No More Power Down :) [Hell of a Year]

This is my story about my last 15 months and read it all before making your own judgement. My followers love me or hate me, there is nothing between. If you like the story you can give me your upvote, but if you don't like it, I will be very happy if you read it and comment!

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When I came on Steemit in July 2016, I had awesome job.

I didn't need any additional source of money and I just wanted to pump my Steem Power. I always believed in Steem and blogging here became fun to me. I discovered that I have skills that I never knew about, Steemit helped me to understand the crypto world and think about future. In that period of life, everything was great about me. Me and my girlfriend (now wife) started to renovate our apartment, a little nest just for two of us. I had some savings and I invested in music studio equipment for needs of my band. Tokens that I got by blogging here were not seen as money at all. Great feedback and growing number of my followers was the most important thing for me.
Life is all about unpredictable changes.

Sometimes, it will drain the last drops of your blood, sweat and tears just to test how strong you are.

In October 2016 things started to turn bad. My band made self-released album and it was on local radio stations for some time. I was too honest during some interview on local radio station and spoke publicly about some delicate things, so tomorrow morning I lost my very precious job. I took a free week to get some rest and clear my mind.

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At that time, the price of Steem became very low.

It was always between 0.11$ and 0.17$, so when you got 10$ reward for your blog, you would get 4 SBD and more than 30 Steem Power after the payout. Kinda hard to imagine that now, isn't it?
It was very difficult for me to find a new job, so I worked things that were below my education and status. I was a substitute teacher for few weeks and a substitute educator for grownups for a month. I didn't work longer than 4 hours per week and those salaries were really funny. But my life didn't wait for me to gain financial stability again, shits started to happen very fast. It was like "shit season" a chain reaction of bad events. A trouble never comes alone, so I had to change brakes and tires on my car. Our apartment still wasn't finished, we had to change some plumbings we were still paying for our furniture. My dog got health issues and veterinarians are not cheap here. Then I had to pay the technical inspection of my car and I didn't have enough money to pay my phone bill. I signed the contract with telecommunication company for that phone while I still had that awesome job and had to pay the most of those monthly installments after I lost it.

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My girlfriend got pregnant in November 2016.

If you are familiar with conditions in the hospital in my city, you would know that the best choice is to go to private clinics for this kind of examinations. So we had to pay the gynecologist every two-three weeks. After nine years of relationship we decided to get married and guess what: it costs as hell!
Then I made one of the biggest mistakes in my life:

I took a loan from the bank!

And I couldn't pay it every month. The bank closed my account and I bankrupted. The last New Year's Eve was the poorest in my life.
We got married in February 2017 and got some money from our guests. Would you believe that in February 2017 the price of Steem reached it's bottom of 7 cents. If I was clever, I would invest all that money in Steem and in June I would be a rich man. But who knew what will happen in next months?

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We used the money that we got to finish all works in our apartment.

At least we succeeded to finish one thing that we started. But many new expenses were just showing up day by day. We knew that we will need baby stroller, cot, many other things that will be needed wen baby comes... We desperate needed new car also, a bigger one that can fit for a family.

I was very eager to find a new job and things started to get better for me but the job found me.

I don't know which spiritual force made me to knock on doors of that office in April 2017, but I am still in that office, at the moment, I am writing this post from that office! I was very happy with my new job, with my new bosses that are actually normal people. My work is serious and important, I met many people here and learned some useful things. And I started to get good money for that job, but my bank was always taking 33% percent from me because of the loan and bankrupt. We had enough to live normally but not for baby stroller, cot, new car, some things for a baby that was on the way...

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I was very worried about our future and I talked to a friend and he told me that I don't have any rights to complain since I had 10000 Steem Power!

And the price of Steem started to grow, it reached almost 3$ in June 2017... and I clicked on that Power Down button...

I hated myself because of that! But we needed a lot of money and it had to be done. I couldn't sleep by nights watching my Steem Power going lower and lower. I lost some people that constantly upvoted me, even some that I considered as my Steemit friends. Some started to think that I stopped to believe in Steem and that was wrong! Steemit went trough many changes also, many new users came and they started to get rewards every day and I was on the way down.

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The half of my Steem Power helped me to buy a car, a new computer and all that we needed for the baby.

On this morning I finished with all of my debts.

I am so happy that I am out of the bankruptcy now, my bank account was re-opened just two hours ago!

And I stopped Power Down!

And there is no reason to start new Power Down again!

I finally brought my life back top normal and I am staring to blog here from the beginning! It will not be easy like a year ago because the price of Steem is much higher and I don't get so awesome rewards every day, so... please, don't think bad about me! I work much harder on Steemit than the most of those who get much higher rewards than me. I still believe in Steem and I love Steemit very much! I will continue with my hard work. Now is the time for me to save my Steem Power and try to earn more!

I can't say for sure what future will bring but I will definitely not Power Down for at least next 9 months. Thank you!