Life just got really bad, really quick. I need some advice.

Edit: I deleted the first post. It was too long and came off wrong. I'll try to be super brief here:

had a great job in Baltimore, but both the wife and I got laid off due to COVID.  We moved down to Florida into my parents spare room - they invited us to as they just retired and they spend most of their time out traveling.  They told us to stay as long as we like and save up some cash.  I got hurt and retire early from the army after 12 years.  I get $1500/month from that, and I'm going to school on the GI Bill right now, which pays $899/month.  My wife and I sold our old house in Baltimore for a small profit and paid off some old debts and moved in with the parents.  Everything was great for 3 months.  No arguing, nothing.  We took good care of the house, cleaned, etc.  My wife and I decided we should try for a baby, since we're in a situation where we're living rent free and we can save money.  We would get our own place a bit later.  My stepmom said yay grand babies!  My dad was a little concerned with the timing due to COVID, but he supported it also.  They're going on a 6 month long trip at the beginning of the year and we all agreed that we would stay there, then when they got back from their long vacation we would move out and get a place.  4 days ago we saw them at a campground in their RV and everything was great.  We grilled some food and talked about the baby and it was all smiles.  2 days ago they come home and long story short, they pulled a 180 and tell us we need to leave now.  My stepmom flips on us, as she's a former meth addict, a drunk, and I think bipolar or something similar, and is screaming at us how awful we are are how no one has compassion for her and this and that.  She tells us she wants us out ASAP, even throws stuff at my wife.  My dad doesn't know what's going on but he did nothing to stop her and said he had no clue what was going on.  My stepmom told us she hated us (in 11 years she's always been super nice, so this was shocking to us) and my wife said "you will never see this baby" and my stepmom said good, I don't care about it or you now get the eff out.  My dad did nothing to stop her.  Basically they kicked me and my pregnant wife out on the street, without caring.  We had a few thousand saved up from selling the house and I sold a few stocks (I don't own many) and packed our stuff up and stayed in the only pet friendly motel in the area with vacancy - roaches on the walls and dirty sheets!  As we were leaving we begged my dad to tell us what we did wrong and he insisted that he had no clue and that he didn't want us to go and he hates the situation, then he pretty much gave us some money to help get a cheap apartment.  I didn't really want his money (although it always helps) I wanted him to have some balls and stand up to his psycho wife, or if he wanted me gone then have the balls to tell me straight  

anyways, that's the gist of it.  We managed to find a really horrible cheap place, although I had to clear out a lot of my savings to get it.  Oh, and my mustang has a blown motor and I still owe a lot of money on it.  Big, sucky situation.  We really don't see how we were bad tenants at all, as everything was completely okay until my stepmom's flip out two days ago.  It sucks having one of your parents tell you they hate you, and the other one too much of a coward to do anything about it.  But sometimes life sucks, and all we can do is move on.

also, I'm berkeleying 39 years old. This kind of crap is ridiculous at this age. 

If the parents are home, then who's in the camper/rv?  

Have you ever had a close friend and then you become room mates?  Friends and separate are one thing.  Living together is another thing.  It tends to change relationships and can be very hard on friendships. 

Harsh words, I know, but I think you overstayed your welcome when you and the wife decided to have a kid but your room mates were not included in that decision.  Did you provide the parents with a clear understanding at the time of choice that you would not be continuing to stay in their house?  I think their greatest fear is that they will soon be out numbered when your group of 3 in their house is greater than their group of 2.   

In reply to infinitenexus :

It sounds like you have a bit of cash after selling stocks & you're in the prime location for finding cheap RVs - have you considered doing the "van-life"/"digital-nomad" thing short-term? That would give you the freedom to move as opportunities arise, yet also put a roof over your family & provide a more safe environment. 

It does sound like things are rough with Dad, but don't burn bridges. When this cools down you may still appreciate the  family you have, even if flawed. Obviously your wife and kid are your only focus right now, but when you get a place, talk it out.

Other than that, praying for you out here.

I don't understand the thing with being owed unemployment.  Are you 100% sure this money is owed and coming to you?  Try to get this situation resolved ASAP.

Next order of business would be to put school on hold and get a job.  And health insurance.   Kids aren't cheap. 

You can do this, but it won't be a picnic. 

