Hello, my names Tamara, I live in CT, I'm 21, married, Mother of a baby whose almost 1, and we are hanging in by a thread.
In July of 2006 I quit my job, and a month later I found out that I was pregnant. My then fiancee and I scrambled up every penny we had to move in with my Sister accross the country, and instead of helping us she squeezed almost every last penny out of us (2,000 my fiancee got from a car accident), my fiancee, soon became husband (we got married sooner because Medicaid would have tried slamming him with child support, which wouldn't of helped us at all) got a job at Wendy's that only lasted a month, thankfully Medicaid paid for the birth of our child and all our other Doctor bills, soon after, with $500 left, we moved in with my Mother.
My husband, with no where else to turn joined the Army, and left to Basic Training only two months after the birth of our Son. There, he had a seizure, and we have no idea what caused it because they didn't bother finding out why he had one, but rather got him out as soon as they could, after dignosing him with major depressive disorder (which is a unipolar disorder).
Because of my husband being medically discharged from the Army, my Mother gave us one option, move out immediately... so we were forced to use a good chunk of his 1 month paycheck from the Army to move back to CT and live with my husbands parents, here we had to buy baby stuff (only necessities: crib, clothes).
Here we got on Medicaid again, on WIC, but can not get Foodstamps until my husband is 22 because we live with his parents (which is in June), and our case worker has us running in circles to get Cash assistance (we tried to get it for 6 months straight, he kept losing our paperwork, and we finally gave up last month).
I have not for the life of me been able to find a job. I stood in a huge line when a big factory opened around my area for 5 hours in hopes to get a job in January, on top of applying to tons of other companys aswell, and I haven't heard back from anyone.
We made $1,700 last year, and we are running my husbands parents in to more debit daily, we got $683 back this year in taxes, and due to having to buy my Son some clothes (a few on Ebay), and a new car seat, food, diapers, etc, we are already down to $450.
My husband, because of his major depressive disorder was told by a Doctor to apply for Disability, we are in process of doing this, he is at the step of seeing their medical professional next week...
My hopes are to get my GED and go to culinary school within the next two years, to clean up this mess our lives has become... but I don't know where to begin with loans, grants, etc. I need in total about $30,000 for one year of culinary school to get my advanced culinary degree at CT Culinary Institute (my dream) or if I have to Lincoln Technical... and even then, I would have to take a bus (if they run to the areas) because I don't have a vehicle or my license yet either.
My Mother-in-law is working herself to death working two jobs, my Father-in-law is disabled and needs to get a total knee replacement, and is trying to get on disability as well. My parents-in-law are in danger of losing their home, therefore, we could become homeless at any point. We usually only have $30 - $40 a week for food for 5 people.
I need lots of advice. Our lack of financial stability has become a huge strain on my marriage. I'm tired of crying myself to sleep. I'm so depressed and afraid to seek help for it because of my husbands condition. I'm deathly afraid of losing my Son. I don't know what to do or where to turn. I wish we could just win the lotto, but, we all know that's not going to happen, and I don't have the money to waste trying either.
I will accept as much help that can be offered. I don't want to ask for money, but if you want to help in that manner (will go to nothing but baby supplies, food, bills, clthing, etc), please send it to my Paypal address tamwalt@gmail.com, which is also my contact email address if you want to contact me. Advice, links, anything else is very appreciated as well!
