<prompt> Human: TL;DR: From 2008 when I graduated with my BA to today, I thought my life was going to be different, financially speaking. Im 30 now, and a mother. After 3 college degrees, Im barely making it. Ive never earned more than 45k a year. My mortgage payment keeps going up. Ive also never been materialistic, so Im not upset about not being able to buy a TV or something: all I want is to be financially stable, and to travel once a year or so. Financially, and with my life, Im not giving up, and I never will, but I just need to tell my story and release some of this frustration.Ill start by saying this: Im a pretty tough cookie. When I start feeling the urge to whine about something, I shut that shit down and remind myself of a personal rule of mine: If you dont like something, change it. If you cant change it, accept it and move on.So, I feel like Im whining about my finances. But I also have to give myself a break: sometimes, even when youre doing your best, things are difficult, and you just have to vent your frustrations before recalibrating, shifting some things around, getting up, and trying again.Im 30. Im a single mother. I was married, didnt work out. When I was a teenager, like a lot of millennials, I was told that if I just followed my dreams and went to college, Id be financially secure. One of my dreams was to be a writernot necessary to make a living as a novelist or anything. Im smart enough to know I cant bank on something like that. But I wanted to work in writingteaching writing, working in publishing, editing, copywriting. Didnt matter. I just wanted to do something with words. If I ever became a novelist or something, fine. But againcant bank on that. I get it.I grew up in an upper-middle-class family. Only child with emotionally abusive parents, but financially I wanted for nothing. My dad alone had a bunch of stocks and stuff and had a 1mil net worth at one point until he and my mother divorced after theyd both retired from working and she took him for all he was worth.The story varies: Ive heard that he gave her 200k in the divorce, then I heard it was 400k, then I heard it was 800k. What matters isnt the money though.What matters is that my dad gave her everything supposedlyhe lies a lot, so that could be bullshit and might have some secret off-shore account, I have no idea and then took what he had left and moved back to his home country of Costa Rica where he could live cheap and use what he had left to travel.Meanwhile, my mom a compulsive shopper spent EVERYTHING SHE HAD in about 4-5 years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new house, updating the house, shopping for the house, spending sprees, you name it. Their divorce was in 2004. Fast-forward to about 2008. After spending all her money, my moms house is foreclosed on. My mom is basically living in upper-poverty on a 1300mo teacher retirement payout and I find myself supporting her financially here and there. Buying her prescriptions and what-not. My dad, too, insists that hes broke as a joke after giving my mom all that money in the divorce, but like I mentioned previously, that could be BS. Doesnt matter. I dont talk to him anymore.Fast-forward again to 2012ish and I officially quit helping my mother with money. It was hard, but Im glad I did it. I told myself if she ends up homeless at the Y, its her fault. In the end, she got a job and now shes fine. Though shes still a compulsive shopper and ends up fucking herself over from time to time, though I dont have to hear about it anymore.ANYWAY, all that to say this...Coming up in an upper-middle-class family dysfunctional as it were I always had this sense that if I just went to college and obtained a career, Id be good, financially. By good I mean a growing retirement fund, a reliable car, a place to live, cushy savings account, and disposable income to travel once per year or so, and minimal debt.Well, I did go to college. I went to a lot of college.I got my BA on a scholarship with no student loan debt to speak of. Got a job as a high school teacher in 2008. I made a decent living 45k as a first-year high school teacher and single adult from 2008-2009, at the age of 23, but at the expense of my mental health. Granted, I had a lot of bills that year because in addition to rent and stuff, I was also paying for my alternative teaching certification which meant out of my 45k a year salary, I was paying about 1200 a month for rent AND certification courses. They were expensive, but I had to take them to keep my job.But at the end of that year of teaching, I decided I was never, ever, ever going to do that again. I was sick all the time. I ended up screaming at my kids multiple times. And as much as I appreciated the salary, I knew that a. they needed someone better than me, and b. if I was told that that was going to be my life until retirement, Id have just checked myself into a psych hospital or something and called it a day. Some people just shouldnt teach, and I was humble enough to realize that Im one of those people. Took me a while though, since both my parents were educators and being a teacher is a thing that seems to run in the family. In 2009, after that year of teaching, I moved from the South to the Midwest where I got married at age 24. From 2009 to about 2011, I worked at a bank as a teller and then I spent one more year teaching teenagers at a high school in a non-profit organization.Teaching again was a move upward financially. As a teller, I was making 9hr and then I moved up to 15hr as a teacher with that non-profit, but my husband and I were still living paycheck-to-paycheck. He was obtaining his BA and not working or bringing any money in at all. I was the breadwinner, 100.During those years, I managed to qualify for a mortgage on a home. I also had a car, but the car was one I got in high school and was paid in full, so that wasnt a bill I had to worry about.My husband and I moved into a little house with payments that were about 500 a month. Totally doable. Cute little house. Good job, self, youre moving up in the world. Again, Im the breadwinner, so the house is 100 mine, in my name. My husband, at the time, basically just lives with me while I take care of all the bills and the adult stuff and he works on his bachelors degree.So, heres where were at now:Its 2011. Im married. Educated. 