From Broke at 40 to FI at 50 While Raising 4 Kids

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast show number 333, where we interview Courtney Robinson and talk about her late start journey.

Courtney:
I don’t have any kind of financial insecurity like I used to have. In that way, it’s so much better. I mean, in all ways it’s better. But I do want to say to people, there’s a lot of joy in the journey. I think people are so afraid of change because it’s scary and they are afraid that it’s going to be hard, or they can’t do it, or they’re attached to their ideas about it. But we have a saying in our family, which is, “I would rather be rich than look rich.”

Mindy:
Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my mysteriously absent for this intro, but here for the interview co-host Scott Trench. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you are starting. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, or start your own business, we’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards your dreams.
Today, we’re talking with Courtney Robinson, a listener who got a late start on her financial independence journey, hit every roadblock you could think of along the way and still managed to reach financial independence less than 10 years later. Courtney Robinson, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I’m so excited to talk to you. You’re a member of our Facebook group. You posted this amazing story a few months ago