Easter Morning!

One of my favorite days of the year. He is risen. . . . . . .

He is risen indeed!









Happy Easter!

Paying for College While in Bankruptcy

One of the most frustrating things I have encountered lately is the whole college education funding problem. For most people, this process seems easy. You fill out the FAFSA form, you apply for scholarships, and sometimes you get money to help pay for your kid's education.If you don't happen to qualify for any assistance, then you can apply for a loan, and bang, you are good to go. . . EXCEPT when you have me, or my husband for a parent, then things all of a sudden become complicated. We have completed the FAFSA, my daughter searched for appropriate scholarships she could apply for, and she has been accepted to the college of her choice. The only problem is that we can't afford it. My daughter has been rejected for all of the scholarships she applied for. As of yesterday, all hopes of winning even a little scholarship money are dashed; the last rejection letter came in yesterday's mail. My poor daughter, crestfallen! The problem for us is that we are not in a minority, my husband and I are still married, my husband and I both have jobs, and my daughter is "only" a B student. On the surface, that doesn't sound like a bad thing, and it also looks like we should be able to at least help our daughter apply for a loan, but things are not always the way they appear to be on the outside. If you were to look just beneath the fraying edges of our family life, you would see that we are sitting precariously on the very top of a dangerous cliff; one little thing could send us over the edge. Because my husband and I are in an active Chapter 13 bankruptcy, three quarters of what we earn is taken by the court appointed trustee to pay our debts. The other one quarter of the income is to go to pay for groceries, utilities and healthcare. We are not in a position to co-sign on a loan. The FAFSA forms do not reflect the "sins" of the parents. It only looks at how much a person earns, not at what, where or how much of it goes to other things. So, because of the financial ineptitude of my husband and I, my dear daughter(s) are suffering. They are the ones who will be shouldering the cost of something my husband and I should, at the very least, be assisting with. My daughters will be impacted by a mistake my husband made and my inability to see it and insist that it be remedied, for years to come.

If you are currently considering filing for bankruptcy, or are currently in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and you have found my blog because you were looking for help paying for your child's education, I am sorry, I do not have any help to offer you. There does not seem to be any assistance anywhere. Our only hope is that our daughter will be able to get a high interest student loan with a deferred repayment plan. If that happens, then we might be able to help her in four years when we have paid back all our previous debt. If you are considering filing for bankruptcy, please do a lot of research and if possible, find another way to get out of debt. Bankruptcy is awful and should be an absolute last resort.

No News

There is a lot of crap going on in the world today. There is very little good news that is reported. Everything seems to be negative, and I am wondering how much of this continued negativity are we (individuals, countries, planet) going to be able to take? Things have gotten so bad that I do not listen to any talk radio shows. I no longer watch any shows like Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. I actually do not even watch any news except the portion on the local news that gives the weather, but even that isn't good. What is happening to us? Why is there nothing good going on? Or, if there is good news out there, why are "journalists" choosing to ignore it? That old saying, "No news is good news" always puzzled me. Does it mean that not hearing any news from anyone means that there is so much good that there is nothing to report? Or does it mean that there is so much bad news that the only news there is is bad? Geez, I think I just confused myself again. The way things are now, for me, that old saying means there isn't any good news to report; not anywhere, not at any time. Now I think I'm depressed. . . I don't want to hear only bad news. Please, someone, find something good to report!