2008-08-08

New Hampshire Dreaming

So, as you may be aware, we're trying to find a way to get to New Hampshire. (See this website if you want to know the biggest reason why). My husband is FINALLY fully behind me on the idea (he's a teddy bear who loves the colder climates), but we face quite a few challenges before we'll finally make it there.

To start with, we've both come down in the world from the economic starts we had. He was raised upper middle class (with the emphasis on upper). I was raised upper middle class (with the emphasis on middle). When we were first dating and early in our marriage we were DINKs (dual income, no kids) and lived the life. We were eating out at "sit-down" restaurants (of the Applebees, Olive Garden, and Outback ilk) at least three nights a week, sometimes more. We ordered our groceries on the internet and had them delivered to our door (which actually saved us money on the impulse buying we regularly did when actually at grocery stores). We were living in a condo in Montgomery Country, Maryland and doing okay financially.

Then things fell apart. We both lost our jobs fairly close in time frame to each other and have never had jobs that payed as well since. We followed a dream of helping to run a family business, which never came together for a wide variety of reasons. Now we find ourselves living in a trailer park in southern Virginia just barely able to rob Peter to pay Paul and keep the ends together. Our credit is as low as it can go, and we don't have any savings.

But we really want to make it to New Hampshire. So, we're starting to plan, hope, and scheme. If we can manage to save at least $500 a month and work on rebuilding our credit rating, we can probably make the move to New Hampshire in 9 to 12 months. That seems forever away from where I'm sitting, but when I look back it seems only yesterday we were worrying about the whole Y2K bug. So, I've got to find a way to not only keep doing what I've just barely been doing, but up the pace considerably. But if it gets us to New Hampshire, it's worth it.

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