h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The following describes how I managed to get behind in my bills and the steps I am taking to get current in payments. I am not asking anyone to forgive me my debts. I plan on paying everyone in full and in a timely manner once I get through this current crisis being faced.

It is hard to describe. About a year ago maybe more facing the bills became a horror. Bonnie was declared permanently disabled. She had to retire on disability. I wish I had gone to a credit counseling company right away; I wouldn't have gotten in over my head. Anyway, trying to pay the bills and being unable to meet the deadlines or full payments the interest went climbing out of sight and additional penalties were being added on to the balance. Each pay period was worse and I owed more than the previous period.

Every time I would think that I was starting to see some light something would come up. The roof needed fixing; the drains needed routing; almost every month something seemed to go awry and needed fixing. And in that mix I was helping my daughter Mary-Kay with utilities and help her finance her bankruptcy and repairs on her house as well. I didn't keep track of the monies I spent on her, being in the frame of mind that I was in, but, I expect it had to be at least a couple of thousand. She managed to keep fairly current on the taxes over there to keep from losing the house and thinks that offset anything I've put out for her.

There came a point when I started to panic when it was time to sort out and make payments. After a while the panic came so great I would almost pass out just going near the stack of bills. I went to the doctor and he gave me Paxil. After a few weeks the stuff made it possible for me to face the bills. But the interest kept getting higher and additional penalties kept building the outstanding so that it was higher than before. But, I was so mellow, I just ignored them paying some of the charges and using the rest of my income to live as if I didn't have any bills. I avoided thinking about the bills.

I started panicking again around January of this year. The utilities were getting out of hand and I was being threaten then for shut-offs. Somehow, I think by one of the companies I owed, I was directed to a credit counseling company. I made an appointment and they offered a very painless solution in getting out of debt.

This was a major step forward except they did not handle paying any utilities or payments that could not be discounted and there were bills that came after that. Hospital, doctors and of course the monthly utilities and oh yes, the real estate taxes.

Right now I desperately need a fan motor for the car @ $300 if for no other reason than it keeps the windows clear when the humidity is high or when winter sets in to keep the frost off. The drain is about due for another routing @ $125. The tires are original and I am going to have to try and get them replaced before winter - at least the front tires.

Until next year when hopefully Mary-Kay pays rent from her income tax return I will be able to re-instate insurance on the house, the house Mary-Kay is living in, and on the cars. Meanwhile I have to hope nothing happens to either of the houses or cars.

I am going to try to make regular but small payments on my outstanding bills and enough on the Utilities to keep them off my back until next spring and tax return time. I have made arrangements with the county to make monthly payments which will end next spring and pay my past due taxes and make a dent in year 2006 taxes. I expect, unless another disaster sets in, to have all the current bills, excluding those being handled by the consumer counseling to be paid in full. The ones being handled by the credit counselors will take another two years but at only 9% interest and no penalties at least it will be paid off instead of continually growing astronomically.

I would be able to pay more now and possibly be current now except I had to borrow the money to keep from having my utilities from all being shut off. I had started to wean myself off the rose colored glasses medicine when I had to face this. Boy talk about timing. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't started to face reality again. But had we lost our electricity and gas I might have gone over the edge of no return

I promised to pay one relative $400 a month to get the loan to save the utilities from a shut off and that will be paid off by end of November. I still will owe another $400 which I hope to pay at $100 each pay period for the next two months to clear the money I borrowed from another relative. That would allow me to buy each of the five grand kids and my son Anthony something for Christmas. Anthony would understand probably but it would still hurt if I didn't include him. I figure I can do that for about $100 to $150. Hopefully I will be able to get Bonnie a pair of sweat pants and a shirt as well. She may be losing her memory but she would still be hurt if I couldn't do that for her. Then in February between the liquidation of the loans and getting the tax returns I should be finally at a better than even keel.

. A lot depends on no major emergency occurring and I still need to somehow work in a fan, at least two tires and very possibly a drain routing. And an oil change - just remembered that

i can not possibly put in to words the gratitude I feel towards my wife’s two brothers and their wives for having saved Bonnie's car. We would have lost that for sure. And while they have patiently said nothing it still hurts that we have not been able to pay back something the past two years. Someday I hope to do something about that and in significant amounts of repayment. But it appears it will be at least a year.