25 years old. I make about 28k a year in spite of having a bachelors degree. I have a house. I have a husband who is not contributing but I was trying to support his education, so at the time it didnt bother me too much. Im living paycheck-to-paycheck with no savings at all. Im certain I could be doing better than this.Then, I got pregnant.So, in 2011, Im 25, I find out theres going to be another mouth to feed around here. First thing I do: apply for medicaid. I had a health savings account through my job, but it was useless at that point, as the VERY month I got that account, I ended up having a serious blood clot in my leg. So Im pregnant, on medicaid, and making 28k a year.Heres an idea: lets get a masters degree.So, I get into a masters degree program in library science. Everyone tells me that itll be worth it. Librarians make good money. Its a stable industry. Etc. Etc.Same year I get pregnant and get into that masters degree program 2011, I wind up having pre-eclampsia. My daughter is born 8 weeks early at 3lbs, 3oz. NICU for 6 weeks.Im a fucking wreck. An absolute wreck.I cant go to work anymore because Im losing my shit every day, and the organization I work for is thisclose to firing me for just being a shitty employee who cant manage to do anything right because mentally, Im just totally checked out. So, what do I do? I quit my job and decide to live on student loans while working my ass off to build a photography business. That way, I can take care of my mental health AND take care of my very tiny daughter, who has a few special needs due to being born so early. My husband still wont go out and get a job. All the finances are still on me. Im still just taking it without complaining to him. After all, I told him Id be the breadwinner while he went to school and I was going to follow through on that promise. Guess what?By the time my daughter was about 18 months old, I did it.Id started a business. I was paying the bills with photography AND with some freelance writing, too. I kicked ass, set a goal, and did it. So, now its 2013. By 2013, Im 26, and I was growing pretty goddamned disillusioned with my life. I had about 50k in student loans now because of having lived off them for awhile while getting my masters in library science and building my business. BUT, in my head, I thought: Well, one day Husband will have a job. If hes making like 40k a year and Im making 40k a year, then he can use HIS salary to pay the bills and Ill just dump my whole salary into my student loans for 1-2 years until theyre paid off. Wont be fun, but itll get done. Thats all that matters.So its 2013 and I have this mountain of student loan debt, but Im disillusioned and depressed and I thinkwhat the fuck am I doing studying library science? This isnt what I wanted to do. This isnt me.Thankfully, the university where I live I live in a college town offers a masters degree in creative writing WITH an assistantship. AKA, the school pays my tuition AND gives me a paycheck to teach there while I go to school.I thought it was a long shot, but I also thought: Well, you miss 100 of the shots you dont take. So I applied.And I got in. I was going to get a Master of Arts in Creative Writing NOT ONLY FOR FREE, BUT WITH A PAYCHECK TO BOOT! So, I finished my library science degree and moved on to the creative writing degree.From 2013-2015, I still had to take out a few small student loans to cover university fees like 2k a semester. My classmates were all younger, single kids, so the 1200 a month they were getting while attending the college was enough for them AND their fees. But I had to take out that little bit of cash to pay those fees, and keep shooting weddingsportraits on the side to keep my familys head above water.But between 2013-2015, the shit really just hit the fan and I ended up getting divorced when I was 28 and my daughter was about 3. There was no money exchanged during the divorce: it was amicable, and all of it was done by my ex-husbands lawyer cousin for like 500 or something. My ex and I didnt have much of a battle. Neither one of us wanted money from the other, and neither one of us wanted to make the other pay and child support. As it stands today, we have 5050 custody of our daughter and have a good friendship and co-parenting relationship. Divorce sucks hard, but we got lucky.When I graduated with my MA in creative writing in 2015 age 29, I needed a job FAST. I landed one as a childrens librarian at my local library. 