Financial Turnaround- Setting the Stage (Part 1)

This is the first part in a series detailing our financial turnaround. Over the next few weeks, I will be detailing how we survived broke, the moment of realization when we knew things had to change, and how we stepped back from the brink.
Five years ago my financial life was chaos. I had a 4 year old son, an infant, my husband was a full-time student and I was working full time at a payday loan place making only $8 an hour. We were broke. It was so bad after the birth of my second son, that I forged a doctor’s release to go back to work just shy of four weeks after his birth, because I had no paid leave.
The funny thing is, we racked up zero new debts during this period, except for a small student loan for my husband. It was hard. Those are by far the hardest years of my life. There were weeks when I didn’t know what we were going to eat. They are also some of our happiest years. My husband and I learned we were a team, and that we didn’t need money or even stability to be happy together. My eldest son remembers lots of long days at the park, a ‘one-day vacation’ we took, and time spent in the kitchen cooking with me. My youngest remembers very little, but that time period enabled us all to bond with the new baby without the distractions of constant consumerism.
While we didn’t incur new debts, one of the things holding us back was old debts. $20,000 worth of old debts between the two of us. These were so old there was no longer any minimum monthly payments, oh no no. It was pay us now notices overflowing the mailbox each day. There were credit card accounts from my college days, closed out now and demanding payment. Medical bills, car collections on a vehicle that was totaled without insurance, and old student loan debts. There were sundry bills large and small, all in collections, all waiting in the mailbox each day.
We ignored them, we had no choice at this point. We didn’t make enough to scratch by on the day to day living, let alone enough to pay for past mistakes. This was just how our lives were so we stuck our heads in the sand and lived well below the poverty line for a long time.
I know what it’s like to be poor. I know the feeling when bellies are grumbling and there is no food. I know the fear of homelessness lurking around every corner. I know how unstable life is when a small emergency can send the entire house of cards tumbling down. Thinking back on some of those days right now, in my sunny office in my own house, with money in the bank right now, is still causing my stomach to lurch and my heart to beat a bit faster.
But we survived those days. They made us stronger, closer, and smarter. And looking back, there was a lot of laughter, hugs and happiness. The things that really mattered. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I am going to share our story. How we survived on only $16,000 a year. What the defining moment was, when we realized we couldn’t live in fear of debt and poverty any longer. How we rebuilt our lives and found the modest success we have today. Maybe you have also been there, maybe you are there now. Hopefully, some of what we did and learned can help you start your own financial turnaround.