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It's been years since I've been here but decided it was time to get reacquainted with everyone and also keep good financial sense in mind daily.
Originally I came to this forum because husband and I were up to our eyeballs in debt. We were living large in a big, fancy house and our kids were spoiled.
Then tragedy struck and our oldest, then 5 years old was diagnosed with Cancer. Around the same time our other child, then 3, was diagnosed with epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Luckily our oldest is now a thriving 11 year old although it's still a rough road medically with our other kiddo.
The combination of our terrible financial skills, our desire to keep up with the Joneses and then medical bills from 2 1/2 years of chemo treatment and then therapies and medications for both kids nearly threw us into bankruptcy. After our oldest's treatment we were scraping by paycheck to paycheck. In the city where we lived we were not getting adequate care for our other child's medical needs so we ended up traveling frequently which continued to drive us further into debt.
Last year both DH and I were emotional, physically and financially drained. We could no longer maintain the status quo. Our giant house with vaulted ceilings was no longer the Mansion of our dreams but a financial prison that cost $450 a month just to heat and cool.
In addition I had shopped and hoarded a lot of things. Closets were stuffed full of things I neither could afford or needed.
After long night discussions we decided to sell as much as we could, sell our house and pay off our debts. Start clean. Do to the extensive travel we had to do for my son's medical needs, we researched where the best place to relocate.
Husband was able to secure employment and we moved. I had to clean out every single closest and came face to face with my poor spending decisions. It was brutal and depressing. But with each closet I went through to with every thing I sold or gave away, I became lighter. Without debt we moved to a new location close to medical. Instead of our McMansion we Bought a modest home in a great school district. We are definately the small fish in the big pond here as there are a lot of big, fancy homes. But for us, that is just a beautiful jail. Our new neighborhood is made up of 1970's and 1980's built homes. We are surrounded on all sides by much newer and larger dwellings. The folks in our neighborhood all seem to not care for the rat race and I am glad I get to be around that mentality.
We are for the first time in our lives, budgeting. That means much less toys for the kids but the financial security allows me to sleep at night. I'm amazed at after the initial adjustment, the kids are doing well. They go outside and run in the forest and play on the tire swing. They don't seem to care we no longer have a $2000 play set.
Anyway, that is the start of our new chapter. We are slowly building up two emergency funds, one for general stuff and one for medical. For anyone who deals with cronic conditions, insurance even as good as ours is, just doesn't cover a lot of costs.
This new life at times is still not easy but we are learning it's each day.
Look forward to getting to know you all again.
Originally I came to this forum because husband and I were up to our eyeballs in debt. We were living large in a big, fancy house and our kids were spoiled.
Then tragedy struck and our oldest, then 5 years old was diagnosed with Cancer. Around the same time our other child, then 3, was diagnosed with epilepsy and cerebral palsy. Luckily our oldest is now a thriving 11 year old although it's still a rough road medically with our other kiddo.
The combination of our terrible financial skills, our desire to keep up with the Joneses and then medical bills from 2 1/2 years of chemo treatment and then therapies and medications for both kids nearly threw us into bankruptcy. After our oldest's treatment we were scraping by paycheck to paycheck. In the city where we lived we were not getting adequate care for our other child's medical needs so we ended up traveling frequently which continued to drive us further into debt.
Last year both DH and I were emotional, physically and financially drained. We could no longer maintain the status quo. Our giant house with vaulted ceilings was no longer the Mansion of our dreams but a financial prison that cost $450 a month just to heat and cool.
In addition I had shopped and hoarded a lot of things. Closets were stuffed full of things I neither could afford or needed.
After long night discussions we decided to sell as much as we could, sell our house and pay off our debts. Start clean. Do to the extensive travel we had to do for my son's medical needs, we researched where the best place to relocate.
Husband was able to secure employment and we moved. I had to clean out every single closest and came face to face with my poor spending decisions. It was brutal and depressing. But with each closet I went through to with every thing I sold or gave away, I became lighter. Without debt we moved to a new location close to medical. Instead of our McMansion we Bought a modest home in a great school district. We are definately the small fish in the big pond here as there are a lot of big, fancy homes. But for us, that is just a beautiful jail. Our new neighborhood is made up of 1970's and 1980's built homes. We are surrounded on all sides by much newer and larger dwellings. The folks in our neighborhood all seem to not care for the rat race and I am glad I get to be around that mentality.
We are for the first time in our lives, budgeting. That means much less toys for the kids but the financial security allows me to sleep at night. I'm amazed at after the initial adjustment, the kids are doing well. They go outside and run in the forest and play on the tire swing. They don't seem to care we no longer have a $2000 play set.
Anyway, that is the start of our new chapter. We are slowly building up two emergency funds, one for general stuff and one for medical. For anyone who deals with cronic conditions, insurance even as good as ours is, just doesn't cover a lot of costs.
This new life at times is still not easy but we are learning it's each day.
Look forward to getting to know you all again.
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