Friday, July 10, 2015

Where are your priorities?

Last week in the morning, a few minutes after I woke up, I heard knocking at the door. Wasn't loud at all, but it was there. I didn't answer the door. Instead, I moved to a location near no windows and listened and waited. They on attempted to knock once, that I know of.

I waited a little while, then went outside to look. No notices or packages. Good, let's keep it that way. You may ask why I am a little paranoid? Well, I don't know if anything is being threatened to be shut off. And since my house is in foreclosure mode, I don't know if those types of people are stopping by.

I had a chat with my friend Kenny, who lives a few blocks away from me. If he has to I can stay to sleep there. He doesn't want me sleeping in my car. I've been slowly cleaning my stuff out and getting rid of stuff I no longer need. But Kenny said to me to be ready for when the sheriff comes and locks the doors and we can't get back in. So I am getting ready. 

I suggested to my mom that we have a yard sale soon. "Oh no we got time". Really? We have time? Stuff needs to go now that we don't need so there's not a big clean up later, God forbid we can't stop the foreclosure.

The kicker a few minutes ago, my mom talked to me how she needs to find someone else to read scripture with her. She immediately got on the phone to find another reader, as two already backed out for Sunday.

Here's my problem, try talking to her about calling back collection companies or calling ahead of time to bill collectors if she's going to be late to work things out. She will go on and on for 15-20 minutes about how she has to take my sister to work and watch Ellen on TV and wash dishes blah blah blah before work. That she has all this stuff to do and no time to take care of it. Sorry, watching Ellen at 4pm is not  a priority. In fact, most people are at work.  Work for her is usually 4-6 hours a day, 5-6 days a week at night. 

But, oh no, someone can't read Scripture on Sunday with her at church, and she's on the phone faster than you can say PC. So it's more important to find someone to read religious nonsense to the congregation on Sunday that you don't get paid to do, than to find another job or find a way to deal with finances?

I'm not going to lie I was like her as a kid, and I can see why as she was a heavy influence. See, I used to bring my Bible to the playground and preach to the "nonbelievers". I talked about God and Jesus all the time, and couldn't understand why kids would make fun of me. Many would avoid me completely. It took unraveling during my teenage years and my change to public school from private school to stop doing that stuff. I was pretty much a preacher, Bible thumper or what have you in it's worst form.

You can pray all you want to God to help you, but you have to help yourself first.

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Tuesday, June 30, 2015

A Part Time Job Does Not Pay A Mortgage

So I learned over the past almost 30 years of my life, to NOT look for money advice from my parents, in particular, my mom. If anything, I learned what not to do.

My dad is dead, so I can't speak on his behalf. The only thing I knew about him, is during the divorce, he lied about $20,000 of his income. He denied my mom $9000 of his 401k, each of them was supposed to get $15,000 each. She only got 6k. He suddenly lavished me and my sister money during the divorce. In college, he once sent me a package of $400 cash stuffed inside. I learned over time he had multiple bank accounts and post office boxes to hide things.

When he passed away in 2008, his death was my saving grace in finishing college. My sister and I each received $12,750 from his death benefits from work. What I don't know, if there was ever a will. I know my step mom kept the rest of the stuff. She even has my dad's ashes. I met her for the first time at my dad's funeral. They were married for almost a year, he died a day before their first anniversary. If it weren't for my dad's death, I probably never would've finished college. Rather than stick myself into another $11,500 of debt for school, I just wrote a check for the year. I still took out loans, but no private loans that year. I had trouble my third year, when with my mom as a co-signer wouldn't work. I ended up finding a way to put loans in by myself, with the help of the school.

Any who, since my parents divorce in 2001, I went from a lower end middle class life, to poor. Suddenly, the food banks I donated to for years, because my food instead. My mom made too much money, by a mere $100, to qualify for food stamps.Presents became donations from charity organizations on my mother's behalf. I didn't want anyone to see me go to the food bank.

