SO & I need ideas from you beauties

(Posting anonymously because my stalker seems to be able to do whatever he wants with impunity, and this is one of my only socials... I’m afraid to post any personal details that could ID my account. What are the chances? I tell myself. But he almost killed me so whatever they are, I’m not taking them).

The Point of the Post: I have a feeling that the creative minds here could potentially say something to me that might change my & my SO’s life. I really believe that. So I’m reaching out to you to ask for ideas, no matter how strange or how simple. We want to put our heads together and raise & save a decent sum of 💵 in order to take the next step in our lives together in spite of the challenges we face and in spite of COVID-19.

Disclaimer: we are taking all precautions. We care about our community, local and global.

I’m going to ramble about our background, highlight our skills and include the ideas we’ve had. I would love, and deeply appreciate any input. Lots of places are hiring rn but we both have seriously immunocompromised people in our households (the type of people who could not survive, according to their doctors) so we are holding off on traditional jobs until we make this move together. In case anyone is wondering why we don’t just find random work 💔

BACKGROUND (I’m sorry this is long, definitely skip it if you want to cut to the chase): My man and I want to take the next step and start building a life together. We’ve been best friends for years, known each other half our lives, dated for a few years. We had a marriage pact lol. But we were always in love, and the timing was always wrong until we (I) finally decided, fuck timing. We both come from varying degrees of poverty in an extremely affluent area. He’s lived in homeless and domestic violence shelters, for example, and motels through much of his childhood and he’s used to being told he doesn’t have options... we’re 27. He has never been on a ✈️. I’ve been lucky enough to have a safe harbor of sorts, and I’ve traveled more extensively (islands, Europe) but I’m no stranger to poverty either. Imagine having to boil water to drink and bathe... in the US.... in a place where winters are winters. Searching hard for nickels and dimes to buy a bag of beans. Yeah. We’ve struggle bussed it in this life, a bit, but also been extremely privileged in other ways. We started planning for the next year and he said how much good he felt it would do him to be by the water, and to get away from where we live. He’s experienced police brutality in the little county where we are born (I’m talking no arrest, no crime, taken off his bike, brought out to a quiet place and beaten... he’s still having to get surgeries bc of it 11 years later). And we (mostly he) often get stopped and messed with for no reason. Literally last week we were surrounded by 5 cop cars for hours, unsure of what would happen to us. A street cop randomly ID’d us as we sat parked listening to npr after coming out to look at constellations. We hadn’t been drinking or smoking, he was just indulging my obsession with stars, and took me out bc it was such a clear night. They told us we couldn’t see the stars (???? I think they needed glasses????because I was able to show them East based off of those very stars they claimed were invisible. They also claimed it was cloudy when it was the clearest night I’d seen in ages. Not a cloud in sight, literally). They also said his license wasn’t valid even though he’d gotten his license run by cops a couple weeks before for speeding just one county over. Same state. They call in major backup, and we’re hemmed up for hours while they bring dogs and everything before finally letting us leave. We are feeling trapped here... him most of all, and our mental health is suffering in major ways due to a myriad of things. His things are all linked to this area though so I figure... let’s go. So I say to him, “we plan on moving in together and you’ve been saying you need to be by the water for while. You like to go fishing to decompress. Let’s just move to the beach.“ And he got excited for a bit before he said, “...but that’s a luxury, we should be realistic.” And I was like... “... w-what? Why can’t we have that?” 💔 He agreed, but I could see in his eyes that a part of him felt this to be more of a “pipe dream” than something realistic 💔 💔 💔 . So you can probably imagine how badly I want to show him something beautiful and stable. Like the love he shows me 🥺

CUTTING TO THE CHACE:

So we decided to look at our skill sets and figure out what we could do together to earn $20,000 (more specifically, to save this sum).

OUR SKILLS:

My boyfriend is a contractor but, COVID.

He would typically be doing work on people’s houses... like, most recently, he built a bar at someone’s home. But he’s no longer comfortable working in people’s houses considering all of this.

We considered that he could shift to outside work, like he could retile pools or install outside fixtures or do something like basic lawn care or even win a contract that simply doesn’t involve contact outside of Social Distancing guidelines (though there’s no “simply” about that).

I was a biotech recruiter (finding people jobs/finding jobs people). But illness in my family made it so that I needed to shift gears, as a caregiver. I decided to get a job as a waitress instead. I am no longer a caregiver, but my grief after such a terrible loss took me to some really dark places and I didn’t feel capable of going back to my regular work. I was able to take time off as needed, waitressing, and that gave me some room to heal and tend to my mental health. I was being bar-trained (wanted to be a bartender) when I was furloughed. I promptly entered a training program and am working to become a birth & postpartum doula and CBC [breastfeeding counselor] because ultimately, I want to serve women in underserved communities. This was in my plan, but I went ahead and started training earlier than intended bc of the sudden mandatory time off.

We have different skill sets, and not much equipment. And not much money tbh (cue Kenny Loggins)

But we decided to put our heads together to figure out how we can save around $20,000 to start the next chapter of our lives together.

WE ARE MOVING TO THE BEACH, BABY, and we are going to find ourselves a little peace of mind while we spend that year building a travel fund until maybe a year after travel restrictions lift. That’s when we want to go see some things that we’ve only seen in pictures, and show ourselves what’s possible.

So........ could you help us? 🥺☺️🥰🤓

I’m praying 🙏🏾 for ideas, and I decided to reach out to my eve fam for intellectual support. ❤️

Considering our different skill sets, and the strangled economy, what do you think we could do together (or separately) to jointly raise $20,000?

I had an idea of selling homemade masks, but I have a really strong urge to donate so I want to donate a mask for each one sold at the very least. With that said, I’m having trouble figuring out if the earning potential is really there. But even if it isn’t, we could fund a bigger idea with a small one.

THANKS FOR YOUR BRAIN ENERGY 🧠 ! And thanks for reading all of this if you got this far.

All ideas inside and outside of the 📦 are so so welcome.

And to ANYONE who needs to hear this: you absolutely CAN achieve your dreams, no matter what anyone has told you you can’t have, or cant do. You can. And we’re rooting for you 💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞💞