Thanksgiving 2010

I said that I would finish my story, how I got to this place. So, backtrack to the years 2000-2002 and I am making pretty decent coin, saving a bit, bought a condo, and then the bills started to climb. The savings remained steady at about $600/monthly. But, I also got a home equity line of credit to cope with all the expenses of owning a condo that wasn't new. So I had a couple credit cards, a line of credit, student loan debt, and a mortgage. Not earth shattering stuff, but a fair amount of debt to be sure.

In 2003, I met my significant other. Ours was a long distance courtship, so we travelled a fair bit (i.e. air travel) to see each other, and also racked up some big phone bills. By 2005, we married, and then the bills (and debt) really started to climb. We still had to cope with travel costs (travelling by air to visit families in another country). Then, right after getting married, I got pregnant with my first child. An expected pregnancy, but we were delighted to be having a child. However, I had not saved even one penny towards a maternity leave. During my pregnancy, I was faced with my spouse still living in another country (immigration issues not ironed out), caring for my dying mother, and finally the death of my beloved mother in my 7th month of the pregnancy. It is not surprising that I did not save any money during this time. My attention was completely focused on survival (my baby's, my mother).

My son was born in 2006, and my goal was to stay home with him for 6 months. My employer provided me with 17 weeks maternity benefits, during which I would collect 75% of my previous years' wages. I also could collect unemployment insurance during this time. However, all these benefits were deferred, meaning it took almost 2 months after the birth before I could start collecting. In the meantime, I still had to figure out how to pay the mortgage, utilities, student loan, property taxes, car insurance etc. Hence, the line of credit started to get used once again.

This is still not the whole story. I thought I could compose it more quickly than this, but I guess it's more complicated than I first thought.

More to follow on another day.

Happy thanksgiving. I am blessed and thankful for my wonderful family, my home ($$$) and my job that I still have, and my friends. Despite my mountain of debt, there are still lots of blessings in my life.

fallout of job insecurity

It has been awhile since I last blogged and in the meantime, my profession has undergone some massive funding cuts and more cuts are slated to come. At the moment, the cuts have not drastically affected my bottom line, which is good. I still am full-time (40 hrs/wk) and I am still able to get the odd bit of contract work, although the rates for contractors have gone down. My overall outlook is relatively unchanged. We are still have a boatload of consumer debt, which consumes much of my thoughts. I still have little money for any frivolous expenditures. So my current spending will continue to remain unchanged for the time being.

why blog

Why create a blog? What is the purpose of writing about my personal finance journey?
Unburdening.
It is a huge burden on my shoulders to have this financial mess. Each day, it is the first thing I think about. Each night, I toss and turn, crunching the numbers in my head, trying to figure out how to get through another month. I made the decision a long time ago to change my financial ways. For a long time, I have been penny pinching, scrimping, reusing, and forgoing major purchases. Yet I still feel so burdened. I want so badly to talk about what I'm going through, but finances are still a taboo topic in our society. No one talks about what they make, never mind how much they owe. It helps me enormously to write about it, telling whomever reads this how I got on this path, and what road I am taking to get back to a state of financial health.
I am on a conference call currently, listening to how my profession is going to cope with massive funding cuts. I am trying not to think what will happen to us if I lose my job.