39k a year. I still have my house in 2015. But the mortgage payment went up due to some escrow bullshit I never figured out in spite of months of trying to. At one point during my 7 years living in this house, the mortgage payment was 495. Then one day in 2015, the bank tells me Im going to start paying 850 a month due to the escrow bullshit. I call them, pull as many strings as I can, and get the payment down to 650 a month.So, Im making 39k a year, with a 650 a month house payment.So after graduating with an MA in creative writing, Im a librarian for about 4 months. While Im a librarian during the summer of 2015, I pretty much think Im going to strangle someone every single day. Im depressed. The job wasnt what I thought it was going to be Im basically a pre-school teacher here. Im crying all the time. Im canceling meetings. Im calling into work. I just suck, as a person, pretty much. But again, Ill be damned if I let that get the best of me. I tell myself, This isnt want I wanted to do anyway. I wanted to write. So, I kick ass off-the-clock, and by October I land a 40k a year gig working from home as a copywriter for a startup company. Now were in 2016.So from October 2015 to about Feb of 2016, Im doing the best I can making 40k as a copywriter, until the company I work for flops and I get laid off in February.But Ill be damned, again, if I let that hold me back.From February of this year up until today, Ive worked REALLY REALLY REALLY hard to keep grabbing freelance writing clients everywhere I can. I not only work hard at getting work, but I also work hard at improving my craft as a copywriter. I read a lot. I watch videos. I take a lot of free courses. Im going to do this, and nothing will hold me back.Thing is, today...Today...Today, its July of 2016. Im 30.I started applying for full-time read: not freelance work again about a month or two ago because I need a higher, more steady income to support myself and my daughter.My mortgage just went up 30.Im stuck with a car payment I cant afford. Theres a long story associated with this that involves my dad gifting me the car and me being stupid enough to accept it. Im applying for food stamps again.I have student loans reaching 90k. I have 180 in my savings account putting 40 in a month but its SO HARD not to touch it when you know that 180 could help you with a bill, or help you with some groceries, or pay for a day-trip to somewhere fun with your kid, or something...Neither my daughter nor I have health insurance because I just cant afford it, and I somehow dont qualify for medicaid.All I need is a week or two with no copywriting clients to speak of, and Ill be broke with no money to pay for my bills or house or anything.This is not how it was supposed to be.I was supposed to be moving up in the ranks of something...by 30, I was supposed to have savings and a retirement account and the ability to travel here and there.I want to be able to take my daughter to the aquarium without having to decide between doing that or buying dinner.And thats my life. Thats my life right now...I have to choose between being able to afford something besides Ramen for dinner or taking my daughter to the museum or to a movie or something.I dont have any unnecessary expenditures...my bills are as low as I can get them. I dont have cable TV, just internet so I can work. I borrow my ex-husbands NetflixHulu accounts and my boyfriends HBOGo account for my televised entertainment. Ive been wearing the same clothes and shoes for years and all my daughters clothes come from grandparentsfamily. Every day, I try to teach her the value of enjoying what you have. She asks for a new toy, and I direct her to the toys she already has, or make her go outside, and try to teach her to use her imagination to find joy. All we ever have is what we have. And I dont personally want more THINGS. I just want a little more life, and a little more security.Im doing my best, but I just feel like Im never going to get ahead. It wasnt supposed to be this way.Currently, Im vying for a position as a copywriter at a marketing agency in the largest metro area near me 1hr away. They said they can offer me between 40-45k. Thats enough to get me back to my paycheck-to-paycheck life. But when will it stop being paycheck-to-paycheck?If I get this job, Im really hoping itll be a step up so that one day I can apply to be a creative strategist or a creative director or senior copywriter somewhere and make at least 60k...but then there are those student loans.Anyway, I needed to tell my story.I know its really long, and no one will probably have the attention span to read all of it.But if you do, and you relate...lets talk? Its good to connect.  <response>: Youve got a lot of drama, a lot of whining, and are continually enrolling in school, taking loans, and then not getting paid out of it.Those are negatives, and you need to fix those.Youve got a new job lined up, and its a career that you can grow, and youve got freelance work on top of it. If you stay focused on writing and growing that career, youll get there eventually.Drop all the shit about your parents. Let it go. Theres nothing for you there.Between changing school focuses, an unexpected kid, a deadbeat ex-husband, youve had a lot of setbacks and youre at the point where most people are just a few years out of college.THAT IS OK! Its not a race.Just stick with the current career focus, dont make any big financial problems for yourself no more school, no more kids, no more career interruptions for a deadbeat and in a few years youll be in a better spot than you are now.Stop dwelling on the past, focus on the future, dont argue what you cant change, but prevent those problems from happening again.None of this thread is a PF thread, your problems arent financial, theyre your life, the symptoms are just financial.Youre on the right path, just stick with it.Youre living the Helsinki Bus Station Theory, and you keep getting off and marching back to get on a different bus. 