Can your parents provide child care? Some/most of the time, they travel fairly often but I also have my in laws who have offered to help.
How long will you be able to stay with your parents, anyway? Until I finish school or we kill each other. My kids are all boys, the insanity of having so many little boys around may drive us all insane.
Nope. You need a vehicle, but not necessarily "the van." Being upside down on it implies that it's probably relatively new; you need something cheaper (which probably correlates to older and smaller). Well it's a 2005, the bumper is falling off and the inside floor is pretty bad. It's not worth a whole lot. We owe about $8k and it's worth about half that.
Can you skip paying off the van, let your ex keep it (and the associated debt) and just buy a cheap car to get around instead? Certainly an option, although I'm not sure if he would be game..he has a truck. Right now he's being civil and giving me everything I want (basically, sole custody of the kids) so I don't want it to become ugly. I will certainly look into the possibility though...
I'm sure there's some state agency and/or non-profit organization that can help you figure out how that all works. Maybe try calling the department of family and children services, the department of labor, or one of your local politicians' offices for leads?
[/quote] Thanks I will get on the phone asap!