Bonnie is not doing well. Her health hasn't deteriorated but she does nothing all day and just walking out to the car is a hazard for her. The other day she walked along the sidewalk to the side of the house and lost her balance. Fortunately for her she minimized the rate of drop by grabbing my tie. Not so fortunate for me but I survived. She still scraped her arm a bit but Anthony cleaned it up and medicated it and it appears to be healing nicely.

She lost another pair of glasses. It doesn't bother her but as soon as her insurance will cover another paid I want to get her a set. It adds to her quality of life as she watches television or going somewhere in the car. She no longer watches television in the same manner as you or I would watch television. There are no plots or stories any more but she does recognize humour and gets a chuckle now and then.

When she gets a TV dinner for herself she sometimes forgets she has cooked the dinner. I have on some occasions found dinners in the microwave. Since the microwave no longer "dings" when the time expires she won't always remember she put a meal in the oven.

She continually hassles me to take her for a ride. Until you have the pleasure of being asked every one to five minutes to let's go, or I want to go for a ride, or lets get a salad you can not imagine the anxiety and the tension that comes with that. Anthony sees to her getting fed during the day although for the most part she can do that much and at night I see that she gets a tv dinner if she hasn't appeared to have eaten recently and I take her out for a side salad most evenings.

On the week end I try to keep the road trip down to about a quarter of a tank of gas. You can get a lot of miles out of a quarter of tank when you only drive 45 to 55 miles per hour. Even going to work I try not to drive over 55 and I get around 40 miles or more per gallon.

The road trips and the salads give me one advantage in dealing with Bonnie. I can tell her no trip or even no salad if she doesn't take a bath. She still gets very angry but in the end I can get at least two showers a week this way out of her. She still tries to tell me her mother never made her take a bath every night. But, she never would and I am emphatic, I mean absolutely never go to bed without taking a shower before the onset of her memory disease.

As for me, I am starting to get my self into facing day to day realities. I am no longer indiscriminately spending money. I still have basic cable for Bonnie, a basic phone for the home and internet service for Anthony and me. Without the internet I think it would take a pretty big net to take me to the funny farm. It is an escape but it doesn't take me out of reality such as reading does. I still do that also but only about a half hour to an hour before going to sleep.

I regained a lot of the weight I lost but hopefully will find the will power to again to trim down my waist. I have some sores on my left leg that occurred quite some time ago and I attribute that to my diabetes. Hopefully if I get my weight down and reduce my diabetic status these will heal fine and I will get back into a better frame of mind as well.

I would like to go to the doctors to see how poorly my health may be but I owe him $41 and of that $25 is for an appointment I missed but didn't remember and I found out after the fact that my doctor is now going to charge me the $25 for missing the appointment. I'm sure that with the cutbacks in Medicaid and rising cost the doctors have their financial problems too and an integral part of making up their losses is to charge for missed appointments even to long term clients.

With all the mellowness and or stress I put back on more than half of the weight I lost about 3 or 4 years ago and I am going to have to start going to the gym a couple of times a week, maybe swim at least once a week and do some walking. It means spending money on gas though and that is a bit of a rub.

My thoughts are with you & your fight to get straight. I do fully understand how the predicament you are in has come about - it is SO easy for it to happen.

My parents helped in small ways (dinner once a week, the odd nut & bolt!), but I had to count every penny, my daughter & I eat sausage casserole 3 times a week (she still remembers that &, believe it or not, she still likes sausages!). She had no pocket money, but when she was old enough she took 2 paper-rounds (one before school & one after).

I was terrified the whole time that I would lose my house and, as with you, my diabetes played up terribly (stress is not good for diabetes - they now recognise that - your levels go haywire).

What I am trying to say is that I could easily have been in your situation, except (& this doesn't mean to sound anti the US or anything like that) we are lucky in the UK that we have the National Health Service, therefore no doctor's bills, a wide range of benefits which help the sick, disabled, low income & the elderly if they are also low income. Obviously this doesn't come just from the government - everyone who works pays for these services, with the government giving top-ups.

I wish you lived here - but that really doesn't help you, does it?

I still can't understand why Mary-Kay can't look after herself now - I suppose that is complicated too & you can't leave her "out in the cold".

Oh Mo! Bear with it all, pay what & when you can - just pull the old belt in - sorry, just remembered you've gained your weight again - didn't mean any harm - by the by heavy bodyweight doesn't help the diabetes either - I expect you know that already.

Sometime give me your address will you? - email it to me.

Loads of love