I need help. If you knew me, you'd know that that's a saying that you'd never hear me say. I've got too much pride, I'm ashamed and embarrassed, and I'm always the one with the smile on my face- even when I'm crying on the inside.
I've tried to research and google other situations similar to mine, but none of what I find seems to help me. So, I'm turning to reddit. (It's much cheaper than a therapist or financial advisor!)
My current situation: I'm 24, with a 3 week old baby, and no money saved up. Every night before going to bed, I stress out about my financial situation. I have a decent job, but right now I'm on maternity leave. And because FMLA requires that you be at your job for at least a year (which I haven't been) for a paid leave, my maternity leave is unpaid. So there's that.
My phone bill is beyond overdue. I owe like $1000 on it. The problem with this issue, is it's in my dad's name. My phone is on my Dad's plan, along with my sister's phone. He opened up a Sprint account for her (she's a minor) and when me and my ex broke up, I joined his plan to get off my ex boyfriend's plan. Long story short, I fell behind on my half of the payments and my dad (just being forgetful) didn't pay his half all the time either. He paid his portion way more than I did though, but paying only a portion every month still creates a past due balance. I panicked, and started using my checking account to make the payments. But because my checking account has less than $20 in it, it kept bouncing. The only way I could keep my phone on is by using the "Bill Pay" feature that my bank offers. So, I keep sending payments to Sprint, and my bank keeps rejecting them, and I keep getting hit with fees, and so on. But now Sprint's restricting my services because of how often the payments are getting returned. As they rightfully should. But because of me and my asshole mistakes, my poor little sister has to suffer with no phone... and I'm ruining my Dad's credit. The stress of this whole situation is eating me alive. The worst part... I keep telling my dad that everything's good. He has no idea of how I'm making the payments and why the account is off. Of course, I haven't been asking him for payments at all because I don't want his money going down the drain. That wouldn't be fair to him either.
Because of having no funds, I'm also driving around a car without insurance. Lucky me. My insurance company cancelled my policy due to a nonpayment. When I do go back to work and get money for insurance, the fines for not having coverage is going to be ridiculous. Not to mention, I have a car with a salvaged title... so finding insurance is going to be difficult to begin with.
I owe money on my credit card. The balance is under $300, but still- that's a lot when I have nothing.
I have less than $20 in my bank account, and that needs to be saved for formula and/or diapers for my little one. (Thank god we're stocked up on that stuff for now).
We have like no groceries in the house. So I've been eating noodles. Yum.
My credit is HORRIBLE! I've got a huge $4000 Verizon bill in collections, along with a $3000 student loan and medical bills. The Verizon bill is partially my ex's fault, but that's an entire different story and the story is moot. Point is, it's ruining MY credit. So with such a terrible credit score, I can't get a loan to consolidate my debt. I can't get a credit card, or a credit increase on my current (restricted) card. I can't get a new phone service in my own name. (I wanted to switch phone companies, and cover my sister's phone and pay off the Sprint account- since it's my fault it's so behind. But I can't even do that without needing to pay $300+ upfront per phone!) So I don't know how to fix my credit either.
I can't turn to my family for help. My dad is strict and very one track minded. He's set in his old fashioned ways and he's VERY judge mental. He'll kill me if he ever finds this out. Any of it. Yeah, I'm 24 years old, out on my own with my own family BUT my dad has always put so much pressure on me to do good in life. He's always been hard on us. He doesn't understand anxiety and depression. And I can't bring myself to let him down, again. I still heavily depend on my Dad's approval, and I care very much about his and everyone else's opinion of me.
I don't go back to work until the end of November. I won't have a paycheck until beginning of December. That's still 2 months away from now. I need to know how to get out of my rut.
I'm so stuck, it's not even funny. I feel like this blog/post is all over the place. Someone help me, give me some guidance, advice, anything. How do I get myself out of this situation? When will things finally be okay?
It's hard for me to dig myself out of the financial hole that I'm in, when I don't have income coming in at the moment. In time, I will, but for right now... I'm just stuck. And it's draining me.
Submitted October 25, 2018 at 09:01PM by amandajean94 https://ift.tt/2Pq6qdu