Don’t know what to tell you other than this seems temporary. Looks like you’ve got a plan in place and just hit a bump in the road. Let me know if you need or want to talk/vent. 

What is your base retirement pay and how much more do you make through the GI bill? What school are you at? 

The reason I ask is I know a person or two who took community college classes that far far undercut the reimbusement that came from the GI bill. It may make sense to continue your education in a more cost effective manner. 

Lay our your income, lay our your costs, we've got some clever people on here.

Don't panic. I agree with 1988RedT2 - you need a job with health insurance. Where are you willing to move to find one? What are your qualifications?

On the Mustang, call the lender. Explain the situation and tell them you're going to have to have it repo'd as you can't afford it, what are their options for a voluntary repo? The loan will become unsecured but it will be a slightly better impact on your credit. 

For your parents... Man, I'm sorry. My brother and his fiance are living with my parents now. I hear the problems from both sides. Both have valid complaints, but at the end of the day my parents are the homeowners giving free rent, so I tend to side more with them, even if I can commiserate. I'd just ask why you didn't hear about any of this until it reached the boiling point, but maybe that isn't a good idea.

John Welsh said:

If the parents are home, then who's in the camper/rv?  

 

Have you ever had a close friend and then you become room mates?  Friends and separate are one thing.  Living together is another thing.  It tends to change relationships and can be very hard on friendships. 

 

Harsh words, I know, but I think you overstayed your welcome when you and the wife decided to have a kid but your room mates were not included in that decision.  Did you provide the parents with a clear understanding at the time of choice that you would not be continuing to stay in their house?  I think their greatest fear is that they will soon be out numbered when your group of 3 in their house is greater than their group of 2.   

I agree here and I'll add a direct quote from the op. 

"My wife and I decided to go ahead and have a baby. I'm 39 and not getting any younger and we wanted to take advantage of the situation, living for free and all."

Thats......not gonna cover you in glory for this argument.

Agree with the above statements, the pregnancy was probably a trigger.  My parents were in a similar situation with my sister at one point, and AFAIK, no one was getting kicked out, but it was a very tense household, I tended to cut down on how often I visited.  At this point, though, looking forward is what you need to do.

A voluntary repo will leave you on the hook for any difference between what you owe and what the car is worth, but at least it should cut down on expenses related to finding/acquiring the car.

With unemployment offices backed up, I can see how they’d be behind.  I’m not sure how getting a new job should affect payments..  It shouldn’t. Maybe it is affecting the priority of who gets funds first? I’d dig into that further.   Do you have enough positive equity in your wife’s car to sell it and replace it with something that would still be reliable, but not have any payments?

As your wife is pregnant, I’d agree that finding some job, even a not so great one, as long as it includes health insurance.

Retired military should have health insurance through the VA? Or does that not include dependents? I guess I don't really know how that works. 

As for money concerns bluntly $2500 is something I can very easily live on a month. From this side it sounds like you have a good savings and even stocks. I don't see any immediate problems with money.

I don't know about getting out of the mustang loan but I'd probably downsize out of the wife's car.

I can say that you absolutely have to have a job with a kid on the way, at least one of you has to. Kids are very expensive

OK that was a wall of text, and I don't want to appear inconsiderate and unkind, but here goes:

You can't control people. People act weird, and you have to move on. No clue what the trigger was with SM, but it really doesn't matter. Get out.

I heard "expensive car", "computer games", "pet", and the tell "let the bank repossess it"

The last, first. I am not a banker, but if the bank repossess it, they sell it at auction. You now still owe them the rest. Sell it instead, or call them and explain. Never do what you plan on doing. The bank does not want your broken car. How in the world do you owe $16K on a nonrunning car? How long has it been not running? How do you owe that much if it's out of warranty? How did it blow the engine?

Computer games are frivolities. That one even requires a serious gaming PC if I understand correctly. None of the computers in my house cost more than $500, and my house brings in 4x what you do. The expensive one (the others are half of the value of it) is used primarily for my wife's work. It paid for itself in one month.

Back pay from enemployment seems doubtful. I would need verification before I would believe that.

