Wow, sounds a LOT like my husband. I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind. I learned a lot about ADHD at this forum: http://connect.additudemag.com/groups/group/Couples_With_One_ADHD_Partner, including how to help my husband schedule things better, remember what he was supposed to do without nagging, things like that. It does get easier and honestly I was relieved to find out that I wasn't going crazy, it was simply ADHD (I say "simply" but you know what I mean!)

I'm coming into this thread late, but I've gotten a lot of help for ADHD Teen questions at this forum: http://connect.additudemag.com/groups/group/Parents_of_ADHD_Teens_and_Young_Adults. It's specifically for parents of teens and young adults with ADHD.

I was on hold with them last week for about 30 minutes. They got on, verified my information, then put me on hold for about 2 minutes, came back and told me they couldn't verify my information even though they just had. Then told me that they couldn't talk to me and hung up. I was flabbergasted. I think maybe he confused me with another caller, is the only thing I can think of. It was really weird.

We've talked to a tax accountant, who advised us to get off the incorporation foolishness that got us in this mess in the first place and go back to simply filing as self-employed. I don't sell anything, I am a freelance writer. So that makes sense. Unfortunately, it got us into huge tax debt that first year and it's snowballed since then. All the tax accountant person did was give us that information and tell us to keep making payments.

I'm willing to do whatever I can reasonably and realistically do. I don't know if selling my house is something that fits in there. Our area has been hit hard and we would barely get what we paid for it at this point.

I've contacted a Dave Ramsey financial counselor in the area. Online his in-house counselors charge $500 just for ONE SESSION. :001_huh:

We've contacted a couple of realtors and they flat out told us that we can't sell our house with a tax lien. One told me to do a short sale. I have no idea how those work - and I don't know if it would take care of the tax issue.

I have an Excel spreadsheet of monthly expenses. I have money directly deducted to go into savings for taxes. But it's never there by the end of the month. My husband's "love language" is to buy gifts, so he is constantly spending. If I tell him that this is a burden, he gets very hurt. It's hard to understand, for me, why he continues to do this when he knows we are in so much debt.

Hello folks - Okay, so here's the story. We are absolutely just not able to figure out where to even start with our financial mess. We are *trying* to do the Dave Ramsey thing, with the Baby Steps, but I feel like I just don't have a good handle on what's going on. I would appreciate any advice from financially wise people who have gone through similar stuff as I'm going to list below (for a quick background, neither me or DH ever got ANY kind of financial info from our parental units, so we've been pretty much flying by the seat of our pants for 20 years). 1) Bad advice from MIL got us into tax trouble. Long story short, I'm self-employed, and I can't pay my taxes from year to year. We owe around $30k to feds, $6k to state. We are on a payment plan, but it's exorbitant, and it takes all the money for THIS year's taxes to put on PAST taxes. This has been going on for five years now. 2) We have no savings. My husband has been in and out of work for about three years and just last month got the best job of his life (Praise the Lord!). We are happy about that. Between the two of us we make really good money. However, most of it is gone by the end of the month, with little to nothing in savings, tax savings, or emergency fund. 3) We are wondering if we should sell our house to pay for the taxes. I think if we were lucky we would get enough money to pay off the debt in full or at least most of it. However, we have horrible credit, always have had horrible credit for 20 years, declared bankruptcy last year (chapter 13) but they put us on such a high monthly payment that we couldn't keep going with it. Our house has a few minor things wrong with it, and the market is terrible. If you've read this far, thank you. We really don't know how to even get started. We've lived hand to mouth for many years and have made immature choices. We really want to grow up financially, but we don't know where to start. The tax debt is the most pressing thing, but I just don't know where to start. thank you in advance.

I was a member of Weight Watchers for many years. I never lost more than five pounds. The caloric restrictions were too strict for me; I was ALWAYS hungry and ended up cheating. The only thing that has worked for me is to eat a high protein, low carb diet. No white flour or sugar, only whole grains. I eat around 50-100 carbs a day, never feel hungry, and am losing about 4 pounds a week pretty steadily. Your mileage may vary, but if you're hungry a lot and don't like counting points, you might want to check it out.

preach it sister! :)

(this reminds me, I need to finish my WordPress 101 book for this very purpose!) If you have a WordPress install, then you have access to thousands of free templates within your dashboard, under Appearance. You'll need to know what server, username, and password you should send these to; your hosting company should be able to provide you with that. Alternatively you can download a free FTP program, like Filezilla, and upload your themes and plugins that way as well. Find a theme you want and start customizing it with widgets (under Appearance). You'll also want to visit the Settings area to customize how your meta data looks, how search engines visit you, and permalinks. Then you can start downloading plugins that will further customize your site. Akismet is especially popular since it kicks out spam; you will need to sign up for an API key. Boy, the more I write the more I need to write. I really need to slap together a WordPress 101 ebook or something, because there are a lot of details here that I'm assuming you know but you might not know, which will really make you frustrated, and nobody wants that. :>) :tongue_smilie:

Yep, totally true. I just pointed that out because many people don't know that Google Apps is set up that way regarding email.

