Support Kate's Journey to Financial Stability

Hello, Hi!

I’m hoping everyone is well, all things considered. “The world is on fire” is not enough of a sentence to depict the utter fuckery we are currently living in. What Bizarro Mundo is this?? how did we get here? How do we get out? Apocalyptic times indeed.

And yet…My corny, evergreen Pollyanna nature also notices tiny hopes. My youngest takes senior portraits on Monday. The middle one scores an apartment in the Mission. The eldest is steadfast in her career job hunt. Erin continues to move up his career ladder. I am being fed in all areas of my life. Finally.

I am also noticing that out of the burn scars on the massive redwoods I can see from my deck in the mountains there is new growth. Tiny bright green growth against the blackened trunks. Tender still, but bound to be more resilient, ever more resilient for the next season.

Which brings me to my reason for crowd sourcing for a very different kind of resiliency. Allow me to pivot from new growth in the forest to new growth in my life, and a need for help from the community.

Gah. I’m SO corny. But I’m also so sincere. At this point in my life, I’d rather be corny and alive and hopeful than ash, or dead wood, or a cynical fuck wad who just watches things burn, to their own detriment.

That WAS me, though. A gnarly divorce in 2011 put me in the middle of a fire that slowly destroyed my life for the next ten years. A decade spent fighting depression, a wounded man, and a mentally unstable self whilst all the while trying to parent both my children and myself. I often failed.

There were giant leaps forward…a college degree in 2016. A reckoning with my own culpability for my life began in 2018 as I started recovery in earnest. Children returning to me in 2020 and 2024 seemed to be my reward for the hard work. A true love found in 2022 blessed me further. A return to professional satisfaction and creativity both in writing and in the hospitality industry furthered my new growth. Outside looking in, it sure looked like I had made it to the other side.

But there has been a constant fire I’ve not been able to put out.

Money. Taxes. IRS. Franchise Tax Board. Things to be taken seriously. Fires to put out. And me, ill equipped with a garden hose and a shit ton of resentment for having to deal with my ex-husband’s financial dishonesty. So in turn, I did not deal. I tried over the years. I’d call the IRS or the FTB and wait for hours and hours only to be told my explanations were futile. I owed this money, they said.I insisted I didn’t. But it didn’t matter. Because when a government agency as scary as these tell you that you owe this money- you do. Full stop. You owe the money.

But how does someone who is going to school, on food stamps, using student loan money to fill in gaps because the child support was never on time….how does one grapple with owing 500,000 dollars?

The number didn’t seem real. It kept growing and growing. I couldn’t afford a lawyer. I didn’t have access to my ex”s records because he had file married filing separately. On paper, I was being taxed for his income assessed at 450,000. He settled on his side, and proved that his income was a quarter of that. But that correction never caught up on my side. Every year, every refund I received was taken by the IRS. Over the course of ten years, 40,000 paid but still barely a dent made.

I’d get on the phone with agents and hear a sharp intake of breath… several flat out told me that my situation was egregiously incorrect. Still….bureaucracy is a bitch, and she can’t feel any flames.

2023 brought an insane blessing. The stars aligned. One of my siblings encouraged me to research the statute of limitations for the IRS to collect on a debt. Turns out I was six months away from the date. I waited it out. And sure enough, a debt that has grown from less than 50,000 to more than 330,000 with interest just…went away. I was uncollectible. It was gone. I had already paid 40,000 dollars with my refunds seized. I spent a decade living under this cloud. I felt ethically sure of myself. I accepted this blessing.

But now the FTB. The stature of limitations was 2030. 121,000 at this point. I began to consider the debt mine. My responsibility. My job to find a way through. My shift in consciousness from a rage full learned helplessness to taking fiscal responsibility was a strange but positive turn of events. I’d fallen in love with Erin at this point. I asked him to marry me. I then found out that when we got married with this debt, he would also be responsible for this debt. Erin is a blue collar city employed worker who fought his way through an over inflated housing market to find a way to save money for the last six years or so. It’s not a giant amount. But it’s his. I could not marry him knowing that the FTB would have free reign over his savings because of me.

Motivated, I decided to file an Offer in Compromise with the FTB in March of this year. I was fairly confident that my history would show that I have struggled for the last ten years. Knowing that I had about 15 years left of working, coupled with my financial responsibilities to my children and my substantial student loan debt, I felt that offering them 1,000 dollars was a fair amount. I would have had to borrow that amount as well.

My FTB worker was kind, and reasonable. I gave her my bank statements, my pay stubs, my Venmo and Zelle history, my rental agreements.

She didn’t promise me anything, but her tone pointed towards possibility. And then….

I was denied. She explained that she had had to walk my case through 4 channels above her, and that there was a board that voted on my case because it was such a large amount, and everyone had to say yes….amd not all of them did.

I didn’t fall apart. We talked again. I offered 5 grand. Again, money I do not have that I would have to borrow. I stated that I would never own a house. That I had no 401k, no pension, no Roth IRA. I had college expenses for my kids, I literally operated most days with a 300 dollar bank account balance.

She was kind, but firm. They said no to 5k, she regretted to inform me. She was doing her job. I wasn’t mad. I did not fall apart, but I was scared.

We spoke again a week later. She said if I offered 10k they would accept that offer.

This was two weeks ago.

I’ve been in some shame about asking for help. While this world is on fire, I feel completely frivolous for inviting people into my drama.

And yet….

And yet….

This is the situation I find myself in.

I’ve come so far from the decade before. Stable housing, stable love, stable job. Groceries. Dental Care. A tiny house in the mountains to rent. I am now able and willing to take responsibility for whatever is in my last but affects my present and future. This is the big one. The biggest burn scar. The one with opportunity for new growth. My credit score isn’t great. No institution would approve me for a ten k loan. Not yet, anyway.

So I ask for help.

Maybe it isn’t a hand out. Maybe…I don’t know….

Maybe someone out there trusts that I can pay a hundred a month towards a loan. Or maybe this true story of resiliency and redemption resonates with you. And you. And you.

I don’t know….im still embarrassed and feel some shame but…and yet… maybe…

Thank so much for reading.

If you have any questions I am an open book.

May we all survive these times and thrive in our human decency and vulnerability.

Amen, Kate