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  • Writer's pictureGrace

Where We've Been, Where We're from, and Financial Backstory Part 1

Updated: Jul 16, 2021

I feel like it's a bit hard to pinpoint things or make them clear in my writing without giving you some background. We've lived all over and I feel like it is a bit confusing to my readers to really know where/what I'm talking about so I thought I would do a couple posts to try and give you guys some history that might make it easier to follow along with my stories.


My husband was born in TN but moved to WV around 6 years old and was raised in two different areas in WV. I was born in KY, my family moved to GA when I was 2 and then to VA when I was 5. When I was 15 my parents moved (I was the only child left at home by then) to Indiana. I typically claim Indiana as where I'm from as it was where the most formative years of my life were spent. My husband and I met during the time we were moving to Indiana. I lived in Indiana until I was 18 and we got married. After the wedding, we loaded wedding gifts and the few belongings we had and headed 2,000 miles west to Idaho to a ranch my husband had gotten a job at. We lived right on the Washington border and when we left that job we moved across the border into Washington State. We loved that ranch and it was hard to leave but we were expected to both work 50-60 hours a week for only $800/mo. We both understood that there are a lot of hours that go into Agriculture, but we didn't sign up to make $2.00/hour. It wasn't realistic to work that much for that little pay and we wanted more time to spend together with each other. My husband got a job working for a small grain elevator and they started him out at $9.00/hr. This was in 2009 and jobs were hard to find and rent was high where we lived. We were just starting out and had $0 to our name. We had paid for our own wedding and honeymoon ourselves and the ranch hadn't given us much of an opportunity to save anything. Both of us were new to having bills and neither of us had any financial training. Cue the overwhelm. We were trying our hardest but we had no idea what we were doing! When my husband got a job at the grain elevator for $9.00/hr, I got a job at a grocery store working for $8.56/hr. I worked 35 hours a week and my husband worked 40. That was a step up except that our rent was $1,000/mo plus utilities, our car was broke down, we had a car loan, and still no idea what we were doing. We didn't have money to repair our car and ended up buying a car for $200 (I wish I had pictures of it!) and drove that while continuing to pay off our car loan. I took public transportation to work and my husband drove the car as he worked out of town and I worked in town and could get to work by bus. We just thought you had to work hard, be frugal, spend as little as possible, and pay your bills on time. Needless to say, life felt pretty overwhelming.


After a year, our lease was up and we were looking for somewhere more affordable to live. I was also pregnant with our first baby and I was so sick. I worked in the meat and seafood department of a grocery store and I was throwing up all the time and could not stand the smell. We decided it would be best if I quit and stayed home as it was the plan that I would be home after the baby was born anyways. We found an apartment for $700/mo with W/S/G included. We were now living on one income but my husband had gotten several raises and was making $11.00/hr. He liked his work and he had good bosses and we were very thankful. He was able to work a little overtime and his paychecks were around $700/$800 every two weeks. If you are keeping track, essentially half of our income went just for rent every month. Our electric ran around $150, our car payment was $250, we had a home phone/internet bundle for $65/mo and we paid $65/mo for car insurance. This left approximately $365 for gas, food, savings, and miscellaneous expenditures. Essentially, just don't spend any money on anything!


I picked up baby items at thrift stores and found a brand new carseat in the box, never opened at a consignment shop. Our midwife did our prenatal visits for free, bless her heart. My sister threw a sweet baby shower and we were so blessed. We had everything we truly needed for our little baby. No, we didn't have all the bells and whistles but we had a bed and carseat, a few blankets, a package of sleepers and onesies, some socks, a diaper bag and a few little toys. We emptied a drawer in our dresser and I carefully laid all her little items in there. It was so fun. I felt like the richest person in the world! After our baby was born, my husband got another pay raise and was making $12/hr. Right after we welcomed our little girl, my dad passed away. We made a flying trip back to Indiana for the funeral and all of us kids helped cover the costs as my parents did not have savings to cover it. We pitched in $500 which we were happy to do, but I remember wondering how we would cover rent that month. If my memory serves me right, we had only $175 in savings at the time. After my dad's death we knew we had to change something in our finances. We began looking for even more affordable housing options. We found a trailer house for rent for $450/mo out of town across the state line into Idaho again. It was an older trailer with burnt orange shag carpet, dark paneling on the walls, gold guilt mirrors, and an avocado green and yellow kitchen with the original appliances. It was ugly. But it was peaceful. It was just out of town and our neighbors had horses and chickens. I loved hearing the rooster crow every morning. The views out our windows were lovely and we finally had a washer and dryer in our home! What a blessing with a little baby after having to lug laundry up and down 3 flights of stairs to go to the laundromat and do laundry when we lived in the apartment. I really loved that little place. It was the first affordable place for our income level that we had lived in since getting married. I remember finally not feeling like something might get paid late because there wasn't enough money to go around. There was definitely not much extra but it wasn't as tight as it had been. We had paid off the car note on the car that didn't run, sold our little $200 car and bought a truck. It wasn't the smartest thing we've done but we thought that was just normal to have a car loan. Everyone we knew had car loans, except my parents, but they always drove older vehicles that constantly had problems. I didn't know anyone that drove a decent vehicle that didn't have payments. That truck ended up being a real pain and we were underwater on it, meaning that we owed more for the truck than we could sell it for. It was a learning experience for sure! We were making $13/hr by now, our rent was $450, our electric was $250 (average, being a trailer home it was expensive to heat and cool,) our truck payment was $350, our car insurance was $115, our internet was $50/mo, and we had 2 prepaid flip phones for $70/mo. This left us with around $480/mo for gas, food, and any other necessities. It was more than we'd ever had left over before.


We knew we wanted to move from that area. It was a college town so rent was typically high and wages were low. It was hard to find decent, full time jobs that paid well without a college degree. We had wanted to move to Montana for years. We had looked and applied to jobs but nothing opened up. We committed it to the Lord and trusted that if we were really supposed to move to Montana, He would open doors in His time. In December of that year (2011) I was on craigslist looking for cheap or free furniture the college students were getting rid of so that we could fix them up and resell them for extra money. For some reason I clicked on the job postings. I NEVER looked in the job postings! Right there on top was a job posting for Montana in the Idaho craigslist!!! It was for a shift supervisor for a grain elevator in Montana. I knew my husband had all the qualifications. I waited for my husband to come home from work that evening and showed him the post. We prayed about it and my husband decided that he would put in his resume. We thought it was a long shot because every other door had slammed when we tried to move but you never know until you try! He spent the next few evenings writing his resume and sent it off one night around midnight. The very next morning after sending it, he got a call from the company on his way to work and they set up a phone interview. We were floored! It was so fast! He had a phone interview that day over his lunch break and they offered him the job on the spot. We had never heard of this town before although we had heard of the company. We took the job and just like that we were moving 14 hours away in 2 weeks to a town we had never been to and didn't know a soul there. We'd never had an in person interview or really knew what we were getting ourselves into.

We were in for the best adventure of our lives!


To be continued ....





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