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What have been your biggest challenges in being home?

Do you have kids at home? Are you having to participate in their schooling or are they pretty independent?

Has your work laid you off or furloughed you? Or are you now working at home for the very first time?

Are you having to prepare more meals at home than you have for years and years? Have you found yourself using paper plates more often or maybe running the dishwasher constantly?

Do you find yourself hiding in the closet or maybe the bathroom, just to get a moment alone and away from your spouse or your roommate or your kids?

Have you found a place to spread out for work? Or to work on projects? A place that you don’t have to clean up every time you do something else?

I’ve had to move my office back into my bedroom as we have moved around to accommodate everyone in the house now.

Or maybe your a retiree and finding something new to do around the house has become a challenge…the libraries are closed, so no new books, the craft stores are closed so no supplies or classes to take, and no trips to take or even look forward to for the time being?

Or are you…

On the other side, are you finding new things to learn and try? Reading books you have on hand or maybe checking out new books online?

Maybe you’ve signed up for a new online course? Free or paid?

Have you picked up hobbies you set down years ago? Watching YouTube videos to try some home improvement DIY projects?

I keep seeing that meme floating around talking about if you don’t come out of this quarantine with a new skill, new side hustle, etc. then it wasn’t time you were lacking…yada, yada, yada. What are your thoughts on that? Are you preparing yourself for a new beginning with this current state of affairs ends? Or are you assuming that the world will go back to “normal?”

Hope

Hope is a resourceful, solutions-driven online business manager with over two decades of experience helping clients streamline operations, manage projects, and grow their businesses through digital marketing and technology.

But life has a way of rewriting your plans.

A year ago, Hope made the decision to move in with her aging parents full time – a season she wouldn’t trade, even as it came with its own financial and emotional weight. Earlier this year, she lost her mother, and is now walking the tender, disorienting path of grief while learning what “forward” looks like from here.

Hope came to the Blogging Away Debt community in 2015 as a single mom raising five foster and adoptive children. She’s written through job changes, financial setbacks, and the bittersweet transition to an empty nest. Her kids are finding their footing in the world now – and so is she.

Rooted in faith and fueled by the same perseverance she’s brought to every hard season, Hope is ready to face her finances with fresh eyes and an honest pen. She believes that clarity, courage, and community can change the trajectory of anyone’s story including her own.

She lives in Austin, TX with her dad, loves adventures with her dog Addie, and is figuring out, one step at a time, what this next chapter is meant to be.

How are you doing? And how is your community?

by Hope

I assume most everyone in the BAD community is now sheltering in place either voluntarily or via government mandate unless their job is considered essential. Georgia’s governor mandated “shelter in place” effective at 6pm yesterday although we have been sticking close to home for a while now with very few exceptions.

While the COVID 19 numbers in our community remain very low comparatively, the financial effects are becoming very obvious. We live in a depressed area to begin with, but with so many business shuttering for the time being, the effects are fairly obvious.

Our Community is Suffering

We are very fortunate to have plenty of food, be healthy and have few worries outside our four walls right now. But I am beginning to see and get word of families who are suffering. A neighbor who lives with his elderly father recently lost his job. It was their only income and little at that, paying $12 per hour with over an hour one way commute. I believe their water has been cut off as he showed up this morning asking to use our hose and filled several containers. I’ve been making extra plates of food every meal and he’s come to pick them up.

Leaking sink = essential repairs are needed. Thank goodness for DIY-happy twins and good friends who can do anything.

Then the handyman/friend who came and fixed our leaking sink mentioned a family with two small children a mile or so from us who didn’t have food beyond lunch that day. I had made a 5 lb roast for dinner, so sent him with food for several meals for them. And asked him to please tell them to reach out if they need anything. I know how hard it is to ask for help. And I also know how slow the system can be to respond to these types of needs.

We are very blessed to have plenty of food. It’s the way we have always lived, with 4 kids, I have always stayed stocked up and kept the freezer full. And I’m back in my element cooking for big crowds. And just when I think I was getting the hang of cooking for just the 2 or 3 of us.

How is Sheltering Place?

Not that sheltering is place is super easy, especially with two teenagers who are itching to see their friends and be out in the world. Gymnast has literally been climbing the walls…and the roof.

Hope

But life has a way of rewriting your plans.

She lives in Austin, TX with her dad, loves adventures with her dog Addie, and is figuring out, one step at a time, what this next chapter is meant to be.