I've had to start learning how to make a sustainable living without much of an income. That's where the creative part comes in. I left public school teaching in 2008 to open my own restaurant - I know, bad timing right! The restaurant went under in 2009. We started teaching private classes, but, with the economy, we rarely have a class. We started substitute teaching, but there are so many out of work teachers that we don't get a lot of work in that area. We have had to learn how to stretch our money, and get used to accepting help.
We are lucky because we own our car, truck, land and home. We bought and had an old building from Fort Jackson moved to our land. It was an old day room. It was a big, giant box with no electricity, plumbing or air conditioning. My husband had done plumbing when he was younger, so he had plenty of building experience. We were able to do most of the building and plumbing work ourselves. We had to hire people to do the electrical and air conditioning, but we kept the cost of the house down.
