I really lost everything I built in the UK 🇬🇧 in 20 years after turning 40, BUT i Rebuilt my life

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]almost finding myself homeless. When you have a big mortgage to pay, you have kids and then you have notice of income, two of you both educated, you ask yourself these questions that how did I get here? How can I after working hard, paying into the system, doing everything right, never been on benefits, how do I find myself about to lose everything? I thought to myself, I only had 20 years under my belt. I wouldn't even tell you how long my husband at that point had. How he'd helped family, how he'd built homes, how he'd impacted people's lives.

[00:00:39]And we found ourselves with nothing because of a set of events, three events, me, my job, his, and our son, and the decisions that we made prior. I don't think I've ever been this vulnerable. But you know what it means to wake up one day.

[00:00:59]You have You don't have too much. You have a home. You have healthy kids. You both have jobs.

[00:01:10]You both have stability.

[00:01:12]And one day you wake up and all that gets taken away from you in 28 days.

[00:01:19]That's the timeline from my situation at work to my husbands to my sons. But God was preparing us. This is a very hard video for me to film. I realize that when you're out there and you tell your story, people want to know more and it's getting the sweet spot of how much you share and how much you're willing to share. After my last video talking about how I lost everything 20 years after living in the UK, I had a lot of comments. A lot of them were positive, but a lot of people wanted to know more.

[00:01:53]Give context. Were you alone with four kids? How did it happen? How did the job situation happen? How did you actually manage to? Some people thought it was AI generated content. That was not true. A part of me wishes that my story was made up. It wasn't true because I would not be filming here. But another part is really happy that I did because he led me down this route of having more purpose in my life, finding more fulfillment and also rebuilding my life the way I did. I'm going to be really vulnerable today and share a little bit more than I have shared to answer some of the questions and I'll actually even go further deeper on the intricacies of my situation at work because I believe that it would help a lot of people especially how I navigated it and how I succeeded but that will be for members only because some of it really I don't want the whole world to be able to consume that even what I'm sharing today I find that very sensitive Let's start.

[00:02:51]The video today will go deeper on how I built my life after losing everything in 20 years as a 40 plus woman immigrant in the UK. How I went from no savings, debt of almost £22,000 and how I found myself, I'll say now 2 years to the date of being in a brand new job. I doubled my income as well as paid off everything. What you guys don't realize is that the last video I really sugarcoated things. You guys don't know how bad it was. It was never just about me having issues with work. It was a lot happening at home and I'll be vulnerable today and I'll share. I might regret it later, but I'll share. Okay, let's start. To give a bit more context, before all of this happened in 2024, I worked for an organization which is like an arm of the government. I had worked there like I already said for close to 10 years. I was doing okay. I had never had any grievance. I never had even even like a verbal warning or any issue with HR, never clean slate all through. So I had no reason to feel like I would my job was under threat. But in between working there for 10 years, I had always had an inter ent interpreneurial mindset.

[00:04:19]I ran maybe about three businesses. One back home which is basically a cleaning company where I clean offices, government buildings. I had contracts sometimes with schools, private homes.

[00:04:32]And that was thriving. But that was that didn't really take my time because I had a group of people who I had trained and a lot of the work that I did was remote.

[00:04:41]So I trained cleaners across and consultancy services that was on the side. But before that I also had a business where I I created products from scratch and I sold them on different platforms especially Amazon. I also had a website where you could order things online, household products, the works.

[00:05:06]Um, I can talk about that. I think I've done some videos, but that was an idea of what I was doing. And I I started supplying small companies with different products, especially office supplies, and it was doing okay. That was all born during the period of COVID when I was at home and isolated. But once things went back to normal, work picked up, I made the tough decision to close my company because I had um an unfortunate in incident with one of my last deliveries and I lost a lot of money. That is another conversation for another day. I lost a lot of money. So I decided to focus on my job and I closed that business completely. Now let's go back to work. What happened? Like I said, I will not go into too much detail, but while I went on holiday, in fact, before I went on holiday, my manager had gotten wing that I actually had a YouTube channel. Yes, somebody told him that, have you seen her YouTube channel? And I think he went down a rabbit hole. By the way, this was not this channel. This was a fun family channel where I talked about my healthy eating, keeping feeds, just helping moms, just dayto-day vlogs.

[00:06:25]And a lot of a lot of my content at the time was centered around my son. I have a big son who has been in a Premier League academy most of his life and did really well. So, people always wanted to see what he was up to and I shared tips.

[00:06:42]I've helped a lot of parents as well to at the time to maybe get them their kids to start playing and how to leverage their skills, all of that stuff. So, I'd always done that. Somebody shared that to me. It was never a secret because it was it was nothing serious. It was just like content that I loved to do for fun.

[00:07:01]And he was a new manager. So, people before him knew. My colleagues were always like, "We want to be in your blog." So, it was not a secret. Anyway, while I was off, before I went off, now that I know what I know, and I think I'll have to really go deeper another time on how I knew the amount of information and the amount of planning and all of the the the how far they went to get me to get rid of me. He knew a few weeks before and I think he just could not believe how I was juggling a job with four kids, a YouTube channel, and apparently a business. So he searched me and that's where all of this came out from. It's very deep. It's very painful. I I felt like I lost my privacy. I felt like everything I was doing was out there because this man went out of his way to investigate me through all means, Facebook, which is private, Instagram private, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, everything. Talking about it now, I really get upset. Anyway, so he used that case and I'm not going to go into level of detail on this video because I'm talking about how I've rebuilt my life and the real story of how I when I say I lost everything, that's how it appeared. So when I got back that day, I was suspended. I was suspended with pay. That's why I emphasized that I was lucky that I had a chance and I was not get gotten rid of so easily to say, "We don't want you anymore. Go away." I was still being paid. Um, I could not do any of my businesses. My YouTube channel at the time was giving me extra 300 400 that I use sometimes for holidays to buy something I've wanted. I had a lot of I had endorsements where people give me stuff like those things helped to tick tick along. Although my lifestyle at the time I was really living life without thinking about tomorrow but that I stopped doing that because of what was going on at work and I did not feel it was right to carry on my content creation. So that stopped all my businesses. I couldn't even dream of so I was living on my paycheck which was something that I had not done for long ex especially because I had just come from a very expensive vacation. I had just spent a lot of money on a birthday.

[00:09:20]I've told you guys all of that. And the part that I did not tell you guys when somebody asked if I was alone. So, I have been married for 15 years this year, but I've been my partner for 21 years. And I've been in the UK for almost 21 years. So, yes, do the maths.

[00:09:39]And I am 42. So, I've been with him for most of my adult life. And we are we have been a union, not without ups and downs. It's been interesting. But the reason why I did not talk about that is I don't I really like to focus on me because I cannot tell somebody else's story. I don't want to be the one to be the voice. If he was sat here, this is tough. If he was sat here sharing his story, he would say different because he has the lens of what went on in 2024.

[00:10:15]He supported me for my birthday. He was doing okay like both of us. In fact, the only reason why he didn't go on that vacation with my kids and I is because he was working and he couldn't take the time off with his passport expiring, all of that. But we were it was okay. The week I came back from the holidays, he had a letter the same week to say that his company was closing down and they were making most of them redundant because he was in IT support.

[00:10:47]So um he had a a decent package. He'd worked in the company for about five years at that point. So he had an okay um payoff. He was he was happy it happened at the time because he said he needed to pivot his career. He had to study. So it's okay. He had money to take him through a few months pay off his you know. So it looked okay. But I said to myself the day it was a few days after my situation. So picture this.

