As our nightmare of a renovation transitioned into a nice home that we could be proud of (as least as viewed from the inside), we felt the stress and pressure melt away. We had just been on one hell of a roller coaster ride, one that had us pushing harder and harder while feeling sick at every turn, but had just come to a stop when our basement was finished and we felt an overwhelming sense of relief and exhilaration. In only a couple of years, we had moved out of our brand new large colonial home to a clusterf*** of a 40 year old multi-level renovation project, and started a life of working around the clock. My days included a full-time consulting gig followed by a quick dinner in a shabby house that didn’t feel like home, work on renovation projects until 11 PM, sleep, and do it all again the next day while raising a 1 and 3 year old. A year or so later, about 2/3 of the living space had been gutted and renovated except for some finishing touches. Relief!

The goal all along had been to escape the rat race through owning rental properties. We worked very hard and got a home equity line of credit (HELOC) in the Summer of 2011 so we could start buying more rentals (we already had one rental since our prior home was now rented out to tenants), but then felt like the Hindenburg had just exploded over our heads when we were only offered a credit line of $21k. That certainly was not enough to get us into another rental property assuming a standard 25% down payment. You ever try to buy a rental for $80,000? That’s the crap you see on realtor.com with no pictures and a description that includes “bring your imagination”! Yeah, imagine if this place only had functioning windows and doors, wasn’t filled with crackheads, and didn’t have dog poop on the front steps.

I knew at that point we needed to start saving if more rental properties were in our future. Even if we lucked into a great deal on a place, it would surely need work and I would need cash to pay contractors, unless I was ready to max out credit cards on top of a 75% mortgage. Rather than focusing on saving though, we realized that we were still carrying a lot of debt that needed to be paid down. So long as we kept an eye on the ball (more rentals), paying down debt seemed a reasonable approach to help our financial position right now.

As for those debts… unfortunately, we now had a car loan. Although we had two vehicles that were paid off when we moved into our renovation project, a Chevy Prism that was bought with cash and a Dodge Caravan we bought using a credit card with a promotional 0% interest offer, they needed replacing in 2011. The Prism, which had only cost $2300, was my beater car for commuting to work and job sites, and died on the way back from a remote job site that had me logging 200 miles per day. This was all good though since the client was paying me almost $500 a week for mileage to and from that site over an entire year; I made a lot of money on that car! After we were down to just one car, only a few months later the Caravan’s transmission gave out, so we needed a reliable car and quickly. With very little cash on hand following all of our house renovations, a $10,000 car loan later, we had relatively new reliable transportation in the form of a Kia Rondo wagon.

As for other debts, even though I had graduated college over 20 years prior and my wife followed just a few years after that, we were still carrying about $35k in student loan debt. We also had a couple medical bills that added another $15k to our debt. Oh yes, and credit cards used for materials for our house renovation added another $10,000 or so… cabinets, flooring, and a whole new bath don’t come cheap!

Meanwhile, a strange thing was happening. Our kids were growing and getting to an age where we wanted what everyone else does, to see them enjoy life, grow, flourish, and have fun; so we bought family memberships for the Please Touch Museum and Philadelphia Zoo. Since we had decided to home-school our kids, we enrolled them in classes at a local dance and gymnastics school to make sure they were socialized and had some athletic activities. We signed them up for Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts and also a sports skills class at the local grade school. While this was happening, my wife, being a stay at home mom that was home-schooling our children, started enjoying baking and making homemade beauty products and teaching the kids about these things. And yes, vacations… what American dream wouldn’t be complete without dropping a few thousand dollars on an annual vacation? Our schedules always seemed full between traveling to and from work, activities for the kids, fairs, live performances, carnivals, and hosting parties.

As for me, my professional life was probably never better. By now, I had already survived a rough patch of layoffs following the 2008 recession and was carving out my own niche within our firm. I was getting to know others outside of my immediate office, making a good name for myself, and genuinely enjoying my job and colleagues. I was starting to consider advancing my career beyond a mid-level engineer, and gasp, was even considering how I might become an associate or principal owner in the company someday!

I also found that I still enjoyed an occasional house project. After basically taking off 2011 from larger scale house projects, we expanded and renovated the downstairs bathroom in the Spring of 2012. That summer, I demolished the old rotting wood shed that came with the house and built a deck to house a new plastic resin shed. We also had the pool liner replaced, and this one had no stains! Yes, life was good!

Our vacation that year in 2012 was at a beach front townhome on the north end of Ocean City, NJ. We had been enjoying annual vacations here for a few years, but always shared a rental with friends, and this was only our second such vacation flying solo. The house was outdated, but had a living room deck and master bedroom deck looking directly at the boardwalk and ocean. I remember laying in bed at night with the door open, ocean breeze blowing through the room, and looking at the moon over the ocean. Equally amazing and a feeling I remember vividly to this day was my family sitting around the table on the living room deck eating dinner that I had just prepared. I remember sitting out on that beautiful summer night, watching people pass by and look over at us as we ate dinner, and I thought, “damn, we have actually made it! This is the dream, right?” We’re at a beach front property, enjoying a meal together while watching, hearing, and smelling the ocean waves crash on the beach, and it felt as though life couldn’t get any better.

Although I kept the idea of buying rental properties in the back of my mind, we were obviously enjoying the good life. That year, I decided since our HELOC had a credit line of only $21,000 and wouldn’t get us the rental we wanted, it was time to put that money to work for us somewhere else.

When I had started work at Golder Associates almost 7 years earlier, the fact that it was an employee owned company and the option to buy stock was an idea sold to every new employee. After my first year or two of not buying any stock, I didn’t hear the pitch again… until now. My mentor at work had begun talking to me about working toward a promotion and becoming an associate owner. Considering where I was in life and overall happiness with my work, I bought all the company stock my HELOC would afford. Despite being jilted at the altar by my former employer, I was again ready to drink some corporate KoolAid and go all in.

We were finding happiness, contentment, and enjoyment in living the American dream! Admirable goals, yes, but not the fuel to drive change.