Need help and chizuk about financial situation...

amother

Wed, Feb 29 2012, 3:07 pm

First of all, I wanna start off by saying that I love imamother because I can vent about these type of situations and get chizuk and advice from lots of frum women that I would never normally talk to about this in real life. So thank you imamother for letting me have a place where I can share my burden.
The story is that we really need chizuk and help financially. Basically I am married to the best husband in the world and we have 3 beautiful, healthy, adorable children. I have so much blessing and love in my life that I feel so guilty complaining. But financially we are losing our minds, especially the past few months/year. I personally dont have any marketable skills that are so extraordinary so basically, as soon as I became a Mom, I couldn't find a job that paid enough for me to make it worthwhile after childcare so I by default became a stay at home mom (not complaining about that, just stating the facts). I went to school for something years ago that could have become very lucrative but I was failing so bad and struggling that it just didn't work out. My husband is smart, confident, and has lots of skills but for some reason, every company he has worked for has either went down the tubes or just didn't give him the chance to grow or give him a good oppurtunity. And now with thousands out of jobs, even though my husband has quite an impressive resume and he usually makes a good impression at interviews, there are just hundreds of others competing for the same positions as him that have way more experience than him. Our youngest child is 6 months old, when she was born, my husband was given a loan to start a business venture that we truly thought would be succesful. He spoke to lots of experts in the field, he got the go ahead from a big Rav that has guided us in the past that he should do it and be succesful and we thought the timing was perfect since we have always heard that with each child comes bracha so we thought it would really work out. Well, needless to say, it didn't work out and we lost tons of money and dug an even deeper hole of debt for ourselves. Additionally, we had a small source of income coming in regularly (dont wanna get into details for fear of revealing myself) but we were kind of depending on it to help get us through each month and we just found out that we don't have that anymore. I could go on and on but I won't bore you with the technical details of our financial situation. Just to sum it up, we were in bad shape before our baby was born, and since we've had our baby, things have just nose dived and seem to keep spiraling downwards. We've even discussed moving to our parents, that's how bad its gotten but we are trying desperatly not to let that happen because it will be very very very bad for our shalom bayis. Anyways, I try not to complain and I try to daven, say tehillim, give tzedakah, do good things, but I'm really upset. I though Hashem send bracha and parnassah with each child, where is our parnassah? How are we supposed to support our children and send them to yeshiva? Of course we have bracha in that we are all healthy, and I do count my blessings but lets be realistic, we need money and I'm struggling struggling struggling...

amother

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 12:04 pm

amother wrote:

Hugs, hugs, hugs and more hugs. I have been in your situation, but with only one child and infertility and no health insurance. It totally sucks.
We made it work by both of us starting a state school and getting in a lot of student loans (yes they need to be paid back, but for the short term its worth it). Then B'H last august I got hired for a job, and finally yesterday DH got hired after not working in 2 years B'H.
We also invested in a venture that went wrong and lost almost everything. You are not alone. I hope everything comes good for you very very soon.

OP here- Thanx...sigh...its so hard Sad

amother

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 12:14 pm

First of all just to let you know I was in the same boat as you. Here is what you can do to get out of your situation:

Find a small office job like a 1 girl office position where the boss might not mind you bringing your kid and it could probably be some part time work so that you can be home for your other kids. Try a small school or something like that. There are plenty of men who need part time secretarys that won't mind you bringing a kid as long as th work gets done.

Other idea work from home: Shaklee, Melaleuca, graphics which is not hard to do this day in age at all it just requires a course or 2 to learn how to do it right. You can babysit from home and even if you don't want to do that full time you can do it part time.
You can watch your neighbors kids in the morning if the mother has to leave early and offer to watch someone's kids in the afternoon when they come home from school. I did that for a bit and it was worthwhile without being to taxing.

as far as your DH he should get a side job be it catering, watering, a seforim store job at a local Judaica, work behind the counter on Thursday nights in a take out place whatever just let him do something believe it or not those jobs pay pretty well.

Other things you can do is give classes to kids on Sunday lilke baking, arts and crafts ballet dancing. Etc. You need to use your talents to create work/jobs. It takes a bit of work and effort but you can do it and get out of the stump that you are in.

As far as other things you can try is to get yourself government help there is plenty of it available use it! Call up the JCC's and see if they can help with finding jobs and with other help, get yourself on a pesach package list so that when pesach comes you will have enough food without streching your wallet. Other ways to make money is selling stuff on amazon or ebay. It also makes nice money I do that whenever I'm short a few hundred and it works. Sell anything you don't need anymore as long as it's in good condition.

Best of all try to stay positive and not give up it will work out okay!

TranquilityAndPeace

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 12:49 pm

Hi OP,

Sending you hugs and prayers. Hug

Would you be interested in working from home? Are you a quick typist or writer? I agree with the amother above that babysitting can also be a great idea, however, I disagree that Shaklee or Melaleuca would be a good idea in the vast majority of cases.

Have you ever looked into writing projects on sites like elance.com? You won't earn a lot of money, but you'll be able to do the work at your own pace and hours, and once you build up a good reputation there you can charge higher rates.

I am with you with lots of questions about why God arranges the world the way He does. However, I know that I have to Upstairs to find the answers, and I don't want to ask too many questions as I'd like to stay down here for as long as possible!

Hatzlachah:)

amother

Fri, Mar 02 2012, 1:46 pm

TranquilityAndPeace wrote:

Hi OP,

Sending you hugs and prayers. Hug

I would be interested to work from home. I am actually both of what you mentioned, a great typist and writer