Hurricane Michael ruined everything

byKristenaC

111 followers

Updated 5 years ago

It is time to vent a little

So this particular article is just a little venting of some sort, nothing in about wealthy affiliate or making money online, well it may be a little about how I ended up here.

CAT5 hurricane

My home was hit by a CAT5 hurricane back on October 10, 2018 and my life has just been going down hill since then. My home was spared by the grace of GOD, but my life was not. Our town was damaged so bad that we have lost half our businesses and half our residents have moved away. It is now May of 2019 and things are not back to normal around here at all, we still have people living in tents, homeless, and are having to lay off about 600 educators. We have one fully functioning hospital (the other has been knocked down to only 75 beds) and people can't find affordable housing because the vultures have jacked up all of the prices on rentals around here.

Before the hurricane I had a position working from home making good money with all my benefits paid for and the benefits were great. I always had money to spare for extras and emergencies and all bills were paid early and on time. Things were going great and stress wasn't as bad (just children and husband stress). For almost 3 years things were looking up for us and running smoothly and I had a budget that I stuck to like glue.

Then the hurricane hit us! We had little damage to our home but we had no cable or internet (remember I worked from home) and most of the town was still out power (we lucked out and had power 3 days after the storm). My company helped me out, my coworkers helped me out, and were understanding. I was salary based so I was still getting paid even though I was not able to work. However, 2 months went by and we still did not have internet and had no idea when we would get it back so the company let me go. I was devastated!! I lost everything, my cushy income and all of the benefits that came with it.

You want to know the worst part? We got our internet back up a week after I was laid off. Can you believe that crap luck?

What to do now?

Now I have no job, no benefits, and my husband's income is basically commissioned based because he is a truck driver and only gets paid when he delivers his loads and if he is off for too long his first pay after getting back on the road goes all to his expenses because they accumulate whether he is driving or not. Oh and let us not forget that just before the hurricane hit we had just bought me a new truck with a high payment on it.

The jobs are plentiful here in our town because of the many residents that left and moved elsewhere but because I have spent so much time working from home and have social anxiety I have a hard time working outside of my home. I mean I don't even like going to the store by myself, I have to have someone go with me so I can focus on them and not all the judgy eyes around me.

I have searched and searched for a position that pays me even close to what I was making at the other position, but they all want me to do phone work and unfortunately my home is full with my 3 younger kids, my oldest child and her two kids and her partner, and my little sister who lost her home due to the hurricane and I only live in a 3 bedroom home with no quiet space to do phone work, plus to be completely honest my social anxiety has progressed to even the phone (I have a hard time calling people, they have to call me). I have found other positions but they don't pay me enough to even put gas in my truck and they are only temporary positions.

I did get a severance from the old position and I had some money from FEMA for repairs on my home (my kids trampoline went through my daughter's bedroom window, we had some siding missing, and had a little bit of roof damage). I used most of this money to pay bills, make repairs, and I tried to start my own online business. Well that online business required some ads (I am not an SEO expert, Instagram/YouTube/Facebook influencer nor do I know anyone that is) which ended up costing me way too much and ate up everything I had to invest in it. On top of that I hired someone to help me and ended up paying more than what the work was worth because I ended up having to redo everything he did (lesson learned).

Where I am now!

So here I am now. I am beyond stressed because my husband was recently home for 2 weeks which means that his paycheck home was just enough to pay the first of the month's bills (well only some of them) and I have so many more bills that are coming due and he has not made anything and the position I have handling email support for someone decided the work he has for me is not enough and knocked my pay a great deal (this was the money I was going to use to make my truck payment). Now I know I can just turn the truck in but there are two issues with that: 1. I LOVE MY TRUCK!!!! 2. I am trying to rebuild mine and my husband's credit and volunteering your vehicle back to the dealership still goes on your credit as a repo.

SIDE NOTE: We had also booked a cruise before the storm hit us and I lost my job that is non-refundable so we have to go but have no spending money because I can't save money.

So as you can see I am beyond stressed and don't know what to do. I came to Wealthy Affiliate because I had tried this before and even though it was good I did not have the time to invest in it fully at the time so I had to go. I had not made any money with it at the time, but I also hadn't done it long enough to make anything and I am pretty sure I didn't pick the right things at the time because it took me several hours to come up with anything to write (major writer's block). It doesn't cost me much to do this so I thought since I have the time now maybe I should try this again. However, in the meantime I am still looking for other means of income to hold me over until either my husband starts making more or I start making money doing this.

Oh and I am still going to do my other two businesses I started in January, but not until I have the funds to really invest in them.

So there is my venting story. I am still beyond stressed but this does help a little to get some things off my chest. I am going to try and keep going and work hard on this and hopefully this will pan out for me. I chose parenting this time because I am a 41 year old mother of 4 and grandmother of 2 and I am also the oldest child of 7 so I have definitely got the experience and knowledge (not that I am an expert parent because no one can be that. You are always learning with each child you have). I want to give parents a place to go when they feel that they are failing at being a parent so they can see they are not alone. I want to give them a place to read about someone else's story and maybe make them feel better and possibly give them a little laugh and some advice.

I raised all 4 of my children alone (they are not my husband's kids and even after he came into the picture I was still raising them alone because he is on the road all the time) and I would have loved to have a place to help me realize that being a parent is not a job you can be perfect at.

So, thank you for listening to my sob story and please remember that just because things aren't going your way and you feel your life is in shambles doesn't mean you should give up because I gaurantee that there is probably someone out there who is having a harder time than you but they are still going, so you can do it too.