Oh My Aching Debts » Personal

Update: It Has Been A Long Time

cindys — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 09:23:28 +0000

It has been a seriously long time since I posted. Don’t you just hate it when someone you have been following just goes away? I know of several bloggers that were posting daily and sometimes several times daily that just disappeared. I always wondered what changed in their lives.

I have been very involved with another project and it takes most of my time and almost all of my focus. While it hasn’t brought in thousands of dollars, it has enriched my life. I hope that I will be posting more frequently in the upcoming weeks and months but I am not making any promises. Like most of you, I am still struggling in this economy. Just when we think it can’t get any worse, it does.

The presidential elections are coming up and the president is expected to fix our economy. So I ask you, if you were running the country, what would you do? How would you fix it? We are trillions of dollars in debt and it’s growing. If I managed my household, the way Congress manages the USA, I would be bankrupt.

Update on Life Well as usual, I start out with the best of...
Sunday Update I have been having problems accessing anything through the library...
Business Update and Decisions Even in the sluggish economy, my business has grown by...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Depression, Stress and Personal Finance

cindys — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:59:47 +0000

When I was younger, I would get depressed and then I would go shopping. Shopping made me feel better. It usually started innocently enough but would soon make a bad financial situation worse. Oh, did I mention I was usually depressed about money.

It is a vicious cycle. Get broke, get depressed, spend money, feel better, be broker, and then get more depressed. It is a lot like dieting. You eat for comfort and then you gain weight. When you realize it, you go on a diet, lose a few pounds and then get depressed about something and the cycle starts all over again.

I suppose I am thinking about this because our experience with court has left us literally penniless. It took every penny that I had in the house plus calling in some money owed plus borrowing about $500 to keep R from being locked up. It feels like legal extortion.

The good news is that there is no money to spend. No credit cards to make new debt and so I am just sitting here reflecting on the things I would like to do. It’s less expensive than going on a shopping spree but not as comforting.

I believe that most of us need to find things to comfort us that are less destructive than incurring debt and eating ourselves into oblivion. I am right there with the rest of the majority of Americans and these are my two worst habits. I suppose it could be worse, I could find comfort in alcohol or drugs. Thankfully, neither of those are my cross to bear.

One of the things that I find the most helpful at times like these is finding things in my life to be grateful. There are so many things: my health, R, my children and small things such as watching the birds on the feeder outside my window. It doesn’t put money in the bank but it keeps me grounded in reality. These are things that are the most important and that make me feel better.

One Financial Fool’s Guide to Personal Finance Terms, Part One Budget This is what they used to call a spending...
Personal Finance Carnival King of Debt has posted the final 2007 edition of...
Personal Finance Game Managing your budget is not child’s play but making it...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Personal Update

cindys — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:04:31 +0000

Just wanted too give everyone a quick update. R had surgery yesterday for his hip replacement. He came through with flying colors but then spiked a fever last night. I was at the hospital until early this morning. His fever is back down but he is on IV antibiotics right now. Hopefully when the antibiotics are done, his fever will stay down. Other than that he is doing well and giving the nurses a run for their money.

Be back soon!!

Update on Life Well as usual, I start out with the best of...
Update on Life I thought I would write a quick note to update...
Business Update and Decisions Even in the sluggish economy, my business has grown by...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A Step Ahead and Two Steps Back

cindys — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:13:26 +0000

We started off the weekend on Friday with a buying trip to North Carolina. We had caught the bills up and carefully budgeted the trip so that we could go and still have money to buy horses. I had packed our lunch and dinner.

I was up at 4 am and we hit the road at 6 am. Yawn!! It is a 4 hour trip and we wanted to be there early. I had gotten about 3 miles down the road when I realized that I didn’t have the cell phone. I turned around and went back after it. I wouldn’t want to take that long a trip without it.

Everything went well all day Friday. The weather was great if hot. The trip up was uneventful and by late fridaynight, had bought two beautiful horses and was back at the hotel. It was very late and I was very tired. I fell into bed and slept for a few hours. At 7 am, I was up and headed back to the barn to check on the horses. I fed and made sure that all was well and then headed back to the hotel.