[00:11:16]We both had stable jobs. We'd been in our jobs for well over 5 years, both of us. What could go wrong? We had debts like everybody else in the UK. Everybody watching, most people watching this video have debt. Maybe it's a credit card or whatever. So, you work and you pay it off. That's where that wheel of dome, that hamster's wheel comes in where you work hard, you live here for so long and all you seem to do is make get debts, pay it off, get more debt, credit card, do. So, he'd been in the UK for context longer. And if you've watched my older videos, he was one of those people who was fed up and moved back home. He moved back home almost 18 years ago and he seted up a business. He was doing well, but a family ran that business to the ground. And that's a completely different story that I want him to be the one to say if he wants to see it. And other circumstances life, right? So he came back and had to start a fresh. When I say start a fresh, when you've been out of the job market in an industry that is ever moving for a long time, you struggle. And I think in bits and bobs in past videos I've said it how it was a time that it was just me. It was a time that I didn't even know that I was ever going to work. When I was a young woman, when I had my first child, I was being looked after by him. Um and then things changed. And it tells it just tells you that there's no situation permanent when you're in a union. See videos every day of um my husband this we lost this I left him. I can relate and that's why I I have a passion for advising women on how to deal with these situations and also the core values and morals that you uphold. How important are those commitments that you make knowing that it's never never plain sailing. There's no relationship that is is always perfect. They're ups and downs. Right? So this was a difficult time for him, for me because we sat down after we had no issues. I remember him being very generous for my birthday, you know, helping me out like partners do. I chose to have the lavish party I had saved up and he supported me, looked all good, holidays came back and the letter came. He It happened about July both of us. So he had July, August, September to work and by October he was out of work.

[00:13:49]But he kept he knew that he will get back into work really fast because you can imagine that he very educated in his field. He had experience. So he knew that tops a few months and he'll be back at work.

[00:14:04]What he did not realize was that we had the other plans that God had for us. And that's why it was really difficult for me to share. Anyway, we both put our ourselves together and said we have I still had a job. I was still being paid. I got paid for 6 months while this whole case was blowing up at my workplace from one grieviance. I I also opened a grievance against my manager. So, it's a whole story time. I think I'll put a link to the playlist.

[00:14:39]And so, that was going on. He was looking for work but he was not so bothered because another calamity struck my home and this was the the most difficult right I still don't know if I can talk about it my big boy who was in professional football became very unwell very very unwell and while all of that was going on I was literally living in hospital and my husband was with the other kids at home and this was across um over a 3 months period only 4 months later by July the day I was told that I will be investigated when I went back to work that was the same day that my son's health situation started getting serious um it still went okay July he still was um traveled for his football I picked him up from the airport from preseason in Portugal and from the airport the rest was history was hospital and downhill from there. So that was what shook the family because this boy if you know me you will know that it was deeper than that he let's leave it at that right so everything seemed to be crumbling down at the same time and my husband could not find himself work for the next over six months. So most of the savings ran out. What he'd kept aside work just seemed difficult.

[00:16:16]By the time I was finishing work in March when I officially left my job, we had depleted all of our savings.

[00:16:28]All of our savings with the debts piling up.

[00:16:33]And this is why I said I I was almost finding myself homeless. When you have a big mortgage to pay, you have kids and then you have lots of income, two of you both educated, you ask yourself these questions that how did I get here? How can I after working hard, paying into the system, doing everything right, never been on benefits, how do I find myself about to lose everything? And I'll share now exactly how we rebuilt this.

[00:17:06]March I ended but I was lucky because I had a bit of a payout which I would not divulge much on this video. If you want to know more I'll shoot a video now for my members only and I'll share more about the nittyg gritties. People don't believe and I might share just I remember when I was about to pay off my debt I did a video on my bank account and my credit how it looked and I think now it's a different person and I might not share that but that's available anyway. I'll put that on my members only page and that's on YouTube here. I have a members only um videos that I shoot and I use that to pay off most of the debts. Not all because it was not that much because I had to still keep money because we had no job.

