This is difficult. It’s not just the stress, anger, resentment and sentimental bits. This is an uphill battle I’m fighting alone. I’m trying to keep things at home as stable as possible for the kids. I think one day, I should tell them that they’ll be attending new schools…somewhere. Where is the issue.
I have no idea where we’re moving to. I just know I have about 6 weeks to figure it out. This means, at the very least, packing. Sadly, being broke means I can not even buy boxes. There used to be a time where you could go pick up boxes outside a grocery store. Nowadays, they cut the boxes so they can’t be used again or they consider taking boxes “stealing” and will call the cops. Craigslist is useless and no one seems to be getting rid of moving boxes on Freecycle. All of this moot because we have no place to put the boxes.
I’ve learned in the past week that storage areas are expensive. I’ve never used one before and never really thought much of what my friends were spending monthly on their storage places. It’s been eye-opening to see a 5′x5′ space can cost as much as $120 a month. For all of our stuff, we’d need at least a 20′x30′ space. Yes. That’s what I’ve whittled our crap down to.
Of course, it would be less stressful if I could find a place to rent, but lacking funds in the bank makes that impossible. It is slowly dawning on me that there is a very real chance that we’ll have to live in our car (can you imagine 4 people in a Mini Cooper?!) or in a shelter, if I can find one that will take a family, including a husband. Most seem to focus on women & children. I supposed my husband could move in with his mom at that point, but that may be a bit much for the kids to handle along with the move.
It’s times like these where I wish I had learned camping skills or at the very least, had friends or family I could rely on if only for a week. Live and learn. I’ve been homeless before. I didn’t like it, but it was just me. This is very different when there’s two little ones to consider. People tell me things will get better. I hope so.
The Broke and Trying to Move by Anika Malone, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.