That would have been when the trouble started. The cell phone was missing. I checked the whole hotel room over and it wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the truck. I checked the hotel lobby thinking that maybe I set it down when I went up to get coffee. I tried calling it from the room and listening for it. The only place left to look was at the barn.

After breakfast, I headed to the barn to load the horses and find the phone. The horses loaded fine but there was no phone. Giving up on finding the phone, I climbed into the truck and started it up. I put it in gear, gave it a little gas and didn’t move and I mean not even an inch.

The transmission was gone. Boom. It had acted up the week before but straightened out after adding fluid. I had a mechanic drive it to check it out plus a couple of friends who are experienced with mechanical things. They all thought it would be fine, that it was just low on fluid. Apparently, everyone was wrong.

So here I am 4 hours from home with a trailer full of horses, a broken down truck and no cell phone. Oh boy! The barn was getting ready to close for the day so I quickly borrowed the phone to call home. I got in touch with R’s son and his girlfriend and told them to find someone to come get me and the trailer.

And then I sat there all day, waiting and not knowing if someone was coming or not. I did spend some time walking the parking lot looking for the phone. I walked up and down the road in case I had set it on the truck and it had bounced off. I rode the horses. I waited and waited. The security guard checked on me every hour or so but mostly, I waited.

After 6 hours, my friends made it to the barn. I was mightily glad to see them and mightily grateful to them for giving up their weekend to come get me. We headed home and arrived at about 11 o’clock minus one truck and one cell phone.

This week I have been dealing with suspending service to the cell and trying to get estimates on fixing the truck. When it was all said and done, it looked like it was going to be a little over a thousand dollars to rebuild the transmission. The cell phone is suspended until I can either find it or afford to buy another one.

The good news is that after deciding that there was no way that we could pay to have the transmission rebuilt, I got on the computer and found a rebuilt transmission for $250. I had someone interested in one of the horses I bought so I had a quick sale and got the money to buy it. It was another 90 mile drive to pick it up but we should save $750 to $1000 on it.

So once again, I have taken one step ahead and two steps back.

Seven Ways Cooking Ahead Saves Time and Money Whether you cook a week in advance or a month...
10 Steps to Getting Your Financial Boat Back On Course Every once in awhile I feel like my finances have...
Make Ahead French Toast by annniemal One of my biggest budget busters is not...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Update on Blood From A Turnip

cindys — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:34:11 +0000

First, I would like to thank everyone for their support. It makes a difference emotionally if in no other way. For those of you who did not know it, this is a part of my personal story as R and I have been living together for about a year. This has been a nightmare.

Second, we have heard back from Senator Frank Ruff. His assistant called me this morning and asked for the judge’s name who heard the appeal. He said that the senators cannot interfere in the judicial system but that he would look into it further. Now that isn’t exactly hope but at least someone thought that there might be something we could do.

I feel like it’s a life sentence. We sit here every day waiting for the sheriff to appear with another summons to court. We both know that when it comes, there is nothing we can do. It is a terrible situation and both of us are fighting hard just to put one foot in front of the other right now.

If anyone wants to help, the best thing we can do right now is to help publicize the story Blood from a Turnip: An Alimony Story. You can link to it or submit it to your favorite social media site. Having someone read the story who might be able to help is the best that we can hope for right now and maybe it won’t help R but it might help someone else.

For my part, I have written our legislators, the ACLU, various alimony support groups and Senator Ruff’s call is the best hope that we have gotten.

Again, thank you all for the support and prayers. They mean so much!

This post has been included in the Carnival of Money Stories at Bible Money Matters.

Blood From A Turnip: An Alimony Story It is commonly said that you cannot get blood from...
Sunday Update I have been having problems accessing anything through the library...
Update on Life Well as usual, I start out with the best of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Blood From A Turnip: An Alimony Story

cindys — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:46:28 +0000

It is commonly said that you cannot get blood from a turnip. Apparently the legal system in this County has found otherwise. Over the past few months, I have been a witness to a case where they have certainly succeeded and continue to try. I apologize if this is lengthy but it is 5 years condensed. I tried to be as brief as possible.

