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When an unsuspecting newcomer came over, I would get them with the “bread trick,” betting that they couldn’t eat two pieces of white bread in a minute without drinking water. They would always swear that they could perform the impossible feat, and I would always win back the money that I had lost in cards.

There I was, living on a different side of town than I was used to, living in an environment that I wasn’t necessarily used to, and I took a step back, for a moment, long enough to see the smiles on the people’s faces around me. Wal-Mart employees, welders, electricians, landscapers, people with their own car-detailing businesses—lots of people with their own car-detailing businesses. Maybe we were just “getting by,” but most of us were doing our best to keep our spirits up, finding little bits of inspiration to keep us going. Our moving customers, surely, were thinking, “Could be worse. I could be moving furniture for a living.” I was thinking, “Could be worse. I could be broke.” The people that were broke were thinking, “Could be worse. I could be locked up.” Not sure where the people in prison were getting their inspiration, though. Nevertheless, many of us in the free world had our sights set. Some of us had goals, plans for the future, and some of us didn’t. Some of us wanted out and some of us were living day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck. But all of us were making an hourly wage, and all of us were able to find our own level of happiness. A few of us, though, were able to maintain our discipline—distinguishing wants from needs and sacrificing what we wanted now for what we wanted later—while others couldn’t. BG was struggling to find that discipline, but Derrick had it all figured out. He had known for quite some time what he wanted and in March, he got it.

He had been house hunting for about five months or so. He was participating in a nonprofit organization called the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA, https://www.naca.com/), which helps make the dream of buying a home a reality for those with faulty credit or those who can’t afford the closing costs and the ten percent that is usually required as a down payment. NACA walks its participants through the tedious process of purchasing their first house, a process that can typically be quite overwhelming for most people. Derrick went to every meeting and caught on quick. At the start, he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Five months later, he was quoting interest rates to me and showing me which neighborhoods were ripe for the picking in the real estate market.

I would say Derrick was about a year (eighteen months without a program like NACA) ahead of where I wanted to be. He had qualified for a house—his first true investment—and by the end of March, he was living in it. His very own (brand new!) home. Seventeen-hundred square feet, two stories, with a patio in the back for grilling and a fenced-in yard for his two-year-old daughter to play. No longer throwing his money away to a landlord, he had a tangible asset to his name. His monthly payments would build up equity in his house, and with the market looking like it was going to take a turn upward, who knew what its value would be in four or five years? Derrick had kept his sights on the American Dream and there was no question that he was getting there.

Considering the initial goals I had set for myself before I began, my project had been finished on January 11, thirteen days shy of my six-month anniversary in Charleston. I had put away $2,514.36. Sure, rolling up the driver side window on my truck wasn’t easy, and I used a flathead screwdriver in lieu of an ignition key, but it started. And, at the hands of the lone perk of my job as a mover, my apartment was furnished. I was done, complete—but at the same time, I wasn’t. I was just beginning. I wanted to see how far I could go. I had built a nice foundation, but there was so much more I could accomplish by July 24. There was no reason for me to turn back.

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