Amounting Debt

This is post two in a five post series about how I got to this point. For the first part, click here.

In spring of 2011, I returned to school as well, using my GI Bill. I was still working full-time, and taking classes full-time, while he went to school full-time.  It was hard. Our marriage was already suffering for many reasons, and this was the nail in the coffin. In April 2011, I filed for divorce.

We knew that we didn’t have the expendable cash to go to a lawyer and have a real settlement figured out, so we decided like this: he got the older car. I got the newer car. I paid off half of his credit card debt (and opened my own credit account at the same time), and I got the girls, he had to pay child support. I also was continuing to live in the house. I obtained a personal loan to pay off his credit card debts and the fees associated with the divorce, which I paid off within six months. All the bills and assorted expenses fell to me.

Things got a little bit harder for me; in October, my boyfriend offered to move in so that he could help get my oldest on and off the bus for me, so that I didn’t have to worry about getting her to daycare or school. I accepted, and had another mouth to feed, as he was unemployed. I was still going to school full-time, and I started floundering miserably. I couldn’t take classes full-time, manage the household, and work, at least, not if I wanted to sleep. Ever. Winter set in, and we went through hundreds of dollars in oil in a month. I obviously didn’t have the money for this, so it went on my credit card. So did the Christmas presents that year. So did our quarterly trash and sewer bill, which I hadn’t included in my budget.