Fuller Tales: 2023

Maybe money doesn't buy happiness, but it does relieve the stress that comes from financial difficulties. For most of our married life our financial situation has been challenging. This is a short history of the ups and downs we've had.

When we first got married, Ben worked for a company called IGT. He had a decent salary, but his divorce had been devastating for him financially. He had taken on all the debt from his previous marriage and was paying his ex-wife $2,500 a month in child support and alimony. After paying all the bills, Ben was living on about $300 a month. We used the 30k I had in savings to supplement our income. We lived in a small apartment in Las Vegas and tried to live very frugally. We were blessed that the apartment complex had a pool, so we swam almost every day or went to a splash pad/park for entertainment, all free. We also hiked Red Rock Canyon on weekends.

Eight months after we got married, Ben got a new boss who came in and fired almost everyone in Ben's department, including him. The little we were living on, became a lot less and it was stressful. Ben looked for a job in Vegas, but didn't find anything. It was 2010. The world had just gone through "the great recession," and things had not improved much. We went about 4 months without income.

Ben wasn't able to find a job in Vegas but did get an offer in California. We packed up and moved to Cypress. In California, our apartment was 700 square feet. When all 7 of us were there, it was particularly crowded. It wasn't terrible because the kids were young and could share beds, the thing that bugged me the most was not having our own washer and dryer. Unfortunately, the job didn't last long. We moved there in September and about a week before Thanksgiving, Ben was let go. He looked for a comparable job in the area, but wasn't able to find anything. We decided it was time to look for something in Utah so Ben could be closer to his kids, and the girls could be closer to their dad. Ben got a job offer. It was half the salary he was making in California, but we decided to take it. Since we had signed a year contract at the apartment complex, I had to write the owner and beg him to let us out of the contract. He was very kind and didn't hold us to the rest of the payments, another blessing.

The day we moved back to Utah, at the beginning of January, I found out that I was pregnant. Our income was 45k with 30k going to his ex and we had no health insurance. I had tried unsuccessfully for years to get pregnant, but surprise, when we had nothing, God decided to send us a child?!? It seemed like bad timing. After a few weeks, Ben lost his job again. We filed for unemployment but there was no way that we could pay his ex $2,500 a month, so we borrowed money from Ben's parents and went to mediation in order to get the payments reduced. We got on WIC which paid for essentials like bread, milk, fruits and veggies, etc. We lived in a 3 bedroom apartment. My kind dad gifted me his car to sell and told me I could keep the money I made in the sale to help cover our expenses. We were so grateful, it held us over until Ben found another job.

The new job was a huge answer to prayers! It was a company called DigEcor. His salary was enough to cover our bills, and a little extra. We still tried to live frugally so we could save money to buy a house. Whenever we found free entertainment we were all over it. Each year we attended the free easter egg hunts, free pumpkin walks, free days at the zoo and free activities at the library. We went to free donut days, free Slurpee days and hiked. We lucked out and got a pass to Seven Peaks Water Park for 10 dollars each that we could use all summer. We went at least twice a week. After swimming, we would buy one snow cone that the kids all shared. Our family trips were always road trips to Washington. We did our best to keep life fun, even without a lot of money. During this time, we were able to save a little, so we bought our first home together. It wasn't our dream home by any means, but it had 4 bedrooms and a garage. Life was good for a while! Eventually, though, the company was sold. The new owner didn't seem to like Ben and commissions Ben had earned were never paid. So, he started looking for a new job.

The next job was at DealerSocket. I don't remember much about this one, except that Ben traveled for the first 8 weeks for training and he hated the commute to Sandy every day. During that time, a friend that Ben had made while working at DigEcor reached out to see if he was interested in working for a start-up company based in China. He jumped at the opportunity.

The new job at FTS offered a nice pay increase and an opportunity for Ben to work from home. We were thrilled! After a few months, with everything going smoothly, we started looking for a home that would fit our family better and have a 3 car garage. The value of our home had increased quickly and would provide a nice down-payment, so we felt good about it. We signed a contract to build a home in Saratoga Springs. That very same month, FTS lost some of it's funding and Ben's pay checks stopped coming regularly. It became very stressful not knowing when our next pay check might come. We decided to move forward with the house, believing that things would improve and the money would come, eventually. Since the house was only supposed to take 6 months to build, we decided to move in with my parents until it was finished. That decision ended up saving our bacon. The sporadic payments continued. We were lucky that we didn't have a mortgage/rent or utilities to pay during that time. The month we were supposed to close on the house we got some back pay from FTS with the promise that things would be good going forward. We closed on the house and moved in.

