Born on Veteran's Day

Why is it when bad stuff happens (money-wise), it all happens at once? I make quite a bit of effort throughout my day to maintain my finances in such a way that we can have most of the things we want in my family. But it seems like just as I get on top of things, and start to get to a point where I can get ahead, something (or somethings) comes along to screw it all up.

This time it was my brilliant college/GI Bill advisor, who recommended a class that I didn't need for my major. For those of you not familiar with the Montgomery GI Bill, you don't get paid if the class doesn't relate to your major in some way. Well, the VA people didn't find out that this class doesn't relate to my major until mid-April. This means that:
a.) It's too late to drop the class without it hurting my GPA.
b.) I've been getting paid for this class for the last 4 months, and will now have to pay back the money (it will come out of my next payment).
c.) I will get paid less for the remainder of the semester than I had anticipated.
d.) This happens just as I'm needing this money to cover the cost of the summer semester.
e.) I've essentially wasted every Friday night of 2009 at school, taking this class, instead of being at home with my family.

Now there are those who may contend with my whiny-ness, stating either that I should have verified that I needed that class before taking it, or I should be happy that I get to go to college for free (in fact I make a little bit of a profit off the whole deal). To those people I would like to blow a juicy raspberry.

First off, you're right, I should have gone behind the advisor and double-checked his work. It was foolish of me to assume he could do his job. In my defense, he lulled me into a false sense of security by taking the time to sit down with me, walk me through the process of enrollment, and answer all my questions to the best of his ability. Little did I know his complete lack of job experience would soon cost me thousands of dollars.

As to the second point, I take offense at the suggestion that the GI Bill is a gift. Yes, I only had to pay $1,200.00 over a period of 12 months (and then another $600.00 kicker) and will, once it is all said and done, reap a benefit from the program of somewhere in the vicinity of $47,628.00, but I really do feel like I've earned that money.

I guess my biggest problem is that fact that he didn't seem all that bothered that he had thrown my life into shambles, completely wrecked my budget (vacation during the Spring/Summer break is looking less and less likely), and made it extremely difficult to pay the mortgage for the next 3 months or so (Which just went up about $200.00 due to some mis-management of my escrow account. Yay for the banking industry. I should have just gone with the ARM, so I could ignore my mortgage payments for a year or 2). When I confronted him on the problem, he gave me a blank stare, followed by, "Well, there's not much I can do for you. Try this lady. Maybe she can help."

It was a wrong number.