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- Brought to you by the every dollar app, start budgeting for free today. - I am a state home mom and I'm trying to get out of an abusive marriage. In emotionally abusive marriage,
my husband's basically a band in this.
I've got four small children. They're five years old and under. And I'm trying to figure out how to create some margins, hire a lawyer and I'm just trying to figure out what's the next best move to file bankruptcy
or take out a second mortgage on the house or something else. And I've got all my financial information written down if you want that.
“- Is there any support near you, family, friends, church?”
- My family all lives about three hours away and they're doing what they can to help me. I live in kind of a unique area where there's not like, I can't just sell the house and go rent. There's nothing for rent near me and jobs are
a few and far between. - Is your house in your name? - Yes, it's solely in my name. I bought it before we were married.
- Okay, how long have you been married?
- Since 2018. - Okay. - And what's your house hold income? - Right now, I am a disabled veteran and I'm receiving disability benefits of about $2,600 a month.
- Okay, and then is his income covering any expenses for you guys or is he kind of cut off access? He's, I think he's re routing his paycheck someplace else. He's an over the road truck driver, he's an owner operator.
I've done his taxes forever. He'll gross about 225,000 from last year. And I was only able to move over 29,000 to help pay household bills out of the last 13 months. I've paid for the entirety of the bills six months out of the year.
- Okay, so he just kind of up and left. Is that, he, well, being over the road, he's, he's gone a lot, but he's not called me since September.
He's showed up at the house on announced a couple of times.
For a few days at a time and it's just been weird. - Like just a crash? - Yeah, like over Thanksgiving and Christmas, otherwise he usually parks at a friend's house a couple of hours away.
- Oh gosh, I'm sorry that you're going through this. So, - Thank you. - Tell us more about, so you've been covering the bills just out of your money. - Correct.
- And is there, is there any margin? Sorry, say it again. - Oh, I received a lump sum back payment from the VA. A year ago. - How much is that?
- 40, 2000. - Okay, and what did you, has that allowed you to be current? What did that allow you to do? - I was able to put six months worth of bills and savings. I had a question of six months.
- Okay, emergency fund. - Uh-huh. - And then I paid off some debt. And I started a business in May, and that's actually been helping a lot.
- Okay, so how much debt do you have left? - Meet every dollar budgeters, Christy and Steve.
“Their life is chaotic, but their money is simple”
because they budget with every dollar. - Budgeting with the spreadsheet took a ton of time. - But now with every dollar, I can do a budget in five minutes. - And tracking purchases is just as simple.
- It's so free to know exactly where your money is going. It just takes that stress out of the day-to-day life. You got this hand again, family, every dollar. Great, you're a free account today. - Okay, so how much debt do you have left?
- I owe a 34,000 on the house with about 58,000 in equity. I've got 41,000 in student loans, 22,000 in credit cards, and I owe 6,000 on my vehicle. - Okay, and how much is in that emergency fund? - I've got enough to fund February.
- How much is that? - I'd have to look, I think it's down to 4,000 right now. - See, you've earned through the emergency fund. See, you've got 4,000 left to your name, essentially. - Yes, sir.
- Okay, $58,000, $58,000 of equity, $41,000, sir. Okay, and tell me again that I hear you say, I wrote down a lot of numbers. Did I hear you say you're income at this point? Is it 2600 a month?
Is that what I heard you say? 2600 a month, and then my business, I just started it in May, so that numbers have been different about every month, but right now I'm grossing about 1,600.
“- Good, and I think about 1,000 to 1,200.”
And I'm hoping that it just continues to grow, especially as we get into the summer. - Okay, so fair enough, like around 3600 is what maybe you could count on. - Perfect.
- Do you have your own bank account that is not at the same bank your husband has? - I do, yes. - Okay, good. Is that what you've been routing all of your money?
- That's correct. What do you pay, what's the mortgage every month? What do you pay? - $933. - Good, good.
Okay, so tell us right now what's on fire
Besides your marriage, financially,
what's the thing that you're like,
help me understand this, Jaden, and George? - I don't know how to pay bills after February, and I need to hire an attorney.
“- Okay, so I think that you can pay the bills after February.”
Tell us how much the deficit is. When you take your 3600, you pay the 900 in the mortgage. You pay your debts. Is there a pay for fooding and transportation? Is there anything left?
- I've got life insurance payments, and then, oh, geez, what else? Oh, electricity and propane and normal stuff. So it's usually about my budget's about 4,500 to 5,000. - Okay.
Okay, and that's an every dollar?
- I'm using, you need a budget at the moment. - Okay, I want you to pop into every dollar because every dollar's gonna help you find margin anywhere possible. You'll be able to tell it about your specific situation and it's gonna work over time to find you money anywhere.
So right now you're a $1,000 deficit every single month. So that's why this is dwindling. So quickly, I can see. But there's also a path to get your income up, right? With a business?
- Yeah, but it's been very slow. I mean, it keeps changing, but I see it being capped at some point with the market becoming saturated.
“- Okay, so what I don't think you should do”
and I don't think that you need to sell your house right away.
I think you're actually, you're paying a little less than $900 a month. I think I heard you say you're in a good equity position with it, you don't owe a ton on it. I don't think you're gonna find anywhere cheaper
to live for a family of five, do you agree or disagree? - I completely agree. - Okay, what I would do is change the locks. Once you file for divorce, I would change the locks so that he's not just coming up and they're willy-nilly.
- Right. - Okay, and then is there anybody in your community who can set you up with a good attorney or who could recommend a good attorney? - I've been shopping for three months now.
And we live so rural, I've been told that I lived too far away. - What's that? - The attorneys don't want to drive to the courthouse in my location if they had to.
- Got it, okay, understood. - And are all the debts in your name solely
“or is anything joint or is anything in his name solely?”
- The ones that I named are either in my name or our joint, he's got his own mess. He's been opening up credit cards for the last two years and he's got-- - Have you frozen your credit yet?
'Cause my fear is he's opening debts in your name. - I have frozen it and I took on it. - Okay. - Well, here's the truth. The faster we get through this process
of divorce, the faster we can hope for some alimony in child support, which means you can breathe again. And that'll get you to fight another day and hopefully clean up some of these debts. - Okay.
- Yeah, I wouldn't try to pay anything off just yet. I wouldn't try to sell your house or anything like that just yet because once it goes to court, who knows how this is going to get split, including the house unfortunately, I'm not sure what the laws are in your area.
He's been living there since 2018, so I'm not sure if any of that will be up for grabs, but yeah, change the locks, freeze the credit and file for divorce and figure out how to pay for it because you got to divorce this guy.
- Great. - I can't imagine. I'm so sorry you're going through this, Emily. This fact that this guy's not even covering the expenses for his own children and just abandon the family
just breaks my heart and I know you'll get through it. - You're a survivor and a warrior, but it's gonna be a process to get to your side of this and see some life. - Create your free every dollar budget today,
the simplest way to budget for your life.
