THIS IS VERY LONG, JUST A FAIR WARNING!!

So before the pandemic in February, we decided to make a move back to my home state since finding out about our new addition! We are young (22 and 21) and have a 3 year old. We moved when my son was 10 months old to the state over, 3 hours away from family. Well, when we were moving, we were ecstatic! We only had one problem, we never looked at the house we were renting.. biggest mistake I’ve ever made. So we get our moving truck packed, send in our deposit and first months rent, get most of our utilities turned on and we were on our way! I get to the house first, my fiancé drove the moving truck. It was around 3 in the morning so I couldn’t see much. It was freezing cold in the beginning of February with snow and ice all over the place and I naturally went in to turn the heat on while my son was in the car and we waited about 20 minute in the car. I was super excited to show my little man the new house and show him his new room and the backyard it had. I take my son inside, ITS FREEZING COLD!!!! I checked the baseboard heaters and they weren’t even warm!! I completely freaked out! I had a space heater in the car so I hooked that up but I didn’t help at all. I was livid but I knew we should have went and looked at the house before we moved in. So my fiancé is driving with the moving truck and I call him. I tell him we are going to have to get a hotel for the night because the landlord isn’t answering and there is no way that house was warming up anytime soon. So I book is a hotel, my fiancé gets to the house and “investigates” the house, come to find out, the baseboard heaters are the only heat source for the small 950 sqft house and they don’t work! Ugh! Then he seen the bathroom had holes in it you could see to the basement, many many other things that were not up to code at all! So we just decided we all needed some sleep since it was 6 in the morning now.

The next day came and we call the landlord. It was horrendous talking to him. We tell him the baseboards didn’t work and we had to stay in a hotel, the hole in the floor in the bathroom, no coverings on the outlets, a couple more things wrong and his response was absolutely terrifying! He said he couldn’t do anything about it that we had to get it fixed ourselves! At this point, I wanted the money back from my deposit and the rent and wanted nothing to do with it.After bickering back and forth, I called the health department and they came out. They told me he is such a problem landlord and CONDEMNED THE HOUSE! It was not habitable you any means. I can’t remember what the house temp had to be to consider it being habitable but it was 56 degrees in the house! If it wasn’t for the health department, I would have never gotten that money back. So, now that that headache was gone, we had no where to live and a moving truck I that had to go back in just a couple of house. A 20 foot? Moving truck filled to the ceiling and absolutely nowhere to put it. I panic as anyone naturally would. So we find a storage locker place about 5 miles from us and they have a special (thank GOD) and the first and second month was free. So I got that headache figured out. Now the bigger question, Where do we go? We are HOMELESS! It sunk in as soon as I said it. In just about 35 hours we went from happy, excited, motivated to homeless... in the blink of an eye. My job was calling and talking about a schedule and I started balling my eyes out. I had to tell them I had to find a place for my son to put his head first. We had $1100 from the rent and deposit and after filling up the moving truck and the storage locker, I didn’t even have enough to move in anywhere. We have to book another hotel. My fiancé gets ahold of his Mom and she is freaking out now and told us to save our money, don’t book a hotel and come stay with her until we can get accepted for another house or an apartment.

So March rolls by and I’m finally able to get back to work. Im a waitress. I was excited to get back to work after working 50+ hours a week and to meet my new coworkers! I work about a week, then the pandemic starts where we live. I could work anymore since they shut the restaurant down. I’m freaking out. We are staying in a little back guest bedroom and I have no way of making money. I didn’t want to file for unemployment because I knew plenty of other people around that needed it more than me I felt like at the time. So, I started doing eBay. Estate sales were about the only way I could think of to make money so I was working out of our storage locker. After about 3 weeks and many apartment complexes and houses not accepting any applications because of the pandemic, we were getting kicked out. My fiancé and his step father didn’t see eye to eye on things about whatever it was (I really don’t even remember) and we had to get out. Now I was back at square one, “Where do we go?” We find a hotel on Priceline that was cheap and I’m freaking about COVID. How do I know that no one there has the virus? How do I know that the hotel was properly cleaned and sanitized?? The virus was so new that the hotel didn’t even know much about it. Looking back, we took so many risks of getting sick jumping from hotel to hotel. So we finally find a hotel that I very nice and cheap enough to find a place but eBay started to fall short since everyone was weary about buying stuff online worried about the items having the virus. Which, was completely understandable and even I didn’t have any product to sell because I didn’t want to risk getting sick going to auctions and estate sales. So now, we have about $300, no-where hiring, just about everyone is closed or shut down due to the virus concerns and a hotel room that is paid for for a week.

UUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

*Im not sure when the stimulus check came into play in this journey but just about all of it went to the hotel. I was the bread winner and my fiancé didn’t work so he didn’t have to file any taxes so he didn’t get one*

It is now beginning of May and we decided that we would try Uber Eats. Our car had just got paid off (I was very proud, 20 and paid off my first car loan!!) and had about 230,000 miles on it. I had an account already set up before the pandemic and did it on the days I didn’t work. So my first night, I made about $120. I was thinking, WOW. Being a waitress in a very small town, I’d make about $50 a night so to make that much in 5 hours was unbelievable to me. ** I was very safe. This was before you had to wear a mask everywhere and before hand sanitizer had a shortage. I didn’t want to get sick and I didn’t want my “customers, people I was delivering to” to get sick either. So I drive for the week and make... $850!!! It would have taken me almost a month to do that waiting tables and I only worked 40 hours that week. I was finally starting to realize we could save money now to get an even better place, in a better part of town and not just “get by”.

So.. we find a house to rent that was $1,200 a month and we had the money for the rent and the deposit. We go to the showing and it was PERFECT! We are so freaking exited to be out of the hotel room. This place we did go and look at (we definitely learned our lesson on that one) and everything was updated and it was incredible! So, like I said earlier, I was making GREAT money on Uber and my car had 230,000 miles on it..... THE HEAD GASKET BLOWS.... ON THE DAY WE ARE SUPPOSED TO GIVE THEM THE RENT AND THE DEPOSIT!! I was completely stressed out. I was embarrassed as well. The day before was all happy and dandy and the next day was like a repeat but different situation a couple of months ago with the house!! So I had 2 options, get a new car and no home or give them the rent and deposit with no way to make any money. You have to have a car to drive food orders so I had to spend all of my money saved up for the new house and get a new car. ***Im just glad and sad I paid it off before the engine blew.*** The landlord was completely sympathetic and told us she would hold our application for an extra 15 days so we could get the money back to move in. BACK AT SQUARE ONE, yet again. I took my newish car and started driving but we came to a halt. We were paying for the hotel room with almost the all the money I was making delivering food. We couldn’t save up any money..

It was a very humbling and learning experience for the both of us. I don’t know what we would have done if hotels had to shut down due to the pandemic. I am extremely grateful for anyone at all who ordered Uber Eats for their breakfast, lunch, dinner or midnight snack. Without you, I would have been homeless with a 3 year old, a baby on the way and without a car!! THANK YOU!!!!!

Fast forward to the end of May, we are spending $1,980 on this hotel and I’ve had enough. It doesn’t have a big enough fridge, everything is starting to open back up, my fiancé found a great paying job and we got accepted for a trailer!!! It’s a BRAND NEW 2020 3 bedroom trailer for $850 a month! We got accepted!!! We move in this coming Wednesday on the 10th and I am so excited. I just hope nothing goes bad or wrong until then because I DO NOT want to be back at square one. I have already got the deposit in, we give them the rent on the day we move in, the utilizes are in my name... AHHHH!!

** Thank you for reading this if you have. I am just very proud of myself for being able to hold myself up during all of this. We are very excited to finally get through all of this. And, I know, there is a lot of different things I could have done during this pandemic that I should have done but at the time, I was just worried about me, my unborn baby, my son and my fiancé’s safety. I know I could have done something different but we are all healthy during all of this and excited to finally move into a home. I will DEFINITELY update this post if something does go wrong! **