homelessness to 10k/month
I was 22 years old, working as a cashier in a grocery store during COVID, earning barely $11 an hour and trying to survive like everyone else. I just graduated college. Life was uncertain, money was tight, and I was just doing what I could to get by.
That’s when Tommy & Lisa approached me.
I didn’t know it then, but that single moment — that interaction with them — would change the trajectory of my life. What looked like connection, attention, and opportunity soon became manipulation, control, and psychological devastation. I walked into it with innocence, unaware that I was stepping into a four-year storm that would strip me of my identity.
I am so blessed for this interaction because it literally broke me and reset my entire reality.
1. where it all began
Gambling addiction.
Financial collapse.
4 evictions.
Car repossession.
Over $30,000 in credit card debt.
Homelessness.
Drugs.
I begged strangers for gas money.
Lived out of hotels and a U-Haul.
Slept in park benches and hotel lobbies.
I stood on an interstate holding a cardboard sign asking for money.
2. the spiral
I became entangled in credit fraud and identity theft.
Over $1,000,000 involved.
$100k in Stolen iPhone 14 Pro Maxes.
Living a life built entirely on lies.
I looked successful — drove a red 2019 Stingray Corvette, two $15,000 Rolexes, head-to-toe in Louis Vuitton, 18k gold chains.
The wealth wasn’t wealth — it was all stolen.
3. the million-dollar illusion
I fled Philadelphia after my fourth eviction, changed my phone number for the 5th time in 4 years, hoping to never see Tommy & Lisa ever again.
All I had left was:
• 3 T-shirts
• 1 Backpack
• 2 pairs of pants
• 1 pair of Nikes
• A shattered iPhone 12
• And $0 in my bank account
My brother bought my bus ticket back to Scranton, PA. That’s how broken I was.
4. the awakening
I was rebuilding from literally zero. Nothing. I drove for Uber using my grandmother’s car, sometimes all night just to make $100. Sleeping at my grandmother's house ment free rent and free meals.
My parents wanted distance. And after everything I put them through, I understood. They only knew a fraction of what I had done, and a lot of this story is just the tip of the iceberg.
5. rebuilding
After losing everything — cars, jewelry, money, status — I thought I understood what “starting over” meant.
But the universe had one more test for me.
I took a job helping a 75-year-old hoarder move into a senior living facility, organize decades of memories, and empty 8 storage units stacked to the ceiling. I spent months surrounded by possessions — mountains of QVC junk, relics of a lifetime she couldn’t let go of.
I used to worship the very things she was drowning in.
Gold, watches, designer clothes, fur jackets — I chased symbols of success instead of building the foundation for real success. Working for her stripped that illusion from me. It was like staring into a mirror of who I could’ve become — someone holding onto objects instead of life.
That job wasn’t just income.
It was a spiritual reset.
A lesson in detachment.
For 10 months, I lived in Virginia, serving someone who was obsessed with materialism.
6. ten months with a hoarder
Living with the hoarder didn’t just strip me of material attachment — it woke up my ambition.
In that small apartment, surrounded by clutter that wasn’t mine, something inside me switched back on. I remembered who I was — creative and hungry. I stopped surviving and started building.
I revived my UGC business from scratch.
Filed for an LLC.
Rebuilt my portfolio piece by piece.
Sent relentless outbound emails.
Created new Fiverr gigs.
Launched TikTok Shop.
And slowly — the momentum came back.
Money started flowing again. Not fast, not glamorous at first, but real.
With $900 to my name and everything I owned compressed into two backpacks, I booked a one-way flight to Mexico and didn’t look back. I backpacked Central America for six months — living out of hostels, traveling by bus, jungles, beaches — rebuilding my life one country at a time.
And for the first time, I was free.
I worked from Caribbean beaches with my laptop, signing contracts from hammocks and rooftop hostels. I hit $10K months not from stealing or scamming — but from creativity and discipline. From work that was mine. From a life I earned.
I built a new life — not out of illusion, but out of intention.
8. becoming a digital nomad
Even while I was rebuilding, I still had one foot in the past.
Tommy and Lisa weren’t gone — not yet. I was growing, traveling, working, but the ghost of that life followed me. And when Tommy and Lisa got locked up (on my 27th birthday believe it or not), it came crashing back. My face was all over the cameras with them, the evidence.
I was forced to face the version of me I was trying to outrun.
I paid for half of Tommy’s lawyer, so he would shut his mouth. 57 charges and a 20 year minimum.
I gave Lisa and her family money to make the chaos disappear. Lisa was facing a different charge, but she still faced 2 weeks behind bars and probation.
Another $20,000 gone. Back to $0.
That payment wasn’t about protecting them —
it was the price of closing my own chapter.
A last debt to a version of me that no longer existed.
After that moment, I severed the cord.
No more calls.
No more connections.
No more living with the weight of someone else’s decisions.
For the first time in years, I wasn’t tied to Tommy.
I was free.
Truly free.
7. the last tie to my old life