Wow, this hit home.

My husband and I were put into the position of having to start over. I would not suggest it to anyone but, it did take us to our core values and needs.

Here's what we learned and some techniques to make it through these times if you are there.

It very quickly became evident of what was really needed and what things were purely wants. We had to plan on each meal of each day not exceeding $1.84 per person. We found ways to save on one meal in order to "splurge" on others. We were no longer able to go "out" for dinner so we planned our own "out" meals at home involving the family as waiters and servers. We made a tough situation a fun and learning experience.

We also learned how to aquire some of the wants that had. Our entire family had been active in hockey (not a cheap sport to be active in). We volunteered a lot of time and traded for that time for fees dues. We provided child care in trade for vegetables from friends gardens.

All of these things were done to teach ourselves how to live for under the $20,000 which was an amount of passive income that we had from a retirement. Neither of us were working.

Ironically, most of our aquaintences had no idea we were living on such a low income. Most actually thought that we were part of the witness protection program, lol.

After understanding what we could do we slowly moved forward in the plan by getting jobs that we loved to do, or jobs that gave us knowledge in an area for future use (construction, auto mechanics) and educated ourselves with personal development and business. We knew that real estate was the business area we were interested in.

Our journey is FAR from over but we are on our way. And even though those "starting over" days were difficult, the education was priceless and we would do it all over again to prevent ourselves from over spending and falling deep back into the rat race.