Hi! My name is Kelly. I'm a 25 yr old single mom of 3. My son is 9, he lives with his dad, and my girls are 5 and 3, they live with me. I am a hard worker, good caring person, do the best I can with everything, yet it never is enough. I don't know what to do anymore. My paycheck is not enough. I was working two jobs, then I never saw the kids. My kids are my life, I don't want to leave them with babysitters all the time. I don't even look forward to payday because I know it won't do much. I have a decent job, but not decent enough to support all of us. I do get support for my younger daughter, but not the older one. But even the support doesn't do much, just goes to the babysitter and gas! I'm just really really stressed. I recently applied to go to college, it seems its my only way to improve our situation. I have to wait and see how that goes. I'm frustrated with the fact that I try so hard yet its still not enough. I would really like to talk to people that know what I am going through. I'm tired of being alone, but there's no time to go out, I have my older daughter all the time. Not that I don't want her, just desperately need a break sometimes. I guess I'm just looking for someone that can help me figure this all out!

Hey Kelly, welcome to the forum. There are a lot of great members here I'm sure will have some good advice and moral support for you. Maybe even some info on where to look for grants etc. for school to make it easier.
There is a "Campus Single Parents" forum on here as well that might be of help to check out. http://singleparentsnetwork.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/forum/6.html
Best wishes.

Hi Kelly, welcome. You'll find a lot of support here.

I'm a single mom to my 2 yr old daughter. I have her 100% of the time, as her father is no longer in the picture. I work full time and am a part time student. I fully support myself and my daughter - no child support, no state assistance and currently no financial assistance for school either. It's hard, and there are days when I'd rather bash my head against a wall for hours on end rather than balance my checkbook because I know the inevitable outcome...But I know there are better days to come and I just do the best I can every day to get myself to those better days as quickly as possible.

As for school... depending on where you're going and what you're taking, there are lots of grants, financial aid and even school loans available. You may even be able to cut your work down to part time and live off of your grants and loans for awhile so you can focus on school. (At least that's what I plan to do once the school reinstates my financial aid)

quote:

Originally posted by kellyjo25:
[qb] Hi! My name is Kelly. I'm a 25 yr old single mom of 3. My son is 9, he lives with his dad, and my girls are 5 and 3, they live with me. I am a hard worker, good caring person, do the best I can with everything, yet it never is enough. I don't know what to do anymore. My paycheck is not enough. I was working two jobs, then I never saw the kids. My kids are my life, I don't want to leave them with babysitters all the time. I don't even look forward to payday because I know it won't do much. I have a decent job, but not decent enough to support all of us. I do get support for my younger daughter, but not the older one. But even the support doesn't do much, just goes to the babysitter and gas! I'm just really really stressed. I recently applied to go to college, it seems its my only way to improve our situation. I have to wait and see how that goes. I'm frustrated with the fact that I try so hard yet its still not enough. I would really like to talk to people that know what I am going through. I'm tired of being alone, but there's no time to go out, I have my older daughter all the time. Not that I don't want her, just desperately need a break sometimes. I guess I'm just looking for someone that can help me figure this all out! [/qb]

I know I'm a little late, but if you are still around reading this thread, i totally understand what you are going through. I was a legal secretary for the last 10 years of my life. and though my job paid well and had good benefits, i was depressed because i knew deep in my heart it was not what i wanted to do with my life. i just did it to pay the bills. at that time, i had 2 children and no support from either of the fathers. my family didn't and still doesn't support me in any way, and i didn't have friends who had children that could relate enough to want to create a support group. my oldest son was in school and would go to babysitter afterwards and my youngest was at babysitter all day. i would leave the house around 6am and get home by 7pm. I couldn't get my son's into any extra curricular activities, because of my job and i needed that job to pay the bills.

I knew i needed a life style change because i was just getting worse and so were my children, so it seemed. So I ended up moving states, hoping things would be different, didn't know how, but to my surprise, ended up unemployed for 3 months. that was weird for my field, but hey, it was right after 9/11 and i had just moved from NYC. so a lot of people were out of work. Well, that 3 months off, was the beginning of a new life for me. I had to be still during that time and ask myself, what in life am i passionate about and if i can't get there directly, what is the closes profession to that?? So here I am, nearly 3 years later and my life is nothing like it use to be.

U know some say when you find something that you love to do, it is nothing like work at all. So my suggestion, hey ask yourself, what are you passionate about?? It may not be as impossible as you think. Sometimes you just need someone to help you see things from a different perspective or even make suggestions that you never thought of.