Hi, I'm froggy.
I am a 27-year-old girl working as a school bus driver, a job which I generally love since answering that radio advertisement 3 years ago.
I left high school with dreams of becoming a pilot, and unfortunately lived close enough to one of the top aeronautical schools in the world to actually act on that dream. I also had my future-husband (3 years younger) at the time I graduated high school, and I lived with him and his family since wearing that cap and gown.
Given the choice, I'd have never gone to college. It was one huge long period of stress and craziness, and not just from family issues. Trying to work as close to full time as possible while also going to school full time with a 5 hour block of flight time set in the mix as well... it's a wonder I didn't do something stupid like crash a car due to fatigue. In any case, I ended up not being able to hold to the strict teaching methods required of flight, so I ended up with a bachelor's degree (because I'm stupid/stubborn and wouldn't quit) in general Aeronautics, with minors in Aviation Safety (my choice) and Aeronautical Studies (those pilot classes with no certifications to go with them). I have no idea what to do with that.
I now have somewhere in the neighborhood of $187,000 in student debt, and am doing nothing to pay them off. I was out of work for a very long time due to living situation after getting my degree, and when I did get a job and tried to contact loan people to make payments, they all wanted $200 a month EACH and I only made $4-500 a month. I stopped communicating with them at all...
My husband and I have been on our own a few times, but always ended up back with family. One time it was an emergency to support his mom after she found her boyfriend, and his dad finally understood that she seriously didn't want to be with him (they'd been divorced since I met my husband) and stopped paying for her to live where she was. Another time we needed help and moved in with his grandfather. Then we moved out on our own, and jobs got messed up. We moved in with my mom to mutually (theoretically) help each other out with decreased costs. Mom lost the house and we were all evicted...
It just seems like a good idea to live with others, but then somehow we never actually save anything that way. But when we are out on our own, it seems like the income is just barely enough to cover bills, or maybe it's really not and the credit card just hide it well until the lease is up, exactly the same way.
Right now I am working, and my husband is not. He had major trouble finding work out here once we moved from Florida to Oregon. I was able to just step into my position from one county to the other, while it seems that everything he is able to do is a field where licenses are required... for whatever reasons he hasn't found permanent work.
He decided to go to college to get the paperwork to back up his considerable skills in business (he was always considered too young to hold a management position, which I know he would absolutely excel at), and perhaps move from that to a culinary degree as he has a passion for cooking and some dreams of owning or running a restaurant. I'm paranoid that he'll dig himself a hole similar in shape, if not the size, of my own. We used excess financial aid to repair our car (1995 Chevrolet Caprice 9C1 decommissioned highway patrol car, we also have his first car a 1980 Camaro) and pay down some credit card balances.
With me having no income over the summer, paycheck money withheld last year (to ease the gap between May and August), that paid for our move, did not last very long. We are staying rent-free with the friends who attracted us to Oregon in the first place, but we felt the need to not be leeches and paid for groceries and such on credit, even when we had no money coming in. Our balance on the cards is a little over $5,500, 81% of the total credit available, and I don't like it.
To make matters worse, we realize that we don't like this tiny little town, and will be moving again, this time to try Colorado in Longmont. My whole immediate family followed "the grandchild" to a couple hours from there also, but that isn't why we are going there, just a perk (I'll be close to my TWIN again, squeeee!)
I'm worried like never before, because I know I won't have an income (from my desired job) over the summer, we won't have extremely nice friends to put up with us for "free", it'll be somewhere near $800 to move, and I have no idea how we can manage all that especially with credit cards so high. My husband manages the money so I'm sure he has a plan, and somehow it will "work out", but that doesn't help my anxiety about the whole thing.
So yeah, there's my long introduction in written form, and I'll go back to lurking...