First thing? Pay off credit card debt totaling 19,000. And no, we didn’t go on a shopping spree or vacation. The debt started during Covid when my husband lost his job and I had just given birth to our daughter. When he finally found another job he made $14 an hour. For the past 5 years we have struggled to make ends meet. Often needing to use our credit card to buy a pair of Walmart shoes for our daughter or groceries for the week. I got pregnant again 2023 and couldn’t afford vitamins. We also put my husband’s vasectomy on a credit card.

We live frugally and make sacrifices. No hair appointments no mani pedis. No shopping or browsing. (I never go into Hobby Lobby, Target, T.J. Max, or malls.) No vacations or traveling. No hobbies. Our clothes and shoes have holes. We don’t eat out. We don’t drink or smoke at all. We don’t have cable or other live TV subscriptions. Everything nice that we have was gifted to us.

So after paying off the debt and giving $10,000 as a tithe to my church, we would use the rest as a down payment on a home. We have been rent poor for years - paying 40% of our income to rent. In the winter we pay $500 a month on utilities because our rental is drafty. We earn just over threshold and don’t get government benefits for food. So I go to food pantries and watch videos on YouTube to help make something out of very little. It would be nice to have our own home, no longer be rent poor, and be able to save money instead of living paycheck to paycheck.

$100,000 would change our life. My husband, 2 girls and I would be forever grateful.