After only one year, I stopped the business. Notice, I said I stopped the business, not that it failed, but I stopped. Within the year, I did not replace my previous income and the bills continued to pile up despite my efforts to bring in additional income. During the housing crisis and real estate bubble bursting, I got behind on my mortgage payments. I tried to short sale my home. I had a buyer! But the bank was so slow in approving the sell that the buyer rescinded their offer just one month before the bank finally approved the sell.

In 2010, I reluctantly returned to the government. I should have been ecstatic, right? After all, how many times do you get opportunities to be employed by the US government. But I was not. I was no longer living my dream and I must admit that self employment felt great! 4 months into the job, my 46 year old aunt went to sleep one night and did not wake up the next day. I was shaken to my core. It was the first time I had experienced the death of a very close loved one and in such uncertain circumstances.

Dream gone. Aunt Tammy gone. Foreclosure looming (or eminent)

I spiraled into depression. I had no idea what I was doing work wise, no explicit direction in what my work was, and continued change in management with unknown, yet different expectations 😵 and I'm enduring this in order to keep a house that I may or may not be able to keep. I attempted to get a mortgage modification. The banks verdict was for me to pay $150 less a month. But on this new job, I was getting $40,000 less a year. That math didn't add up so I did not agree to the modification.

2011, I lost my second home to foreclosure.

I moved back into my first home which was not in the best neighborhood. And a few months later a stray bullet came through my house in the middle of the night while I was upstairs sleeping. Feeling unsafe about my surroundings, I left that house again. I rented it out again. But this time, in desperation, I didn't choose the best tenant. In less than a year the tenant stopped paying rent which means mortgage payments weren't being made.

2012, I surrendered my first home in a deed in-lieu of foreclosure.

In the years to follow, I continued to fight depression, left my second government job, buried my three of my four grandparents, filed for bankruptcy, got married and finally got divorced.

Whew

My financial picture 10 years ago is drastically different from what it is now. There are so many things money related I learned that I wish someone would have told me as far as starting a business, leaving a job, buying a home, foreclosure, bankruptcy, death, marriage and divorce.

But I have survived.

This is why I am so passionate about being a money beacon for others-so that their life transitions are easier than mine. These life events may seem to be a financial ruin but I will show you how you can come out stronger because of it.

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