(Online) Life, interrupted. -

Well, I'm back after being gone for a little over a week. Not being able to afford to pay my bills suck.

I'm going to be playing less now, because my living situation just doesn't cut it anymore. It would be fine, but get this. Ok, the mortgage on my house is less than 900 dollars a month. Not too bad for a nice house, really. Some of the nicer apartments around here cost nearly that much. I have 1650 square feet, nice big yard and a playplace for the kids, complete with swings. I LOVE this house.

The thing is, my income has been declining steadily because I've been losing clients. I'm a caregiver for the elderly. That's expensive, and even though I live close to Grosse Pointe, times are tough. I'm down to ONE client, now, and it's not enough. I pay 300 dollars a month in property taxes, which is pretty high, but you get a lot of that money back when you file your tax returns, so normally it's not a huge deal. Well, I fell behind a year so my mortgage company slapped an escrow account on me and set up a repayment plan whereby I have to pay it all back in a year. THEN it was found out that I actually owed taxes from the second half of '05 (I hadnt gotten the house until that September, so I didnt even know this). So NOW I'm paying two and a half months of taxes every month. 900 + 300 + 300 + 150 = 1650 dollars a month. Yeah. And of course I still have food, utilities, gas, etc to pay for.

So... I'm hurtin' real bad. I do have a retail management background as well, so I thought it'd be easy to find a job to supplement my income. Surprisingly, it's been very difficult and frustrating. I have TOO much experience. Almost 20 years in retail/sales, and over ten of those in management. A full-time job will be great, but they are in short supply. Plenty of crap part-time jobs are out there, which I am more than willing to settle for at the moment, but typically hiring managers don't want to train an overqualified worker, just to have them take off when a job more suitable (and petter paying) becomes available.

Also, I have no problem saying that some retail managers are absolutely lazy and take months upon months to fill positions that are needing to be filled, even when they have qualified applicants. I've met these types of people as both co-workers and as the job applicant. It's VERY frustrating. This one company... I'll withhold the name but it's a very well-known national chain of drugstores/convienence stores... The managers are LIVID with the District Manager because she won't get off her sorry butt and hire more assistant managers. They are having to share employees between stores just to have adequate store coverage, which is a huge pain for everyone involved. They need help badly. I need a job badly, am plenty qualified with great referrals, and this chick is sitting there in her office doing nothing.

I know this turned into a rant; sorry about that. But man, something's gotta give. Beyond the fear of losing my house and really important things like that, I HATE being broke. It's a horrible feeling, always being behind paying bills, having nothing extra. And the older you get, the more depressing that is. Word to the wise, kids, start putting money away for retirement and emergencies as soon as you start working. Even if it's just a savings account that you throw twenty bucks into per paycheck. Leave it there and don't touch it. I sure wish I had. I don't care if you're twelve and delivering newspapers or mowing lawns, get in the habit of saving some money and not using it for frivilous things.