Have you ever wondered how everyone else “makes” it?

Hey, I’m Aimee Cerka! I’m a Money Confidence coach, a wife, mom to 2 boys, and a girl, homeschool teacher, homemaker, entrepreneur; it feels like a million other titles fit as well, but those are the main ones.

If you’re sick and tired of trying to make ends meet and living paycheck to paycheck, or feeling guilty about impulse spending, or you’re just frustrated with where you’re at because you know how to do better but this invisible force is holding you back…

I want you to know I get it.

I was there.

We’ve gone from food stamps, WIC, SSI (social security disability) to paying off $75,000 in debt and improving our net worth by over $175,000. We did this all while still spending money which means saying yes to our kids, taking vacations, doing getaways. While we increased our financial security so I knew when the next curveball life throws at us comes… We can handle it. We can take care of our family.

The principles that I teach are the ones we actually used. This isn’t theory. This is family approved. You have to be able to live your life while improving your finances and it’s possible for you too.

You don’t have to win the lottery or receive an inheritance… You just have to start now by taking the first step!

My first son was born in 2012 and I can say with certainty that I was looking to make some serious changes. When it was time to go back to work, I began looking for a new career. I ended up in the insurance industry mainly because the company I initially started with promised that I could have what I wanted, which was time with my son and the ability to provide for us. That company’s spiel turned out to be unattainable. I quickly had to find a new employer.

Thankfully, I found an employer quickly and although I didn’t have the time with my son that I wanted; I could increase my income with additional work. There was no glass ceiling!

It was around this same time frame I became involved with an entrepreneurship opportunity focused on helping individuals and corporations improve their personal and professional relationships. This material has made all the difference in my life AND I was paid for it!

Fast forward a couple years to when I met my husband, Rusty.

I had successfully increased my base income by about 38% through hard work and applying the right principles which I learned by digging into personal and professional development material.

We got married in September of 2015. Due to my success in the office, I was able to work from home at the beginning of November. This gave me a lot of the time flexibility I had wanted. Later that month, we found out that we were expecting a baby. I was dealing with terrible morning sickness which was affecting my work and my health.

Because of the financial principles that we had been applying, we could make the decision that with the principles we had applied financially that I would officially leave my job in February 2016!

Three days after leaving my job, the business partnership we had for our trucking company (Rusty was a truck driver) imploded. We quickly had to find a way to make ends meet. He ended up going back to a job driving a truck. So we had self-employed expenses on an employee income. In case you were wondering, that’s not really possible and VERY stressful. We made progress financially, but it was SLOWLY. It felt like we would never “make it.”

Our 2^nd son was born in August of 2016!

My pregnancy with Wyatt was uneventful (other than the severe morning sickness) and we did not know that at only a few hours old, he would need to be transferred to Cook Children’s Medical Center NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.)

Wyatt was diagnosed with Esophageal Atresia with a TEF. In English, that means that his esophagus was not connected to his stomach. There was also a small connection from his esophagus to his lung. The surgery to repair this break and fix the hole to his lung was performed at less than 48 hours old. Thankfully everything went great! This was only the beginning of what ended up being a 7 ½ week stay in the NICU.

It took a month for the microscopic hole in Wyatt’s esophagus to close. THEN, he got to try to eat by a bottle for the first time! Super exciting, except it didn’t go well. AT ALL. We continued to try for a couple days and they brought in therapists to work with him. It just wasn’t working. We decided/requested to get a g-button for Wyatt, which allows us to directly feed him in his stomach; so he’s still getting nutrition while he tried to figure this eating thing out 😊

October 2^nd, we finally got to come home!

It’s kind of scary to think about where our lives would be if we hadn’t applied the financial principles. I was able to be with my son in the NICU basically the entire time, I really left only to spend time with my oldest and to go home to shower (self care).

I didn’t have a boss that I had to answer to.

Have you heard of dig your well before you’re thirsty? We were living that.

I was able to live my priorities!

My family is able to come first. I was able Wyatt to all his appointments, which most the time is multiple a week. I also still was homeschooling William (my oldest).

You would think that would be enough adventure to last us, right?

In October of 2017, I called 911 because Rusty (my husband) was basically unconscious. He had to be transported via ambulance to the hospital. He had been ill and working the last couple days as he was on the road (in another state). I knew he would need medical attention, but we had no clue how severe it would be. At the hospital, they started running tests and getting him IV fluids and insulin. The first actual reading we got on his blood sugar was 1277. For those who don’t know, normal blood sugar is like 80. He was diagnosed as a type II diabetic, had pancreatitis and a gambit of other levels that we had to get normalized. All the levels and organs that were out of wack all effected each other so getting him back to where he needed to be was a roller coaster. 15 days in the ICU and an additional 6 days in the hospital he was finally able to come home but he had lost essentially all of his strength. Overall, he was out of work for over 3 months recovering and then changing careers for medical reasons. To top if off we were newly pregnant at the time. We found out we were expecting on Tuesday and my husband was hospitalized on Sunday – the fact that we hadn’t told any family made it super interesting!

AGAIN, thankfully we had those financial principles to help us survive and some great support that we were able to lean on as well!

My daughter thankfully has had an uneventful life medically. Although she made sure to make an exciting entrance when she was born haha

Nowadays things are smoother. After a long uphill battle on Wyatt’s care 4 years later he officially became a g-button graduate and we’ve graduated from all appts and therapies.