Sitting at the Back of the Class

If someone were to ask me, "What's the number one thing you stress about in your life?" the answer would easily be FINANCES! My life is like that old country song where the guy sings about "too much month at the end of the money" as there is just never enough cash to pay my bills, buy groceries, and be able to actually do something everything once in awhile other than sit home.

Being a single parent is just not easy no matter how you slice it as most people are having trouble getting by with two of them bringing home a paycheck these days - never mind just one person doing all of the bread-winning.  Every pay period I work overtime and every pay period I'm still broke - what is wrong with this picture?

A few years back I began a Debt consolidation plan for the credit cards that I had as I knew things were getting out of control there so an issue no longer exists there but because I'm still having financial issues, I decided to talk a quick quiz at Bills IQ just to see what my financial health really looked like.  Er ... uhm ... someone might want to call in a doctor for resuscitation as I ended up scoring a horrible 60% or 'D' by the time all was said and done.  Yep, I knew it was bad!

As far as Debt relief goes, though, I'm not really too sure that there's much Debt help available because the things that I'm struggling with now are the big things and not little things like credit cards, which I no longer use. Just being able to pay for rent, utilities, insurance premiums, taxes, gas for the car, groceries, and the other necessities for life is what's doing me in.  Yes, my car payment is way too high but the finance company is unwilling to consider lowering it so I'm between a rock and a hard place there.  If your creditors won't work with you, there's really not much you can do.

Am I worried about retirement?  Hell yeah!  Even though I contribute regularly to a 401K plan at work, I don't see it growing like it should due to the fluctuations in the stock market and the fact that I can't contribute any more than I already am without deciding that Amanda just doesn't need to eat anymore!  And speaking of Amanda, what about college for her in two years?  Unless she somehow manages to get a scholarship or two it's either not going to happen or it's going to happen in a way that burdens her down with school loans of her own.  Things definitely don't look too good - which is maybe why I don't look at it very often.

With the quiz at Bills IQ, I got a chance to see how well my financial health stacked up with other women my age as well as geographically and it was no surprise to find that I was well below average.  Finances have never been my strong suit but I'm getting to the age where if I'm ever going to retire I need to take a good hard look at them and see where changes can be made.  Based on what I learned from this quiz, I guess I had best start looking!