My son graduates from high school in 3 weeks. According to the terms of my divorce decree, that is the point at which my child support will decrease. That means this is the last month I will get the amount of child support I have been used to receiving for 9 years ... $1,319. Beginning next month, I will be receiving $795, or a decrease of around 40%. Since I have only just begun to get a grip on my financial situation this year, I have not planned for this event. I'm starting to feel some fear!

I did get my car air conditioning problem repaired, although it might just be a temporary fix. I went with the mechanic who gave me the third opinion on the problem, because he actually took the time to LOOK for the real problem, his estimate was reasonable, and he actually seemed to be leveling with me honestly. The first mechanic told me to take the car to a dealership because he thought there was a problem with the car's computer and he did not have the proper equipment to diagnose/repair it. (I heard "computer" and equated that to $$$.) The second mechanic told me I needed a new evaporator core, which would necessitate removing the entire dash of the car, which would mean a charge of over $900 in labor alone! I decided to get a third opinion because the first two were different, and I couldn't see spending my entire baby EF only to find the evaporator core or computer was not the problem to begin with! The third mechanic, after spending a LOT of time looking, found a wire that wasn't connecting to the compressor, or to something else connected to the compressor. He also added freon because it was low. Why do I say this might be a temporary fix? Because I might have a leak somewhere in the system, since the freon level was low ... it might be a slooooow leak, or I might find myself back in the shop in a couple of weeks with no A/C again. So far, so good (it's been just over a week), so I am hopeful that IF I do have a leak, it will be one of those slooooow ones.

It just seems like it's always something, you know? At least I had my stimulus money this time, so I was able to use that for my repair bill and I didn't have to dip in to my baby EF!

NOT early ... but on time, as originally promised. I can certainly live with that ... I just wish it had never come out in the media that payments would start going out early, because then I had that expectation!

I got $600 -- $300 as a single parent, and $300 for my daughter. I wish I could throw the whole thing at my credit card debt, but I'm still driving around with no A/C in my car ... and, trust me, it's a miracle I've lasted this long without air! (It's been about 4 weeks since it went out.) I *hate* to sweat, and I live in Texas so A/C is a necessity as far as I am concerned. But the temps have been pretty mild still (highs in the low to mid-80s) and I have covered parking at work, so when I get in my car to drive home at 5:00 it's not too hot, and I can get home in 20 minutes. But the temps will be climbing higher now, and I need to get the air fixed. I just need to get a third opinion to try and figure out which of the first two opinions I got is accurate! Either way, the repair will be costly, and the $600 stimulus payment will only take care of about half, at most. But, I'm very grateful to have that $600 to help out!

Okay, well MAYBE I did get my hopes up just a little bit, but I really thought I'd get my payment a little bit early! The last two digits of my SSN are 15, I filed my return super early (as soon as I got both of my W-2s), and I e-filed and got my refund deposited directly into my account. So ... when all the talk of payments being made earlier than first announced (May 2) began, I expected to get mine at least by today ... but nooooooo!!!! Poop.