My parents divorce led to a whirlwind of changes for my mom. She hadn't worked a real job in 20 years. She found herself having to quickly get a job due to a push from the lawyers. She found a job at a call center and another one at a local large chain grocery store. The job at the call center didn't work out, but she moved to overnight cashier (the store was 24 hours at the time) and had a steady income. The problem is, the job is still part time, and vulnerable to hours being cut. Even then, that job was not enough to pay bills. But I guess my mom got comfortable receiving child support as well at the time.

Eventually, we got to be adults. My sister ended up moving to FL with my dad. And around 2007, the grocery store got rid of the 24 hours, and closed the store at midnight. This greatly reduced my mom's pay for hours and she lost the shift differential from working overnight.

So for the past several years, we've faced foreclosure on our home. Somehow we always had some saving grace, but I am waiting for our luck to run out. My mom did eventually get another part time job at a bakery, but then she got laid off there too. Recently she got a babysitting job, but it just ended as the school year is over.  I don't know how many times I wake up to phone calls of the following being threatened to shut off: phone/internet/TV, cell phone, electricity or our gas shut off. Or the delinquency notices of those things, plus our water in the mailbox everyday.

My mom has been trying to balance a household budget on a 30 hour part time job, which lately, hours have been cut. (I work at the same supermarket, as well as my sister.) I've been insistent for years for her to get a full time job or at least another permanent part time job with equal or better pay. There is always excuses, for example, my sister doesn't have a vehicle. Miss Princess, I should call her, has to get rides from her. Or me, and we don't get gas money. I've been inconvenienced of my work and/or personal life because of her. I actually have lost hours because I had to get her.

My mom has to watch Ellen at 4pm. All these phone calls she has to make, she has to go to church on Sunday, now she needs surgery on her hernia she developed from a prior surgery a few years ago. The excuses, some legit some not, pile up, but I see no effort of her applying for a job. I even hear the "I'm getting too old" thing from her too.

I've been working on this post for like a week now on and off now. I just learned yesterday, that our house is already in the works to being foreclosed on. My mom has called RI housing, which called a lawyer, to stop the proceedings. So, I'm sure a new post will soon follow.

As the title suggests, a part time job does NOT pay a mortgage.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

So, since I last wrote, I've lost one of my jobs. Got laid off actually. One day in March I went to work, and learned from my boss our store was closing. I'm literally holding on to my severance package for dear life. In the meantime, I've applied to several jobs. Three of them are pending an interview. I haven't heard anything yet.

A few weeks ago, I saw a sign for hiring at a local realtor. After speaking with the broker, I was interested in going to school. So I'm hoping, that with a second income, I can go to school to be a realtor. I would have to work a regular job of course, but I figured any big chunks of money from selling a house, I would use towards my mountain of debt I have from school.

In the meantime, the countdown to getting my auction license is coming. About November 3rd I can apply for the actual license. I just got my apprentice one. If I can get a realtor license, I can auction houses and buildings, which sounds like fun.


Wednesday, March 4, 2015

So the trailblazer life, as I call this blog, is about my personal life about making paths through life. I've done some really cool things, like in high school, I was the first girl in the state to play varsity football, and also the first girl to compete on the men's wrestling team. I later on wrestled in college briefly at Springfield College. Currently, I am working on becoming an auctioneer. I do storage wars, auctions, flea markets, all sorts of crazy stuff. To quote Robert Frost, I take the road least traveled, and that made all the difference.

Currently in my life besides working on getting my auctioneer license, I am working on my writing career. Someday, I will be an editor of a magazine, but for now, I'm just writing wherever I can. I work at a grocery store and luggage company, but hopefully, with hard work, I can change that. I got a BA in English about 6 years ago at Springfield College. I currently live in Riverside, RI.

I love buying and flipping things, writing, auctions, 90's music and swimming. I love trying new things, and always get myself in crazy situations. I never know what I'll write about, but I always have interesting things to say. Ciao!