Money Trouble

This is something I hate to talk about. Money. I'm not good with it. I was never taught how to handle it and I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. But over the years I've learned to be okay with it. Still not as good as seemingly everyone else in the world, but I get by. A few years back, my student loans were coming due. We were in far worse financial situation at that point, and I really wanted to get a Ph.D. I made the decision, probably a bad one, to go get my Ph.D. It would delay my student loans and when I had it I would make a lot more money and could pay my student loans. This was probably a mistake. But I did it. Well, in November I ran out of money to complete my Ph.D. and had to stop. I am now facing the repayment of my student loans starting up again. I am in a better financial position, but not that much better. So now I am facing that same situation again and I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

There are options and I'm just not sure which one is the best one. I could get a part time job. I'm not working on my Ph.D. so I have some spare time, so a part time job would not be out of the question. I'm definitely getting a part time job over the summer. I hope that Kamehameha needs me this summer. I may still get a part time job on top of Kamehameha. That would bring in some money.

I could give up Crossfit. Again. I really like Crossfit though and am only going 8x a month. I do need to give up the 24 membership though, not even using that at all.

I had hoped we'd be able to refinance the house, but turns out that is not possible. I don't want to do that anyway. I want to get the most money possible out of this place, so refinancing and taking some money out is not what I want to do.

The thing I keep coming back to is that we could leave Hawaii earlier than planned. The plan was to wait until next year because of my Ph.D. and Hubby's social security. We sell the house. We clear $250,000. We move to the mainland. We pay cash for a place. We settle down and start over. Why delay it another year now? We are going to struggle and scrimp and suffer for another 15-16 months and then do it. Why wait? Why not do it now? It will take a lot of work, but it could be done. This way, we move to the mainland and I will have the money to continue my Ph.D. and get a higher paying job. I have seen houses for under $100k in Kingman, AZ. That would leave us $150k to get an RV, invest, pay bills, whatever. But it would put us in a much better financial position. By the time we got there and got settled, Hubby would be getting social security, I get paid through the summer, so we would have money to start. I could start looking for work in AZ now. I cannot see why we should stay any longer. UGH!!!!! Convincing Hubby is going to be the problem.

I feel like I'm at a crossroads and need to make the right choice or everything will fall apart. I just don't know what to do and I wish someone would just tell me which choice is the right choice.