I suspect many out there will take ONE look at that picture and know EXACTLY what I've gotten myself into.
VIPkid. https://t.vipkid.com.cn/mkt/landing/personal?referralToken=feaab199743bc457bb432c2e2fd45689&refereeId=22183117
Money has been tight for YEARS. And I've struggled again and again to find a way to make extra cash. I have an affiliate link for so many different places ... but not enough traffic to make much more than $50 a year. IF I'm lucky.
Swagbucks was great for a while. http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/MountainLamb .... and I have made about $400 ... over the past 10 years. Sigh. It's not as easy to rack up the swagbucks any more ... and they changed search engines and format, so I find myself going elsewhere to search at least 25% of the time. Still, if I wanted to cash it in, I have $10 that I can move to Amazon cards!
I also wrote short stories - which Kendra published on Amazon. And curriculum which is available at School House Teachers .... link on the sidebar.
Back in February or March last year. I asked on Facebook ... where can I work from home online. And I got a lot of good ideas. Some required training, some making phone calls in the middle of the day, some lots of time. But none of it appealed, and I bogged out. Then 3 or 4 people who knew me well said, "Try VIPkid." One sent a link. And I checked it out.
Bummer. I needed MUCH faster internet. And ethernet. ... BUT the rest looked great. THIS was something that appealed to me!
Our trailer continued to fall apart. We had a hole in the roof in the bathroom, right next to the wall. The furnace quit. The hot water tank quit. New hole in the floor and a new leak in the ceiling. Our washer quit, and the list went on and on and on. Every week or two, we added a new thing. The entire AC duct system needed to be replaced, roof, walls, windows, floors, hot water tank, new AC and Furnace, most of the plumbing and electrical also needed to be redone. AND on top of that... our neighbours were convinced that our daughter was vandalizing their property. Shocking to us. And it kept escalating to the point that she had to go live somewhere else and not risk coming home ever. (They still watch the trailer frequently).
So .... you know, maybe it's just time to pull on the boots and MOVE. We'd moved there temporarily over 15 years before. My babies were adults now. My 2 new babies were half grown.
So we began house hunting.
If we liked it. We probably could not afford it. If we could afford it, then it was in the bad part of town, small, or needed a LOT of fixing. And the Ref is NOT a handyman, he's not even a good mow the yard and take out the trash type of guy. So a fixer-upper is really OUT of the question. We also needed a fenced yard for our dog.
Our dog died. She just disappeared ... and we found her a week later about an acre back. So sad.... but now we could afford an apartment maybe.
We started to look at rentals toward the end of spring. Found a great one ... and it was rented the next day. Sigh.
At one point, we thought we had a deal to buy a really wonderful trailer about 40 minutes away - it would need storage and maybe a fence. But we fell in love with it. And they told us it was ours and we signed and put our money down. A month passes with no word. Then they called to say they sold it to somebody else!!??!!
Then Song got a job being a nanny for a 3 year old. They travel a LOT and Song goes with them. They helped her get into college and she should be getting a driver licence soon. We had been looking at sizes that would allow Song to live us. Story wanted to stay with our Aunt. So now, we only needed room for 2 kids.
It was now July. We were getting desperate - as the Ref was to be starting volleyball season soon.
As it worked out, we were offered an apartment at $100 off because the renters had backed out at the last minute. It was close, we barely qualified. BUT they let us have it. It's on a small lake, a huge tree outside the window, 2 balconies, 3 bedrooms. It was still a stretch. But the middle of town and we loved the location!
So August 1 found us moving in. Getting internet. Getting school organized.
Early September, I pulled up this thing called VIPkid and began looking at the details again. I was determined to make it work!
To Be Continued ........
