This mama’s winning the internet! Single mom Christina Knaack posted a photo of her rent receipt to Facebook on Wednesday, February 22, noting that she’d used all the money from her tax return to make the big payment — and commenters are applauding her for her actions.
“I got back $5600 on my taxes,” the 29-year-old mother of two from Gaffney, South Carolina, captioned the image. “Instead of buying my kids the latest Jordans or fancy electronics I paid my rent for the YEAR. I’m a single mom and I do it all buy myself on a minimum wage job. I kno that a roof over my kids head is what’s important. My kids don’t want for anything because my priorities are straight. And this also means I will have that extra 450 a month to do things with my kids.”
As of Friday afternoon, Knaack’s post has garnered more than 330,000 reactions and been shared nearly 134,000 times. A stranger who was touched by her story even opted to start a GoFundMe campaign. In subsequent posts, Knaack also revealed that numerous people had reached out to her in hopes of donating items for her and her two daughters — Serenity Grace, 2, and McKayla Michelle, 4 months.
“Going to get a PO box tomorrow,” she posted Thursday, February 23. “People have asked to send my daughters things and I don’t mind it. I appreciate the messages (that I’m still trying to go thru so please don’t think I’m ignoring anyone) and all the love I’ve received.”
In an interview with local station Fox Carolina, Knaack explained that she had originally written the post as a way to show family and friends that she had gotten her life back on track after years of struggling with addiction.
“I was in addiction from the age of 16 to 26 and I never thought I would make it out,” she said in the Fox interview. “I was homeless. I know a lot of girls in Florida, where I’m from, who are recovering addicts.”
Knaack, who has been clean for three years, added that using her tax return money to pay a full year’s worth of rent was a no-brainer for her. “It’s better throughout the year. Like, I don’t have to worry about my kids saying, ‘Mommy, I need this,’ and I can’t get it because I’m still trying to debate if I can pay my light bill or if I can pay my rent,” she said. “You see too many posts now, like, ‘Oh, I got my kid the latest Jordans’ or ‘Look, my 7-year-old has an iPhone 7.’ People lose sight of what’s important. … It feels great.”