R was disabled in 2003 after working for 17 years for Nonprofit Corp. He received long term disability insurance payments until the Spring of 2004 when he received a lump sum payment. He used the majority of this sum to pay off both marital bills and his wife’s credit card bills. (I mention this simply because this is not a case of a spouse who quits his job or becomes ‘disabled’ to avoid paying support. R was out on disability almost a full year before he was separated from his wife.)

He waited the appropriate period of time and applied for Social Security Disability. As anyone knows who has ever applied for disability, this is an ongoing and lengthy process of denials and appeals. In the meantime, he has been left to earn whatever meager income that he can.

He was separated from his wife in the Summer of 2004. She filed for spousal support and was awarded $1300 per month. This is from a man who had no regular income. At the time, he had a small amount of income from his horse business. The judge stated at that time that he had no idea how to figure spousal support payments in this case. He used an average of the deposits from the past three year’s bank statements. Two of those years, R was working and the final year he was receiving disability payments. He never took into account that his current income had been drastically reduced from that amount.

Having little or no income and not being able to pay a retainer, R was forced to represent himself in his divorce. Nothing was mentioned about spousal support until the very end of the trial when his ex-wife’s attorney asked the judge not to address it at that time but to remand it back to the juvenile and domestic court. Not being an attorney, R had no idea that this would make it a permanent part of the divorce decree and so he did not object. The divorce was granted in the Fall of 2007.

Since then it has been found that R has a degenerative joint condition that is affecting both hips . The hip joints are collapsing and they cause him extreme pain. He has gone from taking over the counter pain relievers to taking 3 different prescriptions for pain. On good days, he can walk without crutches. On bad days even the crutches don’t help. He is scheduled for one hip replacement in a few months. Hopefully, if he recovers well from the first replacement then the second will come soon after.

R’s ex-wife filed a show cause for non payment of support last fall. Even though R is living below the poverty level and is currently receiving food stamps and has not been able to work for years, the court ordered him to pay $5000 within 30 days. Needless to say, it was not possible. Not having any source of income, R could not even borrow the money. In April, he was incarcerated for contempt until the $5,000 was paid. With the help of his family and some very, very good friends, I was able to raise the money to have him released.

R appealed the court’s decision and asked for either modification of the spousal support or preferably termination as he is currently unable to work. Monday, July 6^th, the judge denied the appeal. His reasoning was that R could not work when the support was ordered, he could not work when the divorce was final and he still can’t work so nothing has changed.

After hearing of R’s medical conditions and lack of income, his ex-wife requested a sheriff’s sale so that the court would force the sale of the rest of his personal belongings. Apparently both she and the court believe that you can get blood out of a turnip.

No one who is familiar with R’s circumstances and the details of the case can believe that this was ordered in the first place much less that it has been confirmed again. His attorney was in shock. No one could believe that our legal system would order him to pay something that was more than his annual income. To my knowledge, he has never been asked what his current income is.

Due to the denial of the appeal, R will no doubt end up incarcerated again because there is no possible way for him to pay this. The people of the Commonwealth of Virginia will end up paying for the senseless incarceration of another person. According to the Denver Post, the cost of incarcerating one person was $23,876 or over $65 per day and that was in 2004.

Neither of us have a clue as to what to do next. An appeal to a higher court would cost more than both our annual incomes combined. We just sit and wait for the next “Show Cause” and wonder how long it will take her to file it. We have both been so depressed that it has been hard to do anything.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions, please leave a comment or send me an email. There seems to be no hope.

Zen Habits – Debt Free Success Story Sometimes in my web meanderings, it’s nice to read success...
Do You Have A Story About Debt? by DetroitDerek I would like to feature a guest post...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Wrong Change: What Would You Do

cindys — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:48:52 +0000

Every day, R & I dump all of our change into a jar. It accumulates over a month or so and then we count it out and roll it. We have gotten into the habit of taking it to our local country store as they are always in need of change.

