5 minute freewrite 2954 prompt economy of doom

This is my post for #freewriters 2954 prompt economy of doom hosted by @mariannewest

I can remember when I was in my twenties and even thirties, thinking how do people get ahead in this world, and how can they afford to buy a home. I thought I would never have my own home.

Fourty three years ago, I was divorced and left with no income, four kids, and no car. Two years later my boyfriend moved in with me, he had a daughter that he was raising. He fished for a living and I started fishing with him. Two years later, we were married.

During those years of being fishermen and raising five kids, our financial situation looked like we were in an economy of doom all of the time.

We were renting a house from my Mom and Stepfather and he was going to sell it. We owned two lots of land that one day we hoped to build on. We offered them for a down payment on the house, and they accepted. I forget how many years it took us, but we paid the house off.

The only thing we have ever bought that we had to make payments on was nets for fishing. The fishhouse ordered them for us, and they took some from our check each week until we paid them off. We have never had a credit card.

If one of us needed a truck, we had to save up the money and hope we could find one with the money we had. Our kids never went hungry, but they did not get things like their friends had or the latest styles of clothes.

They did not get to go to the movies like their friends or go skating or anything that took money. But we did things that money can not buy, they spent two weeks every summer camping on one of the islands on the river.

Through the summer, I would take them to the beach, and on the way home, I would stop at Hales Groves, and for 10 cents each, they could drink their fill of orange juice. We would fossil hunt along the river.
We did not have money, but we were so rich.
photo is mine