So Close!

I'm not a rich man. In fact, quite the opposite. I'm cash-poor in a beautiful house in Idaho. We're getting by on a beans and rice diet, just trying to make ends meet. Sometimes we do it, sometimes not quite, but we do our best. This is always a difficult time of the year for us because we're just beginning to recover from Christmas and birthdays.

Well, I was just recently approved for Social Security Disability Insurance. I've been on private disability insurance since 2005 and now it's time to pay back the disability insurance company. I've known this day was coming for the past 4 years, so it should be easy, right?

Wrong! It's not so easy. We got a large amount of money from SSI (which I admit not knowing what that's about) in 4 of my 5 children's names, as well as my own. Not knowing what it was for, of course, I cashed the checks and put it into my checking account. Then, I started planning. Pay off the credit card, pay off the car, purchase new flooring we're so desperately in need of, blah blah blah.

Then, just as I was getting ready to relax, my wife asks me if I have talked to my lawyer about it yet. Well, of course not I say, and try to dismiss it out of hand. But, the damage was done. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was not my money.

So, I called my lawyer, and sure enough, it's not mine. It would have been great to be able to pay off something, to lower my monthly debt load, but it was not meant to be. We'll have to do it the hard way.

Wow, just when I thought we were going to be on easy street, here we are again. It would have been better to never have seen that money.

Oh well, life is still good. We'll get through this just like we've always done. One day at a time.