Caution... this is a loooong one... A while back, I showed y'all our plans to build a cabin on our property. We wanted to do this for more than one reason. It would sure be nice to have extra space for visitors, a place to set up my drums and to earn some extra income, via short term rentals. I have been terrible, but lucky with money, for most of my life. But then our luck turned, we sold our condo in the city and moved to the North of BC. Not too long after, we bought a property and cleared it to build a house. Things were getting pretty exciting. Then the fire happened. On a Friday in April, one of the burn piles that we all thought was out, turned out to have gone underground and as soon as the hot weather hit, it reignited! Turns out, it travelled underground, a substantial distance and reared it's ugly head again. I learned later, that this is why they call them "Zombie Fires". 27 hectares burned. No one got hurt and no infrastructure was hurt, save for a few fence posts. Talk about lucky... More than 3 years later, I got a big binder in the mail. There was an investigation going on, behind the scenes and this binder laid it all out. On one of the last pages, the conclusion... it's my fault. I owe the government $108,000. 💰 💰 💰 I appealed. I lost. 😞 While analyzing the documents through the appeal process though, I noticed something... they were wrong. Some would say they were lying, or misrepresenting the evidence, or maybe it was an honest blunder. So, given this, I hired a lawyer. We appealed again. We won. 🙌 We won so good, that the judge awarded us damages of $10k. 💸💸💸 Then things got real interesting. While the judge chastised them for omitting inconvenient evidence, he admitted that he didn't have the authority to kill the whole thing and set me and my family free from this massive stress. The most he could do, was to leave it up to the Government, to decide if they wanted to have another crack at pursuing it... and they did. Months passed by (or was it years? It was all a blur). Finally, their new investigation came through. This time, while reading it through, I noticed something that was missing from the other reports... this person really knew their 💩...uh oh... 😬 As I read through the entire report, word for word, I finally got to the dreaded ending (this is where they tell you how much trouble you're in). Only this time it said, I was right. I wasn't in trouble. I didn't have to pay the $108,000. I would've happily crapped my pants, if my brain wasn't telling me that this can't be real. I called my lawyer. He said it looks like you won! I still didn't believe it. I asked him to get it in writing that they were never going to pursue this again... and he did. We won. Full stop. I still get a lump in my throat when I think about this (let alone write about it). All I can say, is that a lot of lessons were learned. The obvious one: never trust fire. The one that sticks just as much, but in a different way: Never give up! I saved money like Scrooge McDuck, the whole time this appeal process was going on. I realized just how insane it is that someone can save $100,000 in a short time, with a decent job, low debts and a huge dollop of discipline with a side of sacrifice. It's never knew I had it in me and it took a forest fire and the government suing me, to realize that I actually did. So I guess if I'm gonna demand your attention for this long, the least I can do is leave you with a moral to the story. Here goes: Don't wait for tragedy to set you straight. You you know you've got it in you. I knew. I just buried it deep for no good reason. Let that shit go and get on with building the life you know you deserve! As for the cabin... The land is ready and we are looking at building next spring! 🏠🌳🏔️ *some of the key investments that helped get me here: $FINN$POW$ARG$LBS$APLD$APP
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11 Comments
Daisy Bear@daisy38 · 11h
Goodness, what an ordeal. I’m so glad there was a happy ending for you and your family
Sue Watson
@sueinthepeg · 10h
I'm glad it worked out for you and your family
Frank Menezes
@frankallan07 · 12h
Very inspiring 🫡👌✌️
Michael Noël
@therev · 8h
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