Financial Failure

How do we get to the point where every decision we seem to make seems to end up in financial failure? I do not like to think of myself as a poor money manager, but when you don't have enough money to manage in order to pay the bills, that is how you begin to feel.

I was in a good mood yesterday, then I got my mail this morning and the stressing began. I open collection notice after collection notice and now I am in a panic as to how I am going to handle this. I did not do this deliberately, in fact, I could not have paid them had I wanted to. It is hard to pay bills when you don't have the means to do so.

Working full time and paying for child care does not leave much additional income once you pay the regular expenses. In fact I figure it out, after childcare and the household bills get paid I only have about $100.00 left to buy groceries, put gas in my car, and pay any additional bills that may come up. And the $100.00 is suppose to cover me for the month. Well, that is not going to happen. I can not support my family on $100.00 a month in groceries, so something has to give. What is a girl to do?

Now that is how I ended up in this mess, I have more going out than I have coming in. You may say, find a different job, and believe you I have tried and tried and tried. There is nothing out there. Next you may say, cut your expenses. My expenses are very minimal, there is not much more I can cut out, short of living in the dark by candle light and living in a tent. What I don't understand is how I am suppose to get out from under this cloud?

I work and I am always looking for opportunities to bring more money into our household, but everything seems to cost more and more. I have vowed that some day I will start my own business, but without any money to start it that poses a problem. I have less than favorable credit due to having to juggle bills and due to medical bills that I still cannot pay, so no one will finance me. In fact, the only financing I can get is through those payday loan companies, and that is a no win situation. What do you do? How do you escape this?