How Technology Changed My Life: The Story Behind Cheap Houses

If You Grew Up Poor, You May Recognize Yourself in Cheap Houses

See Cheap Houses on Amazon — Read the Description, Reviews, or Order a Copy

 Read sample 13 chapters for free on Amazon before you buy.

Maybe your family never called itself poor.

Maybe that was just how you lived.

You wore things until they wore out.

You learned that when something broke, replacing it wasn't always an option.

You knew there were things other children had that your family couldn't afford.

You understood that money mattered, even before you completely understood money.

And sometimes you learned not to ask for something because you already knew the answer.

If you grew up that way, you may understand Cheap Houses before you ever turn the first page.

Poverty Doesn't Always Look Like We Imagine It

I grew up in the coal camps and small communities of rural northern Alabama.

My family moved from one cheap house to another, looking for work and somewhere we could afford to live.

The houses weren't charming little country homes.

They were cheap because cheap was what we could afford.
Cracked walls.
Little insulation.
Few comforts.
Every dollar mattered.

As a boy, I worked wherever work could be found—picking cotton, hauling pulpwood, baling hay, and cutting fence posts.

I wore hand-me-down clothes.

I carried my lunch in a paper sack.

And when my shoes wore out, there were times when cardboard inside them had to do what a new pair of shoes would have done.

But here's something people who grew up poor may understand:
I didn't necessarily think of myself as poor.
It was simply my life.

When everyone around you is struggling too, poverty can look remarkably normal.

Maybe Your Poverty Looked Different

Maybe you didn't pick cotton.

Maybe you never hauled pulpwood.

Maybe you never put cardboard inside your shoes.

But perhaps your father drove an old car because there was no money for another one.

Maybe your mother knew how to stretch a meal farther than seemed possible.

Maybe clothes came from an older brother, sister, cousin, or neighbor.

Maybe one unexpected bill could throw the household into trouble.

Maybe you remember adults talking quietly about money when they thought the kids weren't listening.

Maybe you remember wanting something and deciding not to ask.

Different house.
Different town.
Different family.
Same feeling.

That's one reason I wrote Cheap Houses.

This Isn't a Story About Getting Rich

Cheap Houses: A Memoir of Poverty and Reinvention in Rural America isn't a story about becoming wealthy.

And it isn't a story that says if you just work hard enough, everything will turn out fine.

Life doesn't work that way.
Life can be unfair.
Where you start matters.
Opportunity matters.
Hard work matters.
Luck matters - more than most folks realize!
Persistence matters.

None of those things guarantees success.

But sometimes an opportunity appears that changes the direction of a life.

For me, one of those early moments came when I discovered something called "Future Cards" describing technologies that might someday become part of everyday life.

One described computers.
I had never seen one.
To a poor boy in rural Alabama, that world might as well have been on another planet.
But it showed me that another world existed.

At seventeen, I joined the United States Air Force as a medic. Over time, that path eventually led me into medical information systems and then information technology.

The circumstances changed.
The cheap houses were left behind.
But some of what they taught me never left.

That's Really What This Book Is About
Poverty can follow you long after you stop being poor.
It can affect the way you think about money.

Security.
Work.
Risk.
Opportunity.
What you save.
What you spend.
What you fear losing.
And what you consider "enough."

You can travel a long way from where you started and still carry part of that place with you.

You can leave poverty behind and still carry it with you

That is at the heart of Cheap Houses.

If Any of This Sounds Familiar, This Book May Be For You

I wrote Cheap Houses about my life.

But I don't believe poverty belongs to one person's story.
Millions of people grew up in families that worked hard and still struggled.
Families where money was always just a little too short.
Families who made do.

Repaired instead of replaced.
Saved what could be reused.
Went without.
And kept going.

If that describes part of your childhood, you may recognize something of yourself in these pages.
Not because we grew up in the same house.
Not because our lives followed the same path.
But because some experiences are understood without explanation.

Cheap Houses
A Memoir of Poverty and Reinvention in Rural America

Maybe you didn't grow up in one of my cheap houses.

But you may have grown up in one of your own.

ORDER CHEAP HOUSES ON AMAZON

Available in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions.

— Stevie G. Davis