Summer 2021 : Bracing for Change

Jonny and I spent this past summer planning to move. He was in between jobs again, and picking up odd jobs to hold us over, and money has been very tight, with no real end in sight. We had a sense of urgency, like a change needed to happen. The idea of moving was tossed around a lot, and I knew if we moved it was going to happen fast (the real estate market has been booming.) So I started purging, packed a few boxes of the kids' toys up, and stalked Zillow updates like it was my job, waiting for a house that could work in our budget. We have a good bit of equity in our house, so the plan was to sell and make bank in this hot real estate market, then buy our next place outright with our profit. Maybe we’ll buy a place on some land. But guess what? Turns out we weren't the only ones who figured they should capitalize on the housing boom, and their homes were priced to make bank too, so our equity profit wasn't going to go as far as we thought.

Although I don't like the idea of living somewhere while we renovate (been there done that, that’s how I grew up) we figured we'd just have to live in a dump and fix it up and maybe gain a few acres in the process, Lord willing. We visited at a few places, which made us really consider the amount of work we could actually handle while I homeschooled and Jonny worked full time, and we weren’t sure the time was right to live on land we had to upkeep. Dad offered to help a little with the reno if we needed it, he is so generous, he knows we've had a rough go at life lately. After a tough couple of year financially, a life-threatening childbirth for me (with a long recovery after & multiple surgeries) we were just getting back on our feet and trying to rebuild what was lost. So kept looking for something simple, that needed some work.

I braced myself for the fixer upper life of renovating with kids underfoot. But continued to struggle to find a place that would really put is in a better spot financially. Losing square footage meant no space for any kind workshop, and I’ve been flipping furniture and selling vintage to help offset the bills lately, in the end it would be a wash since we’d save on a mortgage, but lose the income I was bringing in. We decided to stay put for now, and I would figure out how flip more furniture and sell more online while homeschooling and keeping up with our house. A little overzealous? I know. But just wait.

Things were happening behind the scenes, and dad had been throwing around the idea of doing a flip project with us to help us out if we weren’t going to be moving into a fixer upper. I've always wanted to take on a flip project as an investment, which he knew, but Jonny and I have never been in a financial, or practical, place in our lives to actually do it. Also, around this same week Jonny landed a new teaching contract...so now we have a stable income to count on, and he will be working full time hours again. Dad offered to go in with me, he and I, and this sounded too good to be true for me! We figured we could hire out a lot of the work, and I could put in a couple work days per week and evenings now and then when Jonny is home. I won't make a monthly income doing this, but I will make a chunk at the end to help replenish our savings. I continued to stalk Zillow, but now looking for a flip house. Talk about overzealous, ha! I was so excited and hopeful, and probably a little bit naive as well. But, hey, at least now we're not moving.

The perfect property became available to us through our friend Joey Svec (Building the Bluegrass) and the timing of it all was absolutely the hand of God at work. It's a great flip house, good area, good profit margin potential, and not too huge a job (or so we thought...more on that later.) It was within the budget so dad bought it, and that was the easy part. The day dad made an offer he called me asking just how involved I could be. I told him, "I'm all in, this will be my job! I can get childcare a couple days a week, I can work some evenings and some Saturdays when Jonny is home, and I can do a lot from home to manage the subcontractors' schedules. I'm willing to do hard work, and if I don't know how I'll learn how." I knew this was a chance to help get my family back on track.

Over the past couple weeks in my prayer time I had been hearing God tell me to "just say YES" to what is coming. Dad offered to teach me how to do this thing (he's done over a dozen properties) and he would let me manage the project - with his guidance - so I could possibly do it again on my own! YES, I will absolutely take that on! That was my first yes. I didn't know there would be another coming soon after.

Here she is...She's a beaut ain't she? Maybe you'd be able to tell if you could if you could see through all that overgrown bamboo (shewy that stuff is the devil.)

Wondering what my next "yes" was? More on that in the next post…