5 Years Ago Today...

Five years ago today we woke up in this house for the first time....

We had had to move out of where we were renting when we were thrown into the deep end of some pretty serious financial problems as a consequence of a company we did work for filing bankruptcy and owing us a lot of money.

Hubby and I packed up our old house with financial stress hanging over our heads.  And with our five girs, the youngest only 4 months old at the time, we moved into my parents home which was vacant at the time as my mum had passed away some 8 months earlier and my dad was in a nursing home.

We didn't really want to be here but at the same time we were appreciative of the fact that thanks to my siblings we had somewhere to be.

This was not my family home where I grew up but rather where my parents had downsized to some 10 years earlier as they grew older.  Being generous you can call it a 3 bedroom house with a lounge/dining room, kitchen, laundry, one bathroom/toilet and a single garage.  Very small...but better than nothing!

Whilst the move was only some 30 kilometres west of where we had been living it added over an hour each way to hubby's work day.  Stress levels were high to say the least.  Bills were overdue, the phone rang daily with people wanting payments we owed them.

Just over a month after moving in here my dad passed away.

Not knowing what we were doing or where we were headed we tried to keep the girls in their same school and preschool til we had a chance to sort ourselves out.  We weren't sure what was going to happen with the house as it would have to be sold within a certain timeframe etc...

Miraculoulsy we were able to buy the house....primarily because one fifth of it was mine as a result of the inheritance...so we only had to buy four fifths....if that makes sense! 

Now we were able to move the girls to the local primary school and preschool as we were all over the traveling and we could see that we wouldn't be moving anywhere else in the foreseeable future.

So five years on we have managed to work off all of the debt that we had as a result of the bankruptcy.

Finances are tight and expenses always seem to outweigh income.  We are truly outgrowing the house, especially the one bathroom/toilet part!  And the traveling to and from work really wrecks hubby by the end of his six day week.

There have been positives that we can take from the last 5 years...like the fact that the girls enjoy a good op shop and that they can see that you have to be sensible with money.

I would love to be able to somehow contribute financially to the household over the next few years to ease the pressure off hubby...but at this stage I have no idea how I am going to do that...but I'll keep thinking!

Not too sure what the future holds or where we will end up...but we'll keep moving forward one day at a time.