I'm over my head

Sigh. I know. I'm 8 days behind. Again. I'm very sorry. I have 2 days to catch up, so I will do 4 today and 4 tomorrow. But before I jump right in, let me explain some of what has been going on lately which would explain why I've been too busy to blog.

As you all know, I'm a single mom. I've been able to make it work the past 5 months since my ex moved out b/c he kept contributing towards the rent/etc. Well now that my lease is up April 30th, I'm facing the challenge of how to make everything work on my $13k a year I make at my job, and the piddly amount my ex is willing to pay for child support.

I've done the math every which way possible, and it just isn't working. So I've been trying for the past 5 months to 1) either find a better paying job. Ha, what a joke in this economy... or 2) find a roomate and/or cheaper place to live.

It would be so easy to find a roomate or a cheap room to rent if it was just me. But it's been a challenge to find either a roomate or a room to rent with the fact that I have 2 kids. Nobody wants to deal with it.

Which I don't blame them, I understand. Much as I knew it would be difficult to date as a single mom... nobody really wants to get involved with that (Luckily I have an awesome boyfriend that doesn't see my kiddos as a bad thing and is happy to date me) but it's also difficult figuring out where me and the kids are going to live on such a limited budget.

Where I live now is pretty much the cheapest place I've found... but I still won't be able to afford it. Intially my plan, hard as it was going to be on me emotionally to let my ex take the kids full time, it seemed to be my only option because it would be much easier for me to find a cheap place for just me, and then if he had them most of the time I could focus on going to school so I could get a better job so that I could afford a place so that I could have the kids back.

But that turned into a huge drama filled fight. So now it's looking like not only will I be keeping the kiddos, which emotionally is the best thing, just not financially, but I'm in a time crunch to figure out where the hell we are going to live, and how the hell I'm going to afford it.

I didn't want to have to drag expensive lawyers into it... but my ex refuses to be fair to me and the kids. All I've asked for is $575 a month in child support.  That's less than 300 a kid. And let me tell you, it costs way more than 300 a month to support a child.

And with me only bringing home 600 a month... yeah... its just near impossible. So the battle is beginning... and the sleepless worried filled nights are back... of just how the hell I'm going to make this work.

Trying to find a cheap place to live, trying to find cheap daycare for the kids so I can try to work more hours, and trying to figure out how much my cheap ass douche of an ex is going to be paying to support HIS children he's half way responsible for.... or so he seems to forget.