Paul lost his job in January of 2008. You are probably thinking that is when we started to panic but you'd be wrong. In the home sales business, it is not uncommon to go from one builder to the next. It happens all the time either by choice or by force. We had been down that road before and, while it wasn't much fun, it wasn't too hard to deal with when you had played the cards right and had enough savings tucked away to see you through to the next employer...which we did.
Except, there was no "next" employer.
Paul had already decided, much to my delight, that he was not going back into real estate. He had decided, much to my chagrin, to give insurance sales another try.
Let me just stop things right here and explain to you a couple of things: while the real estate biz was pretty good to us, I was exhausted from the financial uncertainty that comes with it. We lived by the words, "Some days steak. Some days hot dogs". I was tired of the rollercoaster ride and I wanted off. I was tired of seeing my husband stressed by the business of commission sales and I wanted him off that damn ride, too! But if there's one thing that I hate more than the business of real estate, it's the business of insurance sales. I have said for years that you either must have a solid three years of living expenses in the bank or you really have to hate yourself before getting into insurance sales. It is not for the faint of heart.
It's also not for a (sort of) young couple with two small kids who have bills to pay. Lots of bills.
So when he said he was going to give insurance another try, my heart sank but, at the same time, I trusted my husband and thoroughly believed in him. And regardless of how the decision to go back into insurance may have played a part in where we are today, I will never regret believing in my husband. I do still to this day.
Needless to say, insurance sales went no where. We lived off of our savings for nearly ten months. I am thankful that my husband had the diligence to put money into savings like he did or we wouldn't have had even those ten months. During that time, we tried to sell our home. Ha! Now there's a laugh. We tried to sell our home during a real estate down-turn. We tried to sell our home when there was NO WAY possible we could get what we owed on it.
Needless to say, we couldn't sell our home. I will tell you a little more about our home and how my 3000 sq. ft dream home was our day-to-day living nightmare in another post on down the line. It's another story entirely but one worth sharing with you.
So there we sat - no income, savings depleted, unable to sell our home, bills to pay. What do you do when you are in that situation? We didn't know. We had never been faced with something of this magnitude before and we felt like we were out of options.
That's when it came to us...an offer we could not refuse.
To be continued...
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