It started with getting out of debt, not getting into a house.
We're not from money and nobody handed us a portfolio. Here's the whole thing, in order, including the part most people leave out.
$150,000 of the kind of debt that takes things from you.
Student loans, a car, and vet bills for a dog we would have paid anything for. It took us three years and it was not glamorous.
“We ran an envelope system. Actual cash, split by category, and when an envelope was empty we were done until the next month.”Notes 002 · Steph was right
Then we made one decision, and everything after it is downstream.
We weren't going back. The next dollar we borrowed had to pay us back — so we stopped borrowing for things that lose value and started borrowing for things that don't. The first one was a duplex. We lived in one side and rented the other.
The first duplex · @tonehomes
144 Western Ave, and the room nobody wanted.
A single family nobody was bidding on. We put the money into the lower level and turned one house into two units. A tenant has covered most of that mortgage every month since March 2019.
The Western Ave reno · @tonehomes
A fixer-upper, in the middle of everything.
Everyone told us to wait. We'd already learned that the ugly houses are the only ones where the math still works.
The pandemic fixer-upper · @tonehomes
And then three more times.
Six now, counting from that first duplex. Every one bought with our own money, renovated on our own plans, and sold or held on our own timeline. Which is the only reason we're comfortable advising anybody else.
No. 4, sold · @tonehomes
People hear “we bought a house” and picture a decision. It was three years of saying no to small things, and then one day there was enough for a down payment.