[00:17:48]So that money that I kept, I knew that life had to completely change. The first thing that I did was when I had that payout and I paid off some of the biggest debt, it did not even touch much of the surface because I was in almost 22,000 debt at that point or more. I knew that there was just one income and to run a household like ours. I knew that we needed quite a bit of money every month to keep things ticking along. There were we had incured hospital bills because we went private at some point with our son because the NHS was not cutting it. The football club did as much as they could do but things were just there was just no way out at the time. So that just accumulated the the stress. I knew that I needed to do things different. I knew that if I did not get a job or if we did not get a job in the next two months, we're going to literally lose everything because we had decent savings. But this had been depleted for almost at that point 7 to 8 months and an additional 5 to 10,000 cost due to the health situation my son was going through. Not only the hospital rights because but the the consultants we paid the the the medication, the the the the food he started eating, the vitamins, the the therapy I took, the therapy he took, it was a lot. This is just the financial impact I'm sharing.

[00:19:31]You cannot quantify Or you cannot put a value. I'm sorry I'm being emotional. You cannot put a value to health.

[00:19:40]You cannot put a value to going to work every day and having a house to stay.

[00:19:45]You cannot put a value to both of you, you and your spouse getting I'm sorry. Everything that was normal was taken away. The only thing we had was a British passport and the right to stay here, nothing else. And I thought to myself, I only had 20 years under my belt. I wouldn't even tell you how long my husband at that point had. How he'd helped family, how he'd built homes, how he'd impacted people's lives.

[00:20:21]And we found ourselves with nothing because of a set of events, three events. me, my job, his and our son, and the decisions that we made prior. I don't think I've ever been this vulnerable, but you know what it means to wake up one day.

[00:20:41]You have you don't have too much. You have a home. You have healthy kids. You both have jobs.

[00:20:52]You both have stability.

[00:20:54]And one day you wake up and all that gets taken away from you in 28 days.

[00:21:00]That's the timeline from my situation at work to my husbands to my sons. But God was preparing us. He gave us the 6 months pay without working to look after our other kids while I focused on my son. And I never knew that at the time.

[00:21:20]But after that, my faith became stronger.

[00:21:25]This is harder than I thought. But the way I rebuild things is come March after we I kept four months um money aside from the payouts which helped because I had that four months I went back and I did a few coding courses. I decided to focus. My career was stagnant. I said that already because I'd been in the same job for so long. So my career had come to a standstill almost but I knew that I had potential and the amount of experience that I had from my last job for 10 years. When I looked at the market, I could contract and I realized that that was the way forward to double my income. So not only did I move jobs, I stayed in my industry because I became more like an authority figure because of the number of years I had. If you have a pen, take notes. And then I also decided to go into contracting cuz that's the way I could get more pay.

[00:22:23]And I was so lucky that I did all of that, did my CV up because I'd never done my CV in in years. Like you can imagine, I never looked for a job in 10 years. And that's why I say to you guys, do not do what I did. Don't wait to get to the position that I got to before you look for an alternative, a plan B. I did that March, April. My husband was still frantically looking for work um training didn't get anything. He got something I think about June but it was a very short contract which was just for 2 months that did not even scratch the surface of our problems. And I was so lucky that after 3 months before my the money we kept aside for the 3 months came to an end we I managed to find a contract job and that's why I said I doubled my income. At that point I still had about 124,000 debt. I decided that although I always had a salary for the six months, so I did not have a whole I would not inflate my lifestyle with the fact that my income doubled. I decided to first pay off all of my debt. So every month clockwork when I get paid cuz I was a contractor now. So it was weekly. It was a bit different. Month end, I'll do my maths. I'll keep aside some emergency fund. I started building it. I paid off all of the high interest loans. This was all done in six months. I did. Nobody will could tell because I did not buy myself one new thing. To see the amount of money I saw in my account and pay off all your debt without going to buy yourself designer stuff or you know spludging on things. That was the level of discipline that I learned after I lost everything. Nothing is guaranteed.

[00:24:16]We had such high prospects on every all of us who were in that situation. And I tell people that the devil came to try me. But God taught me what the devil didn't know that I needed to know. He showed me a different side and he taught me a lesson that nothing would have ever taught me if I did not go through what I went through.

[00:24:41]I finally paid off all of my debts and that's why I shared what I shared and the lessons that I learned and I've done a separate video on this. As soon as I started paying off my debt the next month by July I started investing and I also when I had my payout I put some money in an investment um platform. I would never risk things with what I went through because I feel like I was gambling my life away. I decided to go much more safe ETFs.

