I'm 43 years old and in 17 months, want to move out of town. This would be the very first time I move with no one helping me. I am scared to death!

I have honestly been living financially off of my ex-husband for years. Daycare income fluctuates. I seem to average $300/week. I can barely afford my bills. My ex-husband pays my rent and I often get extra money from him for groceries, gasoline, and occasionally have to get him to pay a bill or two for me. I don't know how in the world I expect to be able to move!

But I can't stand the area I live in and really want to move to a better area when my daughter graduates high school. I would like to move to the area my older daughter lives in (where she goes to college). It's a mid to upper class area, people are more respectful to each other, more neighborly, the children have more respect and manners, the area is cleaner, people speak properly, etc. Where I live now, honestly scares me! I literally witnessed a gang of teenagers yelling at a man in a parked truck. Then the man opened his truck door, pulled out a machete and started chasing the teenagers with it! There have been a handful of people who have been shot in my neighborhood. There's a lot of drug and gang activity here. My daughter and I don't socialize in my neighborhood, so we should be left alone and stay safe enough. But, this is definitely not where I want to live for too long. My ex refuses to help us move, and I'm completely broke, so I have to stay here for now. I am hoping to be able to move once my daughter graduates high school.

My problems are:

I don't know how much money I should set as a goal to have to be financially ready to move.

I have credit issues and items in collections as well. I don't know if I should work on saving money to move or work on paying off my debt.

I don't know if and when I should try to establish employment in the area I want to move to. It's about an hour away, and it is common for people to drive an hour to work. But the money I would spend on gasoline, I could save towards moving.

My thoughts and things I have looked into:

I have thought about getting a weekend job in the area I want to move to so I could establish employment there and get to know the area (jobs, housing, etc.) but would only be spending gas money 2 days/week driving there instead of 5 days (for a full-time job there).

I have looked around at apartments in the area I want to move to. The typical apartment will be about $1,000 to 1,200/month.

I have spoken with a couple of licensed home daycare providers there and they say there is a real need for daycare providers. So, if and when I get a house that I could do daycare in, I can get back into my true profession.

I just don't have a clue as to how to go about preparing to move to a new town. I know it's pathetic that I am 43 years old and am scared to death and clueless about this. But every time I've moved, it was when I was a kid and my parents did everything to move, my boyfriend (now ex-husband) got us an apartment to move in together, when we were married, I just found a house I liked and told my husband to 'get me that one', and after getting divorced, my ex has done everything to move me (except I did make the calls to turn the utilities in my name). Honestly, my ex has completely taken care of me moving since I was 18 years old. I have no clue how to prepare (financially and job wise) to move!

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

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