Bills, Bills, Bills...

A word about your bills - pay them! I'm not talking about debt here (car note, mortgage, student loans) - we'll save that for another discussion. I'm talking about your household expenses - the basics - such as rent, utilities, phone, even internet is a necessity when you have kids.  Pay your bills, simple enough - right?

My son was born when I was 19 years old, and I officially moved out of my parents house (the first time) one year later.  At age 20, with one year of college under my belt, and no real work experience, I was completely ill-equipped, financially, to be on my own, with a baby, in a one bedroom apartment and all of the expenses of running a household on one barely above minimum wage income.  With no direction, and a false sense of knowing what I was doing, simply based on what my parents told me that I needed for my home, and what little, if any, information they had shared with me about fiscal responsibility, I was pretty much setup for failure.  What I did not know, but learned quickly, was that if I did not pay my bills, the services that were being provided to me, would eventually be disconnected.  Furthermore, if I continued to leave the services unpaid, they would be reported on my credit as a bad debt, thus, lowering the credit score that I did not even know I had.  In my case, it was a cable bill, which I didn't even need to have in the first place. Obviously, my issue at the time was that I did not have enough income to cover all of my expenses, which leads me to share this bit of wisdom:  If you are unable to pay your bills in full, do not just ignore them.

Fast forward a few years from my cable bill  issue, and my son and I are once again on our own. This time, in a two bedroom apartment, with a little more education and a much better paying job. Yes, I was making it happen and so proud of myself!  Still no more knowledgeable about how to handle my finances, and now taking on debt that I did not need (trying to keep up with my friends who were either childless or had financial support systems), all while trying to maintain my household expenses.  Now, I'm looking at a past due electric bill versus a currently due car payment, and let's not forget about my weekly daycare bill - thus, my introduction to "robbing Peter to pay Paul".  What I ended up doing was contacting the electric company and making payment arrangements that would allow me to wait for another paycheck, so that I could take care of daycare and car note.

  

What I have learned over time - from my own personal experience as a solo mom riding the "figure out how to make ends meet" roller coaster, and also as a collector of almost every consumer debt imaginable - is that there is usually a way to work around the issue of needing funds immediately to cover all of the bills at once.  Contact your service providers and/or creditors to make workable payment arrangements or ask for help before things get out of control and you end up paying them more money than you can truly afford.  In regards to rent and utilities, you can research to find local community organizations that may be able to help with past due amounts to possibly prevent eviction or service disruption.

As a solo mom, you likely do not have anyone to rely on if you are in need, so in order to have less stress and be sure that your children are not negatively affected by poor financial choices, then your goal should always be to maintain a successful balance between your income and your household expenses. Educating yourself on finances and creating a realistic budget are a start.  Be sure to involve your children and educate them on creating and maintaining your household budget.  This should be worked as a family, and in turn will allow your kids to have a better understanding of how the money is spent.

It's No Secret - Plan Your Success!

As solo moms, we often live our lives by just dealing with situations as they come.  What I've learned, is that in order to be successful, you have to make a life plan that still allows you to be open to change.

• Be thoughtful and prayerful in evaluating your present life.  Next, decide on the amount and source of the income you desire, education options (for your children and yourself), where and how you will live, then make a plan to get there.
• Once you've got your plan in place, stay focused!  Set goals for yourself and post them along with appointments and daily routines where they are visible, so that when you get sidetracked you can quickly get back on track.
• Work your plan daily, and make changes accordingly, because  as you know, life will be constantly changing and in order to survive and succeed, you will need to be able to change right along with it.

Remember, survival may be the journey, but success is the final destination!

To Thine Own Self Be True...

You truly are amazing! Don't you know WHOSE you are?  God's creation, someone's mother/sister/daughter/friend - you mean the world to the people in your life.  So figure out WHO you are, what works for you, how you want to be perceived - then DO YOU!  To do this, you must first believe in and love yourself.  Yes! You absolutely have to love yourself, forgive yourself, and believe that you can do whatever needs to be done to take care of your family. Take these first steps to living your life, as only you can - authentically and without apology!

Solo Mom Success

"Choice, not circumstances, determines your success." Anonymous


What does success look like? Not to the world, not to your friends or family - let's talk about how you define and envision YOUR success.

Success at home, work/business or life at large - is whatever you say it is!  As a solo mom, you may find yourself measuring your successes against those of other moms or other women in general, and feel that you are falling miserably short.  The reality of it is this: since you are unique, then that makes your goals, your challenges and your successes unique to you.

As an example, a sister-friend of mine shared a bit of an intimate conversation that she had recently with her teen aged son, in which he asked her what being successful meant for her.  She expressed to him, that as his mother, she felt that she will have been successful once she got to the point of financial stability that would allow for her to see him off to school in the morning, be readily available to him throughout the day, and be home to greet him when his school day is done - and still pay the bills.  This is what is most important in her life right now, so this is what she sees as being a successful mom.

Something as simple as being present for your children at all times, may not be seen by someone who is not a solo mom as a huge success in life.  But the fact that we do not have a natural support system in place - willing to step in so that we can go to work and not be stressed about the who, what, when and where's of our children's daily routine - makes being 100% hands on, without having to leave our kid's to fend for themselves, a major success.  Again, this is just one example of an area of success where solo mom's tend to regularly feel less than accomplished.

When we look at going from survival to success, the previous example represents the challenge. The creative solutions applied to that challenge represent survival - and yes, creativity is key.  Everything that I speak about involves being both creative and resourceful, these are necessary tools for solo mom success.  Examples of such creativity and resourcefulness may be co-oping with other parents, changing your work schedule if possible, changing jobs (hard to do as of this writing - but possible), or even creating your own income.  I've done all of these things in order to be successful at being available to my children, so I know that these suggestions are all possible.

Your success is absolutely, and in every way, exactly what you make it.  Your wants, needs, and expectations of yourself, dictate what makes you successful every day of your life and in all that you do.  YOU decide what YOU want, then YOU go about the business of creating the success that YOU seek.  It's about what works for you and your family - you can not allow other people's ideas or thought processes to dictate or influence your success if they don't fit your mold!  As long as we continue to compare ourselves to others, and allow ourselves to simply just "get by" or survive, we will continue to delay the success that is rightfully ours.
So if you haven't already, start now to purposefully plan your success, prayerfully prepare for it, then positively proceed to persistently pursue YOUR SUCCESS!

{Solo Mom-ism} What Starts With Survival, Ends With Success!

I don't have all of the answers. I don't even know all of the possible questions. What I do know is this - there is a difference between being a "Single" Mom and being a "Solo" Mom - both in meaning and in how life is lived day to day.  While I acknowledge that there are a great number of dad's out there who are living the solo parenting life as well, what I've been called to share with you applies specifically to the Solo Mom. I can only speak from what I know, and solo motherhood is one thing that I know very well.

Flying "SOLO" - Let me give the definition of "solo" parenting from my perspective as a solo mom:  I am the only parent that my children have actively in their lives.  The circumstances for each of my children's fathers not being present in their lives are as different as my children themselves, but at the end of each and every day, the fact remains that I am the ONLY parent with whom they have a constant relationship.  Everything that I will share with you is what I know from my experience.

Solo vs. Single - Now, being a "solo" mom differs from being a "single" mom, in that there is NO shared custody or co-parenting (I don't even know what that looks like).  There are NO weekends off from the kids ("me" time is usually in the bathroom, and even that gets interrupted).  There is NO physical, financial, or emotional support from dad, whatsoever (no comment).  This includes NO active acknowledgment or involvement in raising the children that you both took enjoyment (for the most part) in creating.  NONE...AT...ALL.  Even a court order for child support garnishment tends to have little to no bearing in dad's sense of responsibility to his children.  Again, I understand that this can go either way (dead-beat mom or dad), I've seen it.  But I've also seen, that in most cases, it's much easier for a solo dad to find a committed significant other to help love and raise his family than it is for a solo mom.  But that's another conversation entirely.  So, once again, in no way am I bashing men, fathers or even dead-beat dad's. I'm just expressing my reality as a solo mom.

That being said, I pray that everything I share - every experience, truth and solution, as I've been given - reaches whomever is in need of it, and that it is received with all of the love in which it is intended.  Mom's, just remember, that this chosen life - and yes, you chose it, with every decision you've made to this point (some good, some not so good) - this Solo Mom life, starts with Survival but ends with Success!