Success Stories: Lessons In Failures

In the spirit of our goal to create financial freedom and build a life of travel and adventure, this is our last BLOG for a while. It’s time to say NO to everything possible in order to say YES to some compulsory summer fun!

In this BLOG we would like to share some real world life lessons learned the hard way from our good friend and now incredibly successful volleyball coach, Laura Kasey.

Written by Laura Kasey

Personal finance has become a part of my personal development, and I’m grateful for the painfully hard journey I’ve been on. Now it is just “regular” hard! A little background: I come from a large blue-collar divorced family. My parents worked long hard hours, and neither had college educations. My point is that I did not come from money, and had little knowledge of credit or finance when I entered the “real world”. I knew how to work hard and keep my check book balanced. I had the personal privilege of earning a full college scholarship to be a student-athlete.

I managed bills, rental agreements, plus working on the side in college to be where I thought I was on good financial ground. Towards the end of my time in school, an athletics injury led to series of hospital, surgery and rehab bills. My scholarship was to cover it. Eight months later, I had a car accident, and needed to buy a vehicle (I only had liability insurance on my damaged car, so it was on my dime). I tried to buy a used vehicle and was told that I didn’t qualify for bank financing due to debt in collections in my name. Huh? I said.

I always paid what I owed, and on time! Turns out that clerical errors by my college led to my medical bills going unpaid. I never saw a bill, so I had no clue that I had tens of thousands of dollars delinquent for nearly a year.

The car dealership would of course sell me a new vehicle (financed by the dealership), even when I told them I didn’t think I could afford it. At the time, I was convinced buying a car was my only option, so I got a loan I could not afford.

The school apologized for the error and began paying the bills. It was a cumbersome process, and late fees would slip through and get sent to collections and I’d get hammered all over again. Meanwhile I graduated and had a surprising chance to take up my dream of playing my sport overseas. I bought a one-way ticket, and got a contract which had me earning just barely enough to eat. (Literally, the most effective diet I have ever been on – the “broke” diet.) I couldn’t sell the car I purchased. I was not even in the country to drive it, and I still had to pay the bills. I was using my credit cards to eat. Then whenever one of those unpaid medical bills showed up again – my credit card company hiked my rates. (This is before Dodd-Frank made this practice illegal.)

After two years of battling with the debt / interest cycle, I had a choice: 1. Quit my dream (low-paying) job that would set me up for a real career and go home to get a higher paying regular job 2. Quit my debt and deal with the subsequent fallout The next time I went stateside I dropped my car off at the dealership, and declared bankruptcy. It was painful and embarrassing, and I was terrified my credit would never recover. I went back to Europe and lived a car-less, cash-only life for the next couple years.

My career overseas helped me to get my first “real job” offer in the States. I took it, and headed back richer in experience but poor in dollars and credit score. I started out simply by buying a small car with a co-signer (my father was for the first time in a position to help me out) and I got a company-backed charge card. At the age of 27, I was at ground zero (or really negative when you consider the derogatory items on my credit report). This is where the painfully hard part of my journey changed into just “hard”. But I would also add “hopeful”.

The “real job” introduced me to Mark Barnard and I was fortunate to also get to know his generous and savvy wife Louise. Their advice and encouragement helped me take the leap to do what I thought I never could do: buy real estate. I lived cheaply, had roommates and scraped together some savings for two years. I studied the local market and jumped on a place that I thought was right. Using some government first-time buyer programs, I purchased a condo. I chose to buy what I thought I could rent, but what I also wanted to live in. I purchased a 3 bedroom / 2 bath unit in a new building, and rented two rooms out. (It was a college town, so the rental market was excellent.) Of course having roommates is a lifestyle choice that is not for everyone, but I found great people – and they paid my mortgage!

I was paying less than I had as a renter while simultaneously building equity.

I purchased while the market was still sliding (’08), and I purchased with the intent to keep the property for the long term. When I moved after a few years for another job, I rented out the whole property. The property doesn’t cash flow much, but I have great equity, an excellent tax write-off and a “nest egg” for whatever down the road someday. I had to start somewhere – and I’m happy I did.

My second purchase was in my new college town, this time a 130 year old fixer-upper. I purchased it with the intent to flip it, not rent it. I was emboldened to do this because I now had a partner, who happened to be a carpenter. Neither one of us had remodeled before (he was a new-build carpenter), but between his skills, my vision, and a lot of HGTV and energy drinks, we made the home beautiful and functional and sold it for a profit. There were few important keys that enabled us to come out ahead on our first project together.

1. We got a place that had a good chance to make return. It had aesthetic and functionality issues, not structural issues. It was the proverbial ugly house on a great block.

2. We researched and got good advice from local pros. We brought people in for quotes, lots of them, and asked them all kinds of questions about what they thought was best. Including our excellent real estate agent!! He talked me out of ideas that didn’t add value.

3. We (mostly my dear husband) did the grimy, backbreaking work ourselves: demo, framing, drywall, sanding and painting.

4. We paid fair prices to have the stuff out of our expertise done right – plumbing and major electrical.

5. I scoured sales and managed to purchase an ENTIRE KITCHEN for less than $5000 between IKEA, discount granite companies and Home Depot sales. We assembled it ourselves. (YouTube tutorials rock!!)

6. Lastly, I did all the design – layout and material choices – with the mindset to appeal to a target buyer plentiful in a college town: an educated woman. I aimed for functionality and pinterest-worthy style, that a busy woman may not have the know-how or time to create herself, but did have the finances to buy.

Our other important strategy, was to take advantage of the exemption to capital gains tax by living in the home as a primary residence for at least 2 years. The timing didn’t work out great for that, as I got a job in another city at the 18-month mark. We had to get a few more contractors to cover an accelerated timeline and we ended up paying a small percentage of tax on our profit. But we still came out just enough ahead to make it all worth it! We also became more emboldened in our abilities.

In our new city, we again purchased with the intent to flip. Armed with more time, more experience and an ever-improving market, we flipped that place at the 2-year mark for a solid profit. We used the profit to buy our dream home – that still had room to be improved of course. Our next goal will likely be different because we don’t intend to move. We’re keeping an eye out to purchase a straight up “flippable” property. It’ll be harder because we’ll have a short timeline and have more complicated financing, but we have built the right foundation of experience, good credit and courage to take that on. Or we may get into other investments. It’s crazy how financial stability allows you to have more options in life!

I’ve tried to pay forward the lessons and encouragement I received from the Barnard’s. We can’t all be born into families rich in knowledge or dollars. But each of us are likely rich in something we can leverage – mine was work-ethic and toughness. With a willingness to learn, an openness to listen when folks offer help, and the clarity to see the LESSONS in FAILURES – I think anyone can improve upon their circumstance. The key is to LEARN. Learn from good. Learn from bad. Financial stability isn’t just for the rich, it’s for those rich in personal empowerment.