[00:25:14]I did, as I said, I I did some courses.

[00:25:18]I learned online about investments, the the main things that I should have been doing. I I educated myself on this and I started my investment journey where I thought about dollar cost averaging and every month I was putting some money aside the same way putting in for my kids. I was investing in my kids or I am investing in my kids even if it's a small amount that has compounded over a year. The investment might not have made me thousands but it's only after a certain length of time that you really see the jump. I'm not trying to beat the market and pick particular investments. I'm just going for things like the SM, S&P 500, foods, just the normal big companies. And in the at the same time, I was also paying off all of the debt.

[00:26:10]So, I took about 6 to 8 months to completely tidy up and open my credit reports and have no borrowing. But we did some house renovation as well which luckily the payout did a lot maybe like 2 3,000 on just giving us a spruce because we were depression sometimes is about your environment right so we just gave the I I decided to spend most of the time that I was at home as well doing the DIY myself. I did a video on how much I actually saved or made by not working doing the house work ourselves.

[00:26:43]Me and my husband painted our three-story house, every room, changed the flooring, but we got to do that. Did the garden ourselves keeps we did a lot of that helped our mental health because to get to the point where you're looking at taking medication to get better, you know that you've really hit rock bottom.

[00:27:02]And that was me. That was us. And but thanks to God, while that was happening, our son's health got better. We had um a breakthrough medication and um you cannot even tell he was unwell. It was just something that we did not know was wrong with him. But God had to humble us. God had to make us see the other side. It been I can share on another video if you want to know. His journey has been one that has encouraged a lot of people. I don't talk about it that much because he's a big lad now who has his life so I don't really pull him into my stuff. In the past he was more involved but I just feel like it's encou it could encourage some parents and I feel proud a lot of parents who were giving up with their kids in our cultures African cultures like why are you doing football our story helped them over the years because he's been in the face of football for a while so that improved um by summer last year things the puzzle started getting better my husband has not um got some temporary work but has not really been lucky because the job market is so cruel and he falls in that category of people who I'll talk about them in another video.

[00:28:06]It's really tough for them. If you're a wife watching and you have that thing that I don't have to say, big up to you. Give give us a hug. He has been retraining and he's building things back up. It's looking positive.

[00:28:20]I'll put it that way. But we thank God for everything. And although it's still we're still in that place of gratitude, in that place of not taking things for granted, I'm also in a place where I know that I can never be colorless again. I know that every£100 sometimes I can just treat the kids to a holiday like we are going away and I'm thinking I deserve it. With everything that I've been through, I deserve it.

[00:28:47]But I don't do those spontaneous madness. I would not use a credit card ever to book a holiday. I would never do that again or to have a party. I would never. We would keep things right, simple. We would invest. We'll save up for emergency and we'll have a plan on retirement because that's the bits that we don't think about like Africans.

[00:29:10]This video I think has been all over the place, but I sincerely hope that this video, although it was all over the place, I hope you helped somebody. And thank you guys for all your support. If you've seen me for the first time, my name is Lulu. This is Lulu Diaries. I started this channel about a year and a half ago when I was in a very very dark place and I you guys pulled me up.

[00:29:33]That's why those of you who are new, not let me say, "Oh, this is AI. This is not true." It was like a movie you could write, but you would not think of that sort of script because it was tough. But thank you guys. We are going strong. I have started a newsletter on my musings and thoughts. Most of you might have received it. If you've not and you want to, I have my email address on the bio and I also have a digital um book which I did to help immigrants on how to build wealth while living abroad and just thinking about things like remittances, black tax, um retirements, our kids futures, all of those topics that we know but don't talk about. download that and it would give you an insight into what you thought about. Yes. And if you enjoyed this video, give us a like, consider subscribing.

[00:30:26]Liking the video helps to push it out and I don't take you guys support for granted. Thanks so much again and I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye. Bye.

[00:30:36]Bye.