Yesterday, I took the rolls to the store and purchased some gas for the lawn mower. After I had paid for the gas with a roll of quarters and a roll of dimes. I got the girl to change a roll of quarters and a roll of nickels. She gave me the money and I left.

When I got home, I realized that she had given me a twenty dollar bill and two ones instead of a ten and two ones. I ended up with ten dollars more than I should have had. Now had I noticed it at the store, there would have been no question in my mind that I would tell her and give the ten back but now I was 5 miles away.

I am ashamed to say that we had to think about it for a couple minutes as not only was there the expense of driving 10 miles round trip but also the time involved. Happily, it didn’t take us long to decide that we would run the ten dollars back to the store. We did it for several reasons other than that it was the right thing to do.

There is no doubt in my mind that the $10 shortage would have caused the girl at the store problems and she probably would have had to pay the shortage. No matter how much we need the money, it isn’t fair to have someone else pay our way. Then there is the less obvious reason and maybe this is just superstition but we both believe that keeping the money would have cost us more at some point in time.

Have you ever noticed that when you do something good, someone, sometime, will do something good for you? And if you do something wrong, then that will also come back to you. My grandmother used to say that life was a circle and you got back what you gave, usually not from the same person that you gave to but in some other way.

My question is what would you have done? Have you ever had an experience like this?

Counting Change: Little Stuff Adds Up We talk about how little things add up quite a...
Spend Less than you earn — Wrong? Steve at brip blap had a post in the Carnival...
Credit Report Surprises There are some people who question the ethics of repairing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

3 Reasons Why I Am Not Following You On Twitter

cindys — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:30:01 +0000

I have been on Twitter for a year or so now. It started out being fun and I enjoyed keeping up with what other PF bloggers were doing and thinking. It was a small group and we helped each other. When someone followed me, I returned the favor.

As with all good things, Twitter went downhill fast and I learned to be more selective about who I followed. I started only following people who had some connection to personal finance or self improvement. Now, I have started to look at how many updates people have when they follow me. So here is my list of 10 reasons why I am not following you on Twitter:

Too many updates. If you follow me and have more than 1,000 updates, I am probably not going to follow you. You can’t have that much to say that I want to read.
Every twit you make is for a coupon or affiliate link that is probably going to make you money and cost me. I’m just not into it. I guess some people are but not me.
Every twit you make is sending me to your blog. I use twitter to keep up with the more personal stuff. If I like your blog, I am probably subscribed. Post announcements are fine but if that’s the only thing you twit about I will probably end up not following.

So I guess this makes me a little cranky this morning but as I look at my Twitter feed, all I see is spam. Very few personal updates and very little that I am even interested in looking at. The ones who twit the most seem to have the least to say. I glanced through about 100 coupon/savings links before I got to anything interesting. I ended up dropping about 19 different people.

Is it just me? Do other people feel the same way? Is Twitter the new hotspot of Spam?

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Not Budget Like the President by MC MasterChef The US Government now has enough...
Top 10 Reasons Why Christmas is NOT an Emergency. 1) If I spend my emergency fund on Christmas, my...
Saving Money in Small Ways Not having a lot of money to save makes trying...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Guest Posters Wanted

cindys — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:49:19 +0000

I am on my way back to my Parents this morning. We need to help my Mom get some things done around the house that she can’t do alone. I will be gone for a week or a little more. While I will have access to the internet,I can’t seem to focus on much of anything recently.

I would love to have some guest posts to fill in some of the time that I will be away. If you are interested, please email me at cindys at achingdebts.com or use the contact form. Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers.

New WebHost Wanted – Apply Here If you visited Oh My Aching Debts over the past...
Money Hackers Carnival and Guest Post I didn’t have a post in the Money Hacker’s Carnival...
Feedback Wanted: Hard Decisions in Today’s Economy In a telephone conversation with my mother this morning, she...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Sad News

cindys — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:16:38 +0000

My father passed away last week at his home. They were able to bring him home briefly with lots of help from Hospice. Hospice provides in home care for the terminally ill.

I was able to spend a little bit of time with him before he passed. He was a wonderful father and husband and he will be sorely missed.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.