Hey guys. I'll try and explain everything as best as I can but I apologize if I jump around a lot, a lot has happened in the last week. If I'm not clear about anything just let me know.
My boyfriend and I just moved into an apartment together on October 31st. We moved about a half hour from where we originally lived so he was forced to leave his previous job because we share a car so commuting wasn't realistic. He got a 9$/hr job (before we actually made the move, just to clarify) but that wasn't cutting it and I was also not making enough money at my job to live comfortably (we are both servers btw.) So I went ahead and got a new job about a month ago (in addition to the job I wasn't making enough money at) and was able to get him a job there as well. We were doing very well there financially but my boyfriend was abruptly fired (more on that later) and since he hasn't worked there long there's not anything we can do about it. So now I'm the only one working until he can find something else and I'm panicking about being able to pay the bills essentially on my own until then.
These are our monthly bills (I'm rounding the amounts up):
-
Rent - 885$
-
Electric - 40-50$
-
Gas (heat) - 40-50$
-
Insurance - 239$
-
Internet - 70$
This comes to a total amount of about 1300$. Not to mention the cost of groceries, gas for the car, etc. Given that I am a server and therefore my income can vary it's hard to give an exact amount I earn per month but if the volume of business at the restaurant continues as it has I should continue to make between 1800-2000$ per month.
This is where the situation gets kind of messy and may seem off topic but I promise it's relevant. Bare with me. I recently had my car vandalized and both my mirrors were stolen. This set me back 200$. This incident occurred in the parking lot of my apartment complex and happened over the course of 3 nights. What I mean is one mirror was stolen one night and two nights later my second mirror was stolen. When I spoke to my apartment complex about it they more or less told me it wasn't their problem and to park somewhere else (we don't have assigned parking spaces.) The past few nights several of my neighbors have also had their cars broken into and ransacked overnight. This leads me to believe that when I get my mirrors put on there is a very real possibility that they could get stolen again and I can't risk that happening for obvious reasons. Since the apartment complex made it clear they weren't going to do anything about it and the police weren't able to help me either I felt like I had no choice but to purchase a camera to protect my property. A front and back camera for my car was about 400$. The reason my boyfriend lost his job was also because of this whole thing. Basically the day our second mirror was taken he called work immediately and told them he would not be able to come in the NEXT day (it was his day off when the mirror was stolen) because we needed to handle the situation ASAP and we couldn't drive the car without mirrors. They told him to do the best he could to get his shifts covered but because he didn't call them the next day as well they terminated him for a no call no show.
The reason I explained all that is because the mirrors and camera were all charged to one of my credit cards. I have 3. One has a balance of 315$ and 19.99% APR. Another has a balance of 157$ and 25.99% APR. The credit card I used for the mirrors/camera now has an outstanding balance of over 600$. The only upside is that I do not have to pay APR on this particular card until June. My boyfriend always helps me pay off my balances because I make purchases for the both of us on these cards but now he can't. So now I need to pay these off on my own in the meantime on top of the monthly expenses. I only have about 400$ left in my savings account because of the move and my boyfriend drained his savings entirely.
I just don't know if I can afford this all on my own. I know he's going to get another job but that could take weeks and he'll have to go through the training process before he starts bringing home any money. Neither of us have ever lived on our own before so we've never been in this situation. I'm afraid to talk to my landlord about it because we are new tenants. I explored the idea of taking out a personal loan just to be safe but I'm not sure if that's the best course of action and regardless I don't have the credit to get pre-approved. I really don't know what to do. Has anyone else been in this situation before who can tell me what my options are? Should I definitely go to my landlord about this? I'm sorry if I'm not asking the right questions or if I'm asking anything that has an obvious answer. Again this is my first time living on my own and paying "real" bills and I don't know how to approach this at all.
Thanks so much to those who read this whole mess and can offer advice. I know the post was somewhat scatterbrained. If any clarification is needed please let me know.
Submitted December 04, 2017 at 09:42AM by relentlessraisin http://ift.tt/2ihhyHn
