Yes, I am an offender. I am guilty of
avoiding my student loans for the last 12 years. I don't have a good excuse. I do believe that education, including higher level education, should be everyone's right, and not something that this financial world dictates, but really that's not why I opted to run from them for so long... Basically circumstances just aligned themselves with the proper planets and lo and behold I'm sitting here over a decade later with a large debt staring me squarely in the face.
This is something I made sure R knew before we became involved to the marriage level. At that time we decided we would tackle it when the time was right. R had several past debts he was paying that we paid off as we worked long hours side by side.
So, for the first time since R opened the business, we qualified for a tax refund. The joy, the elation, the complete and utter horror when I read that letter from the government stating that our entire refund was applied to my outstanding loan. Uh, okay? Well, R had a right to fight for his share of the return, which he didn't of course. What happens when they accept money on a stale debt is the wolves start to come out of the woodwork sniffing for blood. I started getting my obscene collection agency calls... The ones that turn my stomach inside out and leave me in a puddle of tears. (see,
Guilty)
Needless to say we actually became debt free last Friday. I paid off our loan. This Thursday I negotiated a payoff price with the latest agency and have started the process. With a payoff, I save roughly $10,000 in penalties and fees that have accrued over the last 12 years. Good, but oh soooo bad.
R started to freak just a tad yesterday. He ranted. He just could not handle the thought of facing more debt in less than a week from the possibility of freedom. He acted like an asshole, which sadly was his way of digesting the situation. So, after staying up until very late last night making me feel worse than I have in a very long time, he woke up and has been civil all day. In fact at lunch he even became light about it. I have set up for him to go in on Monday to the bank and withdraw the money from our open credit line we have for the business.
We will have to pay it off as quickly as possible which has us going under the glass on all of our spending habits. I have cancelled our gym membership and my sessions with the personal trainer. I will cancel netflix, all but basic cable and the newspaper. I have a weekly budget that I will have to dig dirt with. You think Dorado might want to potty train soon? (kidding... sort of)
The thing that really sucks is that we have so much that needs financial attention around here. We are still missing two of our porches from the hurricanes of 2004. The entire fence line needs attention, half of it is down. (again, from the Hurricanes) Our front gates are falling apart from rust. (salt environment) R's truck desperately needs a paint job. (it peeled, Dodge had an issue in the mid 90's with that, we had planned on letting our tax return pay for it... ha ha)
So, here I am, feeling a load of guilt, feeling sad, mad and pitiful. We'll pay off the credit line and be back where we were. It's just... we hate what we do and are stuck here, since it is the only thing we can do and have done successfully to make money. I would love to sell out, live in a different place, maybe a different country... just go. That doesn't seem possible.
Sorry for the disjoint... R went to get Tide... They are going to the movies. (don't ask, as long as it makes him happy I could give a fuck what he does, after all I think it's the money
I spend that becomes an issue around here, not that I spend much at all.) I had a few minutes so I needed to write... I actually need to scream, but I don't think the guy that works for us would understand that too well. I can't punch anything to release it, I did that yesterday and my hand is pretty sore. Not many ways to easily release this build up of anger... Oh well. It'll get better...
