Once upon a time, I was a single woman. Then I met the man of my dreams. We had one or two big fights and even broke up for a few years. We reconciled in the year 2013 and got married. The day that I got married is the day that I became a step-mother. The first 2 years of our marriage went well. We really started struggling in 2016. We got hit with the “Perfect Storm”. My husband became unemployed, I started drowning in credit bills and it started becoming almost impossible to keep food in the house. I made too much money to get food stamps, but not enough to keep from running out of food in between paychecks. I grew tired of putting myself in debt just to buy groceries in between pay checks. I started doing some research because there had to be a better way to live. I discovered the wonderful world of gigs, couponing and rebates. I learned how to earn Walmart gift cards from mystery shopping at Walmart. I have learned that I could get paid in gift cards to take surveys about products that I buy at Walmart. I have learned that I could then combine those gift cards with coupons. When I combine coupons with a gift card, I pay next to nothing. I can get vital foods and supplies for next to nothing. I could get cereal and toilet paper for almost free doing this. Then I would use a rebate app to take a picture of the receipt. I would generate more gift cards and even cash from buying things that are on rebate. I would repeat this process repeatedly until my family had everything that they needed. We never ran out of toilet paper or milk again. I blossomed into an extreme “couponer” and now I teach other mothers how to do the same. God gives us all that we need to survive. We just have to figure out how to use what he gives us.

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Dear Grandma’s House,

Every Christmas Eve you were my favorite place to go. I would come into the kitchen when I was a child and the smell of cookies would fill my nostrils. Then everyone I loved the most would greet me with hugs and kisses. I would go into the living room to put my present under the tree. Grandma always had a small tree with lots of presents. I would go into the kitchen for Christmas dinner and eat with my family. Then we would gather around in the living room. Grandma would pass out of the presents one by one and then we would take turns opening them. Even if grandma’s house didn’t have presents or a Christmas tree it wouldn’t matter. It is the memories attached to this place that I never want to lose. Grandma’s house is the only place in my life that has never changed. I always want to return here no matter what happens.

My 2-year-old runs up to me and crawls into my arms. She holds me tightly and tells me that she loves me. I turn on the TV and my baby disappears. I look around my living room and I can’t find her. Then I hear an awful scream, followed by crying and people speaking in Arabic. She is on the TV! There she is now dead in the middle of the street in Gaza! I panic and I change the channel! There she is again but this time she is in Africa living in a shanty house! A white woman holds up her dirty body and begs the public for help. “Her family died in a fire leaving her all alone. For just 2 cents a day you can save babies just like this.” I change the channel! There she is at 10 getting beat up on the playground at school by a bunch of girls. I change the channel! There she is at 18 and being interviewed by a talk show host. Her clothes are way too tight and she has on way too much make-up. “I slept with over 100 men to pay my rent.” I change the channel! Hey it’s the Lifetime Channel. My daughter is an adult and is now in prison. She is wearing black and orange scrubs, with tear drops tattooed on her face and her hair is braided. Finally I stopped panicking and I started getting angry. I shut the TV off and got out a book instead. Suddenly my toddler reappears in my lap when I turned the first page. “Let’s read about how to poo poo in the potty! Yay!” My greatest fear is something bad happening to my daughter. How do I cope with that fear? I turn off the TV and cherish every precious moment. Just in case something bad happens to her she will need to good memories to help her escape reality. When bad things happen to us its the memories of Mommy reading to us on her lap when we are 2 that comfort us.

Dear 2025,
I need to survive!
I need to thrive!
I need to live!
I need to forgive!
I need give!