Here's the situation....

I'm a 46 year old divorced mother of two kids, 13 year old Laura and 11 year old Max. I am a fully employed high school teacher. With the help of student loans (gulp!) I earned my master's degree six years ago. I've never been unemployed, except for the two years that I stayed home with my toddler daughter and my infant son. When he turned 9 months old, I went back to work and I haven't stopped.

In those early years of my marriage, I brought credit card debt to our union, but so did my ex husband. As we built our family, we put furniture and furnishings on credit cards. While I stayed home with the kids, he worked full time at a $40,000 a year job while also pursuing his law degree. We both used credit to appear to our families of origin that we were "doing fine". We both secretly knew that we weren't completely fine. And we rarely talked in a healthy way about money. Fight about money? Yes. Talk about money. Never.

Question: When is the best time to bring up money when in a long term relationship?

I'm still in a lot of debt, so I'm going to list the bad news here first. I promise that the good news list will follow, because there's always a silver lining. I have blessings galore, and it feels right and fair to list them as well.

My ex husband, Larry, and I together own a home: a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom rambler, in a middle class suburb outside of St. Paul, Minnesota. I share this home with my children. Larry remarried last December and lives with his wife about twenty minutes away. In our divorce decree, Larry agreed to pay our mortgage in place of child support, and he has done this without fail. I am truly grateful for this.

The house my children and I share is sturdy, but older, built in the 1950s. The original plumbing, exterior siding, original windows and doors, and tar coated driveway need to be refurbished or replaced. There is a dying pine tree and a couple of older, dying lilac bushes that need to be taken out, and our shed needs to go as well. Or, we could get a newer home....someday.

I own my 2000 Volvo, but it's falling apart. These past couple of  years I've paid over $2,000 in repairs, which made me max out one of my only two working credit cards, the ones that were going to help me build my credit. I need a newer car.

I have no available credit on my two remaining credit cards. They're maxed out, and I'm struggling to even pay the minimum payment. That said, I want to do whatever it takes to keep these cards in order to build my credit.

I have $6,000 left to pay on a number of closed credit cards. I'm accomplishing this through a non profit credit counseling service. I have only eight months to go and I'll be paid in full.

I have student loan debt of nearly $50,000, however the phone representative of the collection company to which I pay $342 monthly told me that they would shave off a substantial amount of interest if I paid successfully for nine months. This August will be the ninth month! I feel like this should be an early success for me, but we'll see. I have a follow up phone call to make next month.


I have had a tough time contributing funds to my daughter's college savings plan. I stopped my contributions about eight months ago, and I want to start that back up soon. Very soon. So much of my guilt feelings about my debt are related to not being able to be a better than adequate provider for my kids. I'm a good mom, and our home is filled with love and laughter, and ice cream, but I have to say "no" a lot. Too many times.

I am overdrawn in my checking account. Payday is in two days, but I'm presently in the hole about $600 according to the overdraft letter I received today from my bank.

I have $16 dollars and a couple of dollars in change in my wallet.

The good news deserves it's own post, so I'm going to do it right now.