Maybell XXXII

[Maybell]

Bdub, I WORK for a financial advisor and that's what I'm working towards now as my career goal. It's part of what's got me anxious -- I see the impact every day of not being sufficiently prepared for the future. I've been doing a LOT of research into budgeting, etc., in preparation for my divorce, and part of my pain is seeing how VERY different my financial situation could have been if STBX had not decided that going over our finances together made him "uncomfortable." If he had sucked up his discomfort seventeen years ago and learned to communicate through it, we might not have saved the marriage but we WOULD have saved a he!! of a lot of money. (Partly my fault too since I took his word for it that we were "fine" and never pushed the issue till about 4 years ago... hm... that's about when he started sleeping around... interesting).

Anyway....

I'd say put together a 3/6/12 month plan for now, and don't worry about the 5-10 year plan. Once the D is final, you have everything nailed down, etc, then things come in to focus a bit more and you'll be able to start looking ahead a bit. But TRUST that if you make good choices day by day the road will always open in front of you. Most importantly, you'll always know you did everything possible.

and

My own goal is to get to the point where I don't need STBX's child support check each month to maintain our standard of living. With a few lucky breaks, I think I might get there in 4 years or so.

were exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you. (And bdub, Claire, and Wonka too!!!) The shorter my view has been through all this process, the better things have fallen together for me. I do need to have faith that I will have everything I need.

My parents paid a VERY minimal amount for my college, and it was TREMENDOUSLY stressful. I paid my own way through most of it through a combination of work and scholarships. I didn't have a car, either, as most people did. By the time I finished school I was really burnt out for any significant efforts for several years and I made some pretty bad decisions. I have lots of friends now putting kids through college and they all talk about how much harder it is just to get in than it was when we all went to college. My kids will have to do everything I did in high school just to gain admittance to college; I don't know how they'll get assistance paying for it. My co-worker, who has two adult daughters, said that a lot of people only have so much to pay up front for school, so the kids take out loans and then the parents will contribute to some amount of the payments for however long after. So I guess there are a lot of ways to finesse it.

My in-laws paid for EVERYTHING for all three of their kids plus a niece. And I mean everything -- down to beer money. My FIL used to be really impressed because STBX would put together a spreadsheet showing exactly how he'd spent his money each month, including beer money as a minor, and happily paid up. It's kind of infuriating to me that had we made more mature decisions and done a better job of communicating with one another early on, that we would have been positioned to be that generous to my kids. I want to be able to help them focus on school so that they aren't as burnt out on graduation as I was, though not to the extent that my in-laws were.

It's better for my kids to have skin in the game. It may be that they have to go to community college for a couple of years before moving on, and that's probably a good thing, because they'll be better prepared to use the big bucks wisely.

And yeah, I can't eat the financial elephant any more than I could eat any of the other elephants up to now, so I'd might as well just keep my focus short term and know that things will likely be ok. Because now I know better, I can do better. It's just... D12 is only six years away from college and I already feel like she's taken enough hits because of her irresponsible parents.

Thank you all for coming through for me. I spent the morning out at barn sales with a great friend of mine, getting lots of ideas for my next home. That was a really hope-filled way to spend the day. Now I'm going to continue the theme by doing a big home tidying and purge and planning a yard sale.

Here's another quote that I need to hang up in pretty much every room of my house:

She believed she could, so she did.

I think it's Jethro Tull.

All will be well. All IS well.