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Hey man, I know you don't like me for my bluntness but maybe you should come over here and have too much beer and I'll give you a pep-talk..... Also, try to step away from this site a bit more. With a mindset like that it can become addictive & unhealthy.....you, like anyone else, deserve to be happy!

Financial Stability/Success

Funny you should mention that! It is all I have thought a out as of late.I was married most my life. I am now 39 and have been single for 5 years. I by far didn't realize the toll and difficulty that was in store for me in restablishing my family. My children needed my full attention and so I began to work far less. The toll to my emotions was thrown on the back burner and left smoldering. ( Long story to short) I began charging the bills and also failed to alter my old lifestyle in a timely manor. I sunk myself but good.
I finally have come out of a fog and self imposed exile to examine where I am at and where to head from here. I have spent the last year clearing the cobwebs and facing the music. As I neared the surface from the hole I had dug I began to indulge in wine more often and realized sloooowwwwlllyyy that I had began to seek it out for avoidance therapy. That being a huge no no I have decided it was time to face what is haunting me. The weight of carrying my family on my own is more then a wrenching responsibility. Living in California is expensive (Granted I am well paid.) but many a night in recent time I walk through this house and think all this is my burden. So I began to strip it of its material build up. ( Man did I load it down in my past "Money is My God" phase.) Suddenly all that crap was a burden. It just didn't hold anything for me anymore. I now realize I still walk the floors and it wasn't REALLY what was troubling me. Like you Carrie, I live paycheck to paycheck so to speak. God forbid I took ill or anything. This place is 1700 a month etc..... I don't have family money to save me or child support.... Although living well, I also have always lived to the end of my means. Knowing that the nest egg I have created is of great comfort I decided not to squander it on trips but store it for security. Though it pained me to cancel my trips and disappoint people, I have this secure feeling that I can hold my own in the face of an emergency. Something I have not known in 5 years. Yet and again I realize that it isn't the solution just a wise move. I am trading time for dollars. I have run out of time so I need to switch careers too. Which means I need to hunker down and study and get the job done without comfort zones for a while.
I believe it is important to safeguard your future more now. I don't know if we can count on Social Security or if that is really a survival method even IF you lived meager and humble. My grandparents are 87 and still able to live alone and well with the money they tucked away for these years. My grandfather had a heart to heart with me over Christmas. He believes that my future is in Real Estate. That owning property is the way to go. ( As he has done.) I have decided I agree with him. Its a great concept for me. Therefore I am going to have to make some serious changes and pull a rabbit out of my hat.