Leslie and Don Marcos faced a situation millions have been facing for the past several years. Foreclosure was bearing down, and with little in reserve, and even less for a bankruptcy attorney, the couple decided to walk away from their home. For 10 years, the couple and their two children lived in the home. “It held a lot of memories,” Leslie indicates. Shortly, after the foreclosure finalized and the house was sold at auction, the couple saved enough to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy and begin a new chapter in their life.
“You don’t expect to do that at 45,” Don states. The couple moved into a tiny efficiency, where three rooms held four individuals. It was time for them to plan, and determine their next steps. Both Leslie and Don were single children, and both sets of their parents had passed some years back. They only had one another to depend on.
“We really had to reanalyze our situation and figure out, what now?” Leslie states. She shares her two daughters were 6 and 8-years-old at the time. An adventure to the young children, as the adults tried to hide the stress. Leslie was working part-time for a grocery store, Don had just lost his construction job. In a growing market of saturation in skill levels, Don faced many closed doors.
“We had goals,” Leslie shares, “we were going to find a way to buy a home and reestablish our family.” But, life had other things in store for the couple.
Don was offered a groundskeeper position in Florida, and he decided to take it. The family, who had lived in Ohio their whole lives, packed up their minivan with a few bags of belongings and headed south.
Life began to get better. Leslie was hired as a manager for a retail chain, and Don’s strong work ethic moved him to a foreman position. It took the family five years, but they saved. They had a decision to make, “do we look to buy a home or rent?” In unison, the couple decided to move into a bigger apartment and have not looked back. Leslie explains why.
“We have been taught our whole lives what you do is go to school, college, get married and buy a house. What never is said is the bills, or mounting debt due to medical or emergency reasons. We finally were building a nest egg, and the thought of buying another home shook us. It didn’t make sense. Life showed us how one moment can bring your world crashing down.
We are in a place we love but we also have the opportunity to move up or down in a few years, or just up and leave the state for retirement. We have no obligations to remain, we also spend a lot more time together versus fixing a home. It made sense for us and it worked. The money we used to used to pay for landscaping, taxes, PMI and insurance went into our savings.
There is a different dynamic, economically. The days of old no longer apply, and we realized renting worked for us better than owning. No more stress.”