Yes, isn't that interesting (about Google fighting)? Also, to clarify why you can't use two different accounts without signing in and out: Google uses cookies to keep you signed in to your account. The Google sign-in cookie only lets you sign in with one account at a time. In the past, Google Apps accounts were cookied separately from Google Accounts, so you could sign in to both your Google Account and your Google Apps account in the same web browser. Your Google Apps account has undergone a transition, and now functions more like a full Google Account. Your account uses the standard Google sign-in cookie, allowing you to sign in to only one account at a time. Gmail, Calendar, Sites, Docs, Google Code, Reader, and Profiles, you can use the multiple sign-in option to sign in to multiple accounts simultaneously. But not Google Apps, apparently. What your admin can see or not see: Your admin has access and ownership of any data stored in this account, like Picasa web albums, Google Sites pages, and.....here's the kicker....email. Yikes. The ownership part is according to Google's privacy policies. They have no access to your account(s) outside of what they are administering. As far as I can tell search history is not enabled for Google Apps accounts unless the admin specifically turns it on. However, they can see your email, logins, and IP address(es). What Google does with your info They will automagically scan all your info in order to personalize your experience; this is automated and they could care less what you're doing in there UNLESS it crosses their TOS and then they will auto-flag it and send info to the admin. I kinda do this sort of stuff for my "real" job so sorry for the long-windedness....I just get into it. Search Nerds of the world, unite!:tongue_smilie:

Your school account and personal account are two different entities, so yes, you would have to sign out of one in order to use the other. If you are on Google+, you can use the Google+ Toolbar to easily switch between two different accounts. However, you do have to be at least signed in, and you have to start from Google+. I see this changing eventually to include all Google services. The school tech admin can't see your searches. The only way for he or she to see those would be to be signed into your Google account and view your search history within your Web browser. This is tracked by cookies so it would have to be your computer, afaik. Nobody can see your searches except Google and they are only using them as part of a much bigger picture, i.e., personalization.

Oh, Joanne. Praying for you guys. :grouphug:

Hi there, thanks for checking in. He's been home for a few weeks now. We're taking one day at a time. So far, so good. That's all I really want to say for now; it's been an exhausting summer to say the very least, and I need to conserve my energy. :>)] I so appreciate all the advice, well wishes, and prayers coming our way. You guys are amazing. :grouphug:

That is beautiful.

LOL!! You betcha! And I, too, believe in baked goods!! :tongue_smilie:

Thank you for sharing this. This was an encouragement to me, and I'm so sorry for your loss. You sound like an amazing person. :grouphug: Especially this: " I am so sorry but most people do not want to accept that bad things do happen to good people. If they can pretend you do not exist they will not have to face the uncertainty that defines real life for all of us." That pretty much sums up what I've been (not so successfully) trying to get across in this post. I think people here figure that our sad little problems will somehow rub off on them?

We've repeatedly invited people. MANY times. We are turned down, or they have other plans, or they just don't show up. I, personally, have invited women for coffee dates, etc., and I am politely but firmly blown off, ignored, or stood up. I know that to get good friends you have to be a good friend. Maybe I just don't know how to do that. Everyone seems to want to be our friends, but when push comes to shove (like inviting us anywhere, etc.) nothing happens. We've done everything we know how to do on our end. I think tragedy also tends to turn people away. And we've had a lot of tragedy in our lives. People just don't know how to relate.

This is EXACTLY what happens to us. I'm lucky if I get ONE coffee date or whatever a year, these women seem to do something every day with one another. Of course I do work, and I have a special needs child, but I am a pretty open friendly person and I try to reach out to people. It's just never reciprocated. I get the "oh let's get together" thing constantly, but no follow-ups, and if I try to follow up, I get blown off. Politely, of course. I'm beginning to see that if you haven't lived here for your entire life, like to get completely drunk off your noggin at every gathering, and have tons of money to blow on pedicures and coffee dates every day, then you're out of the loop. That sounds awful but it's what is going on.

We've been here ten years. I think it's a clique-y kind of thing, honestly. we're looking to move back closer to family, but that could take a while.

Facebook. Which has become more of a curse than a blessing. It's difficult to see the constant get-togethers of people that we've had over to our house multiple times and never been reciprocated. I've started just taking people off my wall because it's painful and I don't need the reminder of being an outsider.

We have invited people, tried to make friendly with folks, always go out of our way to help people when they need it, etc. And I would have no idea how to confront people on how they're not being good friends. No clue. I really don't know how to handle this situation. I have no idea on how to make it better. I just know that I'm really tired of being on the outside looking in, and add that to all the problems we've had in the last year I'm just exhausted.