Woman, 41, who had to move into a VAN after her business collapsed opens up about the ‘shame’ she felt at going ‘broke’: ‘I always thought I’d be a millionaire by 40’

A woman has told how she felt ‘ashamed’ after finding herself single and homeless as she reached the age of 40 during the pandemic – and how she finally made peace with the trajectory of her life after getting into a van and leaving the had gone away.

Annie Wonderlich, 41, spoke with Insider about her transition from owning a small event planning company in Los Angeles to her current itinerant lifestyle with a renovated van as a home base.

‘I turned 40 in November 2022. It was very hard for me. I lived in a van and I wasn’t married. I had no house. I didn’t have all these things that society told me I needed,” she told the publication.

“I always thought I’d be a millionaire by the time I turned 40, but here I was, living in a van, broke,” she continued.

In 2019, she said, she had “everything I could ever want or need” — but still felt “loner than ever”

She went on to explain that in 2019, she had “everything I could ever want or need.”

By her late 30s, she had successfully launched an event planning company that had grown to eleven full-time employees.

She also had a boyfriend and a “nice house.”

‘But despite my success, I felt lonelier than ever. It made me realize that you can feel completely isolated despite having everything you ever wanted written down on paper,” she admitted about how her old life may have looked perfect from the outside.

After her business collapsed around March 2020 at the height of the pandemic, she found herself homeless and sleeping on friends’ couches.

Ultimately, it was the world of ‘van life’ on social media that captured her imagination – and led her to her next chapter.

Over the next few months, Annie began selling flower arrangements she made using a combination of flowers from “supermarkets” and others she collected “looking for food… on the side of the street.”

By May 2020, she had saved $3,000 – enough to buy a van of her own: a 1989 Dodge Ram.

Annie saved $3,000 selling flower arrangements to buy her van: a 1989 Dodge Ram

Before long, Annie also acquired a puppy, Charlie, and a kitten, Emilie, to keep her company as she traveled across the country in her van.

She explained that for another six months, she spent most of her time parked in a Home Depot parking lot, continuing to sell flower arrangements to save enough money for essentials, like gas, before heading out to visit the United States. States to explore. .

‘At first I was ashamed of living in a van. I had worked hard to climb the ladder and start my own business. “I saw myself as a successful businesswoman and living in a van just didn’t fit in with that,” she admitted.

She further acknowledged that she “always wanted to get married and have kids and I still want those things, but sometimes life doesn’t give you what you want, and you have to roll with the punches.”

As Annie began to settle into the van life in her early days, she admitted that she felt “ashamed” of being in her late 30s, while other makers she met along the way all seemed to be in their 20s.

“I was ashamed that I was older than her,” she said.

Even after delving into creating content to support herself, “Annie was still ashamed of my age, so I kept it a secret.”

“I look young, and people just seemed to think I was in my 20s,” she added.

But eventually she decided to be more candid about how old she really was.

In her words, “she decided to make (my age) my superpower by talking about it online, to show that you can do anything and start over at any time.”

Annie admitted she was initially hesitant to share her age on social media, but eventually embraced it as her ‘superpower’

It was around this time that she also got a golden retriever puppy, Charlie, and a kitten, Emilie, to keep her company on the road.

For Annie, the message “obviously resonated, because a lot of women my age started commenting on my videos and sending me messages telling me how inspired they felt, and I realized that there were a lot of people who felt the same way as I.’

However, Annie was “equally shocked” by hate messages she received when she spoke openly about her age, “from people who were mostly men.”

In an October Instagram, she clapped back at notes from strangers, including one who stated that they had unfollowed her because of the emphasis on being single at 40, as if that’s what makes you strong, while others insinuated that she had a sad life. .’

Ultimately, Annie remained unaffected by the negativity.

‘Now that I’m forty, I feel like my life is just beginning. I am still single, childless, and have no permanent residence. But I can’t wait to keep exploring life and the world,” she concluded in the essay.

As DailyMail.com reported in December 2021, Annie further reflected on her personal transformation, spurred by the drastic change in her daily life: ‘I was more codependent in the beginning and found it difficult to travel alone, but once you get past that you get the ultimate freedom to do what you want, when you want.’