300 a month or paycheck (depending on what job I get) more I might be able to apply towards debt might not be worth the doctor’s visits for Drew since he would for SURE be much more sick while being in a daycare. And to be quite frank, that small amount of money might not be worth having Drew spend time with strangers instead of his own mother.
BUT, if the financial stress could be taken away, or at least alleviated in some way, it would most certainly help me mentally which would in turn benefit my husband AND my son.
What do I really want to happen? I want us to make it on one salary. Daniel makes good money and if it weren’t for the stupid wedding loan, back taxes, and ignoring a lot of debtors for over a year, we’d be fine on one salary. I want to be home with Drew. I want to stumble through all of this and finally get healing from this depression. But how on earth do we get there?
I know there is hope. We’ll get through it. I just needed to vent a bit and it really helps to write instead of blanking out into a depressed daze for hours.
One of the first steps we are taking is that we are attending a Financial Peace University class by Dave Ramsey tonight (they provide free dinner and free childcare) and I hope we find some answers. And encouragement.