Tonight, two houses on my street burned.

It puts all my problems into perspective.

I cannot believe how many people wanted to help me today, either with gifts, loans, advice or the most important thing... support. I feel much less alone now that I know many people have this sort of trouble as well.

My last post stands there... it's embarrassing that I was that emotional, that frustrated, and that honest. But I'll let it stand, because it's important.

I don't think anyone was injured in the fire, but I expect it still hurt. The block association (we're in it) will reach out to those who lost things in the blaze.



Love,
Beth

There are some things in my life that I'm not proud of. One is my relationship to money.

I grew up very poor, but not lacking. My parents tried, hard, but there were still times when we came home to utility shut off notices hung on the front door. I don't remember anything ever actually being turned off, and I had enough to eat always, but there were definitely times when money was nonexistent.

I don't manage money well. I think it's because I never learned how. I've started trying to educate myself, but it's been a difficult process. When I was in college, I signed up for the credit cards at the tables in the student union--- to get the "free" stuff-- and then used them, ended up in major trouble, and ruined my credit.

A few years ago, when I was working at my last, very fancy, well-paying job, I got a credit card from Capital One. It had an annual fee and a high interest rate, but I wanted to start to rebuild my credit.

It worked, for a while. I kept the balance low, even tried to pay it off every month. When I realized I was going to leave my job to take my dream job, which paid a lot less, I borrowed money from a friend and paid the (small) balance completely.

I took my dream job, which paid 60% less than the one before it. I was happy, but the salary only covered my usual budgeted expenses, and nothing else. So when unexpected expenses would come up, I put them on the card. Hell, I'll admit it, when dinner with friends would come up, I'd put it on the card. I am in the wrong in this situation. I kept expecting that I'd figure out ways to make money. I paid on the card, every month, more than the minimum balance.

But once I forgot. I can manage another person's life pretty well, but I suck at managing my own. And since the card had been hovering near the balance, the interest + late fee shot it up over, which incurred another fee, and which meant that the next month's payment was way more than I could afford.

And this is where I made the biggest mistake. I hid. Which is what I do when I don't have the money. And of course the over limit fee, the interest, the late payment fees all added up.

My best friend offered to loan me some money to pay it off. I looked up my account today to make the payment and saw that it went into collections yesterday. I also saw it was twice what it was when I stopped making payments.

I fucked up. Seriously. But I want to fix it. So I called the collections agency, Global Credit and Collections, Inc. I spoke to a man who was very polite and said there were two options. One was to set up monthly payments. I said I'd rather work out a lump sum because I feared falling behind in the monthly payments again. I also told him that I couldn't pull together $2,000 right now, and would $1500 be enough to close it off. That much I could borrow from friends.

He transferred me to a supervisor, Ken Walters. Ken then explained that they work on commission and so he wouldn't accept $1,500. I told him that even $1500 is a stretch for me. We went back and forth like this for a while and finally he snapped and said that it was obvious to him that I was a criminal who didn't want to pay off the debt, and that I was wasting his time, and that they could ruin my life. He threatened that if I didn't pay the full amount by tomorrow, I wouldn't ever be able to get a mortgage or car loan if I didn't pay immediately. He then said I have until 5PM tomorrow to come up with the full amount or else, and he hung up on me. He also said, "You don't want to go to jail over $2,000, do you?"

I held it together during the call but broke down as soon as he hung up. I posted on Twitter about the situation, and had a lot of people respond that they, too, have had problems like this. It made me feel much less alone, and much less worthless.

Worthless. A fucked up word to use over $2,000, right? But my inability to make my life work makes me feel worthless.

My life hasn't been working the past few months. I am stressed about money frequently, I am stressed about work constantly. My brain has been spiraling out of control on a regular basis. I'm not sleeping much or well. I love my family and my art and my life and my work but I'm also really fucking depressed and unstable. Simple tasks take five times as long as they did, because I cannot concentrate. It is a great effort even to hold a real conversation without being distracted by the noise in my head.

I tried to take a step to getting my life back by calling the collections agency. Instead of feeling empowered, I feel worse.

Someone asked why I don't just setup a Paypal button to take donations. There's a simple reason. Donations to cover vet bills to save animals is one thing. The cats I pick up from the street need and deserve the help.

I ran up this bill myself. It's my own inability to make my finances work that caused the problem. It's my impulse to hide when I don't have the cash to pay the bill that put me in this situation. It's the fact that I traded a stable income for happiness, and on some level that was a selfish, illogical choice. In short, this is MY FAULT and I cannot ask anyone else to fix it for me.

I tried calling Capital One directly. I can't deal with that collections agency after the way Ken Walters treated me. Capital One said they'd connect me to someone. I said I wanted to deal directly with them, not with Global Collections and Credit, Inc. The man said it would be someone from Capital One. This was good, because I've been yelled at enough today.

Well, low and behold, he transferred me to KEN WALTERS. Who answered with his name, which is how I got it. I told him I wouldn't deal with him, he said there was no one else, so I hung up.

And now... I'm not sure. I'm going to go through my room--- which is an entire other entry on how I compulsively save everything and am worried that one day I'll end up on Oprah's hoarders episode--- and figure out what I can list on eBay or etsy or CL. I won't have the money by tomorrow, but I'll figure out a way to do it. I WANT to pay the debt off, no matter what the bastard at Global says.

At this point, it's not even about the money. It's about how fucked up it is that a collections agent yelling at me makes me feel like I don't deserve any of the good things I have in my life. It's about the fact that I've been crying for an hour because even though I can design a book and merch a tour and run a rockstar's life I didn't fucking get it together to deal with my bills on time.

It's about the fact that I am incredibly ashamed to admit any of this, because it means that I'm not good at something, and I'm supposed to be good at everything. Beth of All Trades.

It's about the fact that I feel like recently I've been Beth of Fucking Everything Up.

Love,
Beth