Just a few months later the pay checks stopped coming again and eventually we had to cash out my 401k to pay our bills. FTS decided to close it's office in the U.S. They offered to keep Ben on as a consultant at 25% of his previous salary and promised to pay him back everything they owed him. That was not going to pay the bills, so Ben took on 2 additional jobs and 2 side hustles in order to make up for the lost salary. . One of the jobs was with GOP, another start-up that was a partner of FTS. They agreed to pay him 50% of his previous salary. The 3rd job was with IdeaNova who paid him the remaining 25%, Ben also began working as an independent contractor with Northwest Lab Source and became a recruiter with Armor Pest Control. But working 5 jobs wasn't sustainable, so he quit IdeaNova and I took over at Northwest Lab Source. Ben asked GOP to increase his pay to 75% of his previous salary and continued as a consultant with the Chinese company for the other 25%. That worked until FTS couldn't continue to pay Ben as a consultant. That meant a significant pay cut for us. When you budget your life around your salary and then 25% is taken away, things get a lot more difficult.

We adjusted to the new salary and I was able to bring in some money from Northwest Lab Source, but then Covid hit. The job at GOP entailed working with airlines to provide inflight entertainment. Covid shut down the airline industry and the airlines weren't interested in buying new entertainment for their passengers. Trying to make sales and earn commissions didn't happen. Ben decided to ride it out, to see if they could turn things around, but funding for the company became difficult and just like before, the pay checks became sporadic. Some months we were fine, other months we had to use our rainy day fund to pay the bills. In August of this year, Ben was furloughed by EXPLORO. We filed for unemployment.

Ben got an offer and started working for InFlight Dublin on October 1. The base salary doesn't cover all our bills, and our rainy day fund is almost gone, but some income is better than none. We are praying hard that Ben will be able to make some deals and earn some commissions quickly. We are also praying to get the missing wages that we are owed. GOP/EXPLORO owe us 80k. We are working with them to try to come to an agreement on a repayment schedule and praying that EXPLORO will agree and follow through with the payments.

It will be interesting to see where our financial situation goes from here. I would really love to live comfortably with consistent income. I could use a rest from the stress of not knowing how we will be able to pay our bills.

So what are some lessons we can learn from all of this?

1. Do your very best to marry the right person, at the right time and in the right place and fight to keep your marriage strong. Divorce can be financially devastating.

2. If you do get divorced, make sure the financial aspects of the divorce decree are equitable.

3. You don't have to have a lot of money to be able to enjoy life You can find things to do for free that also make life fun.

4. In difficult situations, pray, don't be afraid to ask for help, and remember that you can apply for unemployment, WIC, and Medicaid to help get you through the hard times.

5. Always have a rainy day fund and replenish it when you can.

4. Start-up companies are a huge risk. They often have a huge upside, if they work out, but it could be a very rocky, difficult ride.

5. Always pay your tithing. Even through all of it, we have been blessed and have always had enough to meet our basic needs. I attribute that to paying our tithing.

6. Stay out of debt. Don't buy things you can't afford. You may have to take on debt for education, a house or car, but otherwise stay out of debt. Be able to pay off your credit cards every month. Don't accumulate debt.

7. Some income is better than no income.

8. Trust God. No matter what happens, He can turn everything for your good.

9. Buy a home, don't rent. The value of our home in Vineyard went up 70k in two years, We were able to put that 70k down on our house in Saratoga Springs. The value of our current home has gone up even more than that.. Buying real estate can be a wealth builder.

It took a while to find her thing. She tried dance, piano, soccer, basketball, singing, acting and sewing, but it was volleyball that won her heart. About 7 years ago Alyssa started playing volleyball and never looked back.

It has been so much fun watching her progress over the years. Despite back pain, and having to fight for playing time, she dedicated herself to the sport and to her teams. She has learned to take criticism, to be a team player, to deal with disappointment, and to be responsible for getting herself to practice daily.

This year she played middle blocker for the Westlake High School varsity volleyball team. They had a winning season, made it to the 3rd round of state and ended up placing 8th. The previous 3 years the team had only won 1 region game, so this was a huge win and hopefully a new start for the program.

Alyssa has decided not to play in college, so her competitive volleyball days have come to an end. It's bitter sweet. She finished strong, but we will definitely miss it!

In their second match at state,
they lost the first 2 sets and we worried it was over,
but they fought back and won the next 3 sets.
It was insane and so exciting!