getting to a place where no on can hurt you

When the economy crashed and Joe lost his job in Cleveland, we said to ourselves: what can we do so that we never, ever, have to depend on a single person for our paycheck? We created a business. It took over a year before we could even pay ourselves. It took two years to feel financially safe again. Owning a business is hard, but so worth it to know that your job is secure as long as you do your part.

We left a home we loved in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to a nasty fluorescent rental house in Garland, Texas. At the end of the 18 month contract, our landlord sent us a 30 day notice. They were moving back in. 

So we scrambled, with a 2 month old baby, and we moved to another Dallas suburb an hour away. We told our new landlord we wanted to stay here for 3 years; we were hoping to buy a home by then. That was 2011. In April 2014 we signed up to build a home. We asked our landlord if we could extend our time until it was finished. He agreed. "Stay as long as you need," he said.

Yesterday he told us that he needed to move back in. 30 days. Deja vu.  

We are trying to negotiate, to make it worth his while to let us stay a few extra months. Anything to not have to move twice.

I guess we'll do whatever we have to do, and whatever happens, happens.

But here we are again, asking ourselves: what can we do so that we never, ever, have to worry about where we are going to live?

We're going to wait for our home to be built, and we're going to move into it. And then we will get that house paid off as quickly as possible. Because I'm tired of this. I'm tired of other people dictating what we're going to do, and where we're going to live, and how we're going to spend our stress. So just like we took control of our income, we are going to take control of our home. I feel myself hardening, reaching out to create this box of safety, working to get to a place where no one can hurt my family.