Life can't get worse. It just can't.

Yesterday morning, I woke up feeling great. That doesn't happen very often. My back was only a little bit sore. I felt energized and refreshed after a rare good night's sleep. I was ready to meet the day head on.

My husband and I were getting along great, working together to get the kids ready for school. Mitchell's blood sugar was back down to a normal level after almost a week of being really high. In short, things seemed like they were going great, so I was happy when I told my husband goodbye as he went out the door.

So I was shocked when, 30 seconds later, he came back in and said, "My truck's been stolen!" My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. He said they couldn't have gotten far because he had almost no gas in the car. Of course. We've been that broke.

So I suggested he call the police. I don't even know who you're supposed to call when a vehicle is stolen. 911? We're not in the city, so it would be the Sheriff's office, I suppose.

He made the phone call in the other room. Then he came in and delivered the news.

The car hadn't been stolen. It had been repossessed. I wish I were joking. Of course, I instantly became infuriated with him, assuming he had gone several months without paying the payment and just not telling me.

It's no secret among our friends we've been having money trouble. I quit my job in August because it was costing us money for me to work. Every bit of my paycheck and then some was going into day care, gas and the cost of parking. Yes, I had to pay for my own parking at work, which was the ultimate insult considering how much they paid us.We'd been stuck in a salary freeze for years, so there was no hope of it getting any better any time soon.

After I stopped yelling, he told me we were only a month behind on payments. But because we'd filed for bankruptcy in February, one payment was all it took for them to repossess it. Also because of the bankruptcy, they were unwilling to let us pay to get caught up and get the truck back.

At this point, it was only about 8 a.m. It had been a long couple of hours, but I had to pack the the kids up and go to a doctor's appointment I had scheduled yesterday morning. It was not one I could afford to miss. So I told him to get on the phone and try to figure out how to fix this problem before I got back from the doc.

While I was gone, he found out the only way we could get the truck back was to pay off the loan. The current payoff cost is roughly $9,000. So there's no way that's happening.

We went with an alternate option. Drive Time. They're one of those companies that charge super high interest rates but give you loans even if you've had a recent bankruptcy, which is something we were worried about. They did approve us for a monthly payment amount that was much higher than we needed ,but they wanted a $700 down payment. We were going to be able to pay $500, but even that was stretching it. I got pretty pissy and marched out of there fast... and angry. I'm sure he had to apologize for me. My attitude was awful. But at this point, I'd been dealing with it all day and was beyond completely stressed.

I had been texting my stepmother all day back and forth updating her on what was going on. When  I told her what happened, she called me and told me they would send us the extra money we needed the next day. I was so relieved and thankful. That was just about the kindest thing I could think anyone could do at that point.

I doped myself up and managed to fall asleep around 7:30 last night. I slept through most of the night by re-medicating every time I woke up. This morning, I had to get up and deal with the kids, and I have been so stressed all day. Luckily, my dad wired the money earlier today and all I have to do is go pick it up. But I'm so exhausted from the stress and still have to take Mitchell to his dad's tonight. That's a 3.5-hour round trip I really don't feel like making. I just kind of want to sleep until this nightmare is over.

Wasting money makes me mad, and we were so close to getting that truck paid off. Because of one little error, we lost out on thousands and thousands of dollars. It chaps my ass, to put it not so politely. I'll be glad to make the change to a smaller, more fuel-efficient car for Ro. There's no need for both of us to be driving large, nice cars, and since I'm the one toting the kids around most of the time, it makes sense for me to have the large, nice car. We can use it when we go anywhere as a family, which is what we've already been doing lately anyway.

This is pretty off topic, but this whole ordeal has made me think long and hard about the "Occupy Wall Street" movement that's going on right now. I still don't get it. We are having far more financial problems than most people I know are. But every single one of those problems comes from either a decision we made or just bad luck. A corporation did not give my son Type I diabetes and huge medical bills. A corporation did not ruin my back and cost us even more in medical bills. A corporation did not cause me to have twins, resulting in more bills we weren't expecting. A corporation did not make us purchase two cars that were too much for us to pay for. A corporation did not cause us to run up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt that we could not pay, contributing to our need to file for bankruptcy. 


A lot of our financial downfall came to us because of things that happened that were out of our control, but they were not the fault of corporations or greedy capitalists, either. I don't feel like anyone owes me anything just because these things happened to me. The ONLY thing I disagree with that a corporation has done to me was when I was employed by Hearst, they had a group of us doing the same job as others but making about half the money. They did this because they bought us out from another company and did not want to take on the extra expense of paying us fairly. But that is only one component of an entire system of financial problems that put us where we are.


So I still don't get it. I'm still confused. God, are we in a bad place financially right now. But it's not anyone's fault but our own. What's happening to other people that's so different? Or in these other people's minds, is what happened to us the result of greed of large corporations in some way that I'm not seeing?


Back to the original topic, fingers crossed, we're getting a new/used car tomorrow morning. I'm off to look online now. We'll take all the prayers we can get. We're really trying hard to overhaul our budget and live without some of the luxuries we've gotten used to. I've been selling things right and left. Canceling services and even taking on work that's not appealing just to make money. If anyone else has any moneymaking ideas, send them my way. I'll do almost anything at this point! Except prostitution. I draw the line there. Anyone need a kidney? I have two, and I hear I only need one. For the right price, I'll sell my other one...