So the hard truth is make a budget. You may not be able to keep school as the primary use of your time, especially if you have a kid coming. Kids are expensive. Rent, utilities, food, medicaid (or whatever the VA gives). What does that take? Can you afford that on $2500? If you can't, time to get a job. Everything else is extra. What's the other car? Will it fit a carseat?

What does your wife do? She can work and earn quite a bit for a while before the kid comes along.

I've seen single Moms make it on half of what you have coming in. I've seen families making $140K broke and in debt. You can do it. Buckle up. It's going to be hard.

As far as the personal stuff, I would just wait and let things calm down. Chat later when you're on your feet.

1988RedT2 said:

I don't understand the thing with being owed unemployment.  Are you 100% sure this money is owed and coming to you?  Try to get this situation resolved ASAP.

Next order of business would be to put school on hold and get a job.  And health insurance.   Kids aren't cheap. 

You can do this, but it won't be a picnic. 

That's the amount of money in my unemployment account that's supposed to be coming to me. It says it clearly in my account, but Maryland is really backed up so it's taking forever to get the check sent to me. 
 

I'm trying not to put school on hold, because I get a monthly stipend from the gi bill as long as I'm a student. I could use cash right now. And the sooner I finish this program in computer networking, the sooner I can hopefully land a halfway decent job and get us back on our feet. 

tuna55 said:

[A bunch of hard truth]

Agreed.  

John Welsh said:

If the parents are home, then who's in the camper/rv?  

 

Have you ever had a close friend and then you become room mates?  Friends and separate are one thing.  Living together is another thing.  It tends to change relationships and can be very hard on friendships. 

 

Harsh words, I know, but I think you overstayed your welcome when you and the wife decided to have a kid but your room mates were not included in that decision.  Did you provide the parents with a clear understanding at the time of choice that you would not be continuing to stay in their house?  I think their greatest fear is that they will soon be out numbered when your group of 3 in their house is greater than their group of 2.   

Parents are home, no one is in the rv. 
 

the thing is, everything was fine until two days ago. We had talked to them about having a kid. My stepmom clapped her hands and said "yes, I want more grand babies!" And my dad said it probably wasn't the best time, with Covid and all, but he felt the best thing would be for us to stay there until the end of their big trip next year, and THEN move out. Two days ago, out of seemingly nowhere, they flipped. Pulled a total 180. My stepmom is basically acting like she's hated us all along and the truth is just now coming out - her daughter stayed for a few days before moving to South Carolina. She left piss filled diapers (from her two young daughters) all over the house, and my wife and I cleaned up after her daily. Terri excuses it saying her daughter is just a busy mom - while her daughter stares at her phone all the time when she's home and feeds her kids nothing but ice cream and Cheerios. We brought it up to her how dirty her daughter is and how much we had to clean up after her and she just screamed obscenities at us. 

What does your wife do? She can work and earn quite a bit for a while before the kid comes along.

I've seen single Moms make it on half of what you have coming in. I've seen families making $140K broke and in debt. You can do it. Buckle up. It's going to be hard.

Repeating this for emphasis.  You served for 20 years and retired, use those skills and take charge of your situation.  What would you council one of your troopers to do in your current situation?

mazdeuce - Seth said:

What is your base retirement pay and how much more do you make through the GI bill? What school are you at? 

The reason I ask is I know a person or two who took community college classes that far far undercut the reimbusement that came from the GI bill. It may make sense to continue your education in a more cost effective manner. 

Lay our your income, lay our your costs, we've got some clever people on here.

Retirement - $1500

gi Bill - $899 for a full month. This month it'll be prorated, since the semester ended and I didn't attend a full month. 
 

total monthly bills (cars, cell phone, insistence, etc) come out to $1170/month. We canceled Netflix, our gym memberships, etc, and dropped about $100 off. If we can get rid of the mustang that will remove $356/month, plus insurance, plus who knows how many thousands to fix the blown motor. The downside is my credit will be trashed for years. 
 

to whoever said (sorry, I'm on my phone and trying to reply quickly to everyone) to fix the mustang and focus on downsizing the wife's car - my wife's car is a Prius, it's half the cost of the mustang and has basically zero maintenance cost so keeping this is a priority. I do have my challenge civic, so I can use that for transportation when I need it. 
 

rent at the place we just got (literally signed the lease 20 minutes ago) is $675, plus utilities. I'll have to get internet as well, for school 

mtn (Forum Supporter) said:

Don't panic. I agree with 1988RedT2 - you need a job with health insurance. Where are you willing to move to find one? What are your qualifications?

On the Mustang, call the lender. Explain the situation and tell them you're going to have to have it repo'd as you can't afford it, what are their options for a voluntary repo? The loan will become unsecured but it will be a slightly better impact on your credit. 

 

 

For your parents... Man, I'm sorry. My brother and his fiance are living with my parents now. I hear the problems from both sides. Both have valid complaints, but at the end of the day my parents are the homeowners giving free rent, so I tend to side more with them, even if I can commiserate. I'd just ask why you didn't hear about any of this until it reached the boiling point, but maybe that isn't a good idea.

Thank you for the tip on the mustang. I'll probably call the bank tomorrow. I'll give myself a day to take a breath (and to move our stuff into the new crappy house)

I agree with your last point. We still don't understand what we did wrong - we were clean and quiet and considerate when we were there. We even saw my parents 2 days before all this happened and everything was fine, we all had a beer and laughed. Then suddenly boom, we're all called poopbags and we're out on the street. 

It's tough and everyone has their breaking point. I don't want to say I understand your stepmom- but after years of being "kind" in your words, I'd consider giving her the benefit of the doubt. Don't care for the drunk slander either- its a disease if she is an alcoholic, and #2- sometimes people take to it when they are stressed, and C. having people in your house is stressful. One cannot help but judge the actions of the people under their roof- I got mad at a dude for eating my cookies! Eating cookies! It was so stupid and I knew it, but it was the last straw. 

I'm a veteran as well- retired.  If it's the post-911 GI bill, you need to enroll at San Francisco State, pronto. Part of the GI Bill is getting E-5 BAH at the location of the school. E-5 BAH in San Francisco is $4614/mo with dependents- without is 3800. You have to show up at class 1/week, and with covid, and a prego wife, I'm sure you could get away with 0 times per week. 

Finally- going back to the family sitch- perhaps go back and chat with them both without the wife, say I'm sorry we split that way. I know what it may have looked like, but here is what I'm doing. I know having house guests for the long term is stressful and I apologize for that. We brought a lot to you guys and didn't think about it from your perspective. 

Can we borrow the RV until we get our E36 M3 together?

Nevermind, you answered budgeting questions while I was typing the initial response. 

tuna55 said:

OK that was a wall of text, and I don't want to appear inconsiderate and unkind, but here goes:

 

You can't control people. People act weird, and you have to move on. No clue what the trigger was with SM, but it really doesn't matter. Get out.

 

I heard "expensive car", "computer games", "pet", and the tell "let the bank repossess it"

 

The last, first. I am not a banker, but if the bank repossess it, they sell it at auction. You now still owe them the rest. Sell it instead, or call them and explain. Never do what you plan on doing. The bank does not want your broken car. How in the world do you owe $16K on a nonrunning car? How long has it been not running? How do you owe that much if it's out of warranty? How did it blow the engine?

 

Computer games are frivolities. That one even requires a serious gaming PC if I understand correctly. None of the computers in my house cost more than $500, and my house brings in 4x what you do. The expensive one (the others are half of the value of it) is used primarily for my wife's work. It paid for itself in one month.

 

Back pay from enemployment seems doubtful. I would need verification before I would believe that.

So the hard truth is make a budget. You may not be able to keep school as the primary use of your time, especially if you have a kid coming. Kids are expensive. Rent, utilities, food, medicaid (or whatever the VA gives). What does that take? Can you afford that on $2500? If you can't, time to get a job. Everything else is extra. What's the other car? Will it fit a carseat?

 

What does your wife do? She can work and earn quite a bit for a while before the kid comes along.

 

I've seen single Moms make it on half of what you have coming in. I've seen families making $140K broke and in debt. You can do it. Buckle up. It's going to be hard.

 

As far as the personal stuff, I would just wait and let things calm down. Chat later when you're on your feet.

 

 

It was a wall of text and I apologize for that. I'm guilty of typing a novel for most things. 
 

The video game - it was for my 3 year old Xbox, and Sunday when I was playing it for a couple hours was the first time I had played a video game since we moved down there. So I wasn't laying around playing games all the time, even though that's what my stepmom accused me of basically doing. 
 

To everyone asking, I do fortunately have Tricare prime, so for $50/month we're covered on healthcare. 
 

On the mustang - I bought it 4 years (I believe) ago and didn't get the best interest rate. I refinanced it 1.5 years ago for a fantastic interest rate and borrowed an extra 2 grand, if I remember correctly it was to help with some repairs to my previous house. As for the engine, it's only got 69k miles and I've always taken good care of it. It developed a faint ticking and I thought it was the idler tensioner pulley. 10 miles later it starts going BANG BANG BANG like metal hitting metal inside the motor. It's been sitting since then, about a week or two. The Coyote V8 is not a cheap or simple engine to work on, unfortunately. 
 

with our budget, as long as I stay in school and get the gi bill money, we will have enough to cover everything - as long as the mustang is out of the picture. That's the issue. And I want to stay in school and finish this program so I can get the job skills to leave this horrible town. 
 

Here's what I'm crossing my fingers for - all my classes are online. If the hours are flexible and I can take the classes at any time, then I can stay in school and get the gi bill money and get some crappy job on the side to make extra. Doing that, we'll be okay and we'll be able to start saving some money up for a safe future again. 

KyAllroad (Jeremy) (Forum Supporter) said:

What does your wife do? She can work and earn quite a bit for a while before the kid comes along.

 

I've seen single Moms make it on half of what you have coming in. I've seen families making $140K broke and in debt. You can do it. Buckle up. It's going to be hard.

 

 

 

Repeating this for emphasis.  You served for 20 years and retired, use those skills and take charge of your situation.  What would you council one of your troopers to do in your current situation?

For clarification, I served for 12 years and got a lot of injuries so I was retired early. The job skills I got in the army were extremely specific - basically I can use them to work at the NSA and that's about it, and only if I kept them tip top up to date. Remove the NSA and none of my job skills really matter to 99% of employers beyond a "oh that's great!" In a job interview. That's been my experience at least. 
 

I had a fantastic job earlier this year, and none of these things would have happened, but they lost a ton of government contracts and money due to Covid shut downs and had to lay me and many others off. 

Teh E36 M3 said:

It's tough and everyone has their breaking point. I don't want to say I understand your stepmom- but after years of being "kind" in your words, I'd consider giving her the benefit of the doubt. Don't care for the drunk slander either- its a disease if she is an alcoholic, and #2- sometimes people take to it when they are stressed, and C. having people in your house is stressful. One cannot help but judge the actions of the people under their roof- I got mad at a dude for eating my cookies! Eating cookies! It was so stupid and I knew it, but it was the last straw. 

 

I'm a veteran as well- retired.  If it's the post-911 GI bill, you need to enroll at San Francisco State, pronto. Part of the GI Bill is getting E-5 BAH at the location of the school. E-5 BAH in San Francisco is $4614/mo with dependents- without is 3800. You have to show up at class 1/week, and with covid, and a prego wife, I'm sure you could get away with 0 times per week. 

 

Finally- going back to the family sitch- perhaps go back and chat with them both without the wife, say I'm sorry we split that way. I know what it may have looked like, but here is what I'm doing. I know having house guests for the long term is stressful and I apologize for that. We brought a lot to you guys and didn't think about it from your perspective. 

 

Can we borrow the RV until we get our E36 M3 together?

The San Francisco school tip is a prime one. I'm already locked in for the next semester of classes but that would be some kind of miracle money there!  I was curious if that was even possible. Thank you. 
 

On borrowing the RV - in her drunken rage, my stepmom told me and my wife that she berkelying hates us, that we're worthless, that she doesn't care about the baby and never wants to see it, and she wants us the eff out. The RV is definitely not going to happen. 
 

Honestly, if we were doing something wrong I just wish they had talked with us. We thought everything was great and we were all friends. Then suddenly boom, I hate you get out I don't care if you suffer. 

So... the Mustang has rod knock?  Can you drop the pan and throw some cheap bearings on it?  I'm not suggesting this is a fix you can trust long term, but that and some heavy oil might get it good enough to sell to Carmax or some other lot- I wouldn't do something like that to a private buyer, but in your situation I wouldn't think twice about slipping something past a dealer.