Sell the car. Buy a beater with the surplus. Put the $439 a month you were paying for it towards debt.

Since you won't have a car payment, you won't need full coverage insurance. Re-evaluate your insurance needs to drop that payment.

Does your partner work? Can they? I get it if any job would earn the same as you would pay in child care. But can they babysit another kid in your home or something? Take in laundry? Get a job working at a child care center where they can take your son with them?

And you know this, but find a new and better job. Retail experience translates to a lot of different things. Customer service jobs, for example, can pay really well and tend to like people with retail backgrounds. Not saying it's going to be your dream job, but it could pay the bills. Once you get on your feet, then look into learning some skills to get a better job.

I would also not rule out bankruptcy. But if you go this route, you need to really address the reasons why you got into this situation in the first place.

The beneficiary and next of kin are two different things and don't have to be the same person.

TBH, a lawyer is well worth it in this situation. They will sort all of this out for you, deal with creditors, discover all her bank accounts, who she owes money to, file her taxes (that will have to be done), etc. My brother is a lawyer, and when my father died, we still hired a lawyer, if that tells you anything. And my father only had a total net worth of maybe $50K when he died, not some complicated estate. The lawyer was worth his weight in gold. It will probably cost less than you think and will be paid by the estate. Ours ended up saving us more money than we paid to him. For example, her funeral expenses can be paid by the estate instead of by you. My grandmother was still alive when my dad died, which made her next of kin, not us. That ended up saving us a bunch of money on taxes, since my grandmother was in her 90s with no income.

YOU don't owe them squat. Their estate may owe them, but my guess is that their estate was settled long ago and those creditors missed the window of opportunity to file a claim against the estate. I think they are basically SOL.

Pay off the credit card. Then take the other $7,000 and apply it to the principle of the truck. Then take the $600 you were paying towards the credit card each month, and apply it to the principle of the truck each month (in addition to the regular monthly truck payment). You will no longer be upside down on the truck in pretty short order.

And don't ever put yourself in a situation where you will be upside down on a vehicle again.

Where are you located? In about half the country, it's illegal to ask how much you are currently making. Even if you are located where it's legal, I HATE this question and advise people to not answer it. But I don't advise people to just not answer at all. You should respond with the salary you are seeking like, "Based on market rates and my experience, I am seeking a salary of $X." Like a real number based upon the market rate of similar positions in your area and your experience. It is a waste of everyone's time to proceed if you will not accept anything under $150K, but they are unable to offer anything over $120K. If you are eventually offered a position, and find out during the process that it will involve more responsibilities than you realized, then negotiate based on that. But don't just not answer the question at all.

So while I get and appreciate you not wanting to disclose what you are currently making, since it's really only used to low-ball people on offers, I don't understand why you refused to offer your salary expectations, as I don't see any reason to not give that information.

FWIW, I've worked in HR for decades.