How to Fling an Otter Across Two States

[job]

Heather,
I'm glad to see your h finally, better late than never, sent a card w/a check. However, I'm very sorry the cat was a reminder of your daughter's deceased pet. That just shows everyone how much he's out of the loop. He's off the scale when it comes to being time sensitive on personal issues....

So, you are planning to have your oldest daughter pay you $300 a month...has she even begun to think about looking for a job in the new area? It may take her a while to find a position there and you rely on that money until she's got a job and started receiving a paycheck. She also will have some debt, i.e., repaying some of the college bill as well.

Be careful with your planning...you are going to run yourself ragged and then become ill if you take on too many additional paying activities if you aren't making enough at the paper. When are you planning to home school her or are you planning to send her to a public/private school? You've got to carve out enough time to do this.

Heather, your ideas are good, but unless you have the full support of your oldest daughter to take on some of the load both in the home and also financially, you are going to be the one that is carrying the load and worry of how to pay your bills once again. Yes, it's a lovely home, but my concern is that you are possibly biting off more than you can chew here.

Your oldest daughter will need to figure out her relationship w/her father and whether she wants to mend fences with him. She's an adult now and needs to figure out how and what she wants to do w/her life.

I hope that everything works out for you, but I'm concerned about the heavy financial load you are thinking of taking on. I do hope that your friend can help you set up a budget, but also remember that you need to factor in a "rainy day" pot of money for emergencies, something that's come up quite frequently for you in the last year or so.