Breaking away

I just got back from a little vacation to a friend's house (the same friend that invited us away last summer) and found out that my ex took off again while I was gone, but he's back already.

In the 12 hours or so between finding out he was missing and getting a call from him that he was back, I did a lot of thinking about my life and what I want and need to do to be happy. What I came up with is this:

I need to live my life as if he did not exist. I need to worry about myself and
my kids. I deserve to be happy.

I tried to take an extra job to make some more money but right now it doesn't look like that is going to work out. I have decided to change the allowances in my taxes to give me more money per paycheck, mainly because I have already paid in what I owed last year, and I'll be taking both kids as dependants for 2009 since my ex owes me child support (that's what the divorce agreement says). I found a balance transfer that looks like a good opportunity, and I am starting to think about having a tag sale, even though I really don't want to. I also plan on pursuing a class in the Spring instead, or maybe doing some other extra work that one of my bosses mentioned to me.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to restructure my budget to reflect this goal of not depending on my ex. That way, when he DOES give me child support money each week, it will go directly to debt. I don't think I make enough to cover all my bills by myself, but I do think I can come close if I increase my income with the tax thing and decrease my debt payment by doing the balance transfer and then quickly paying off my car (which should free up 250$ a month to put towards credit cards).

I think this will give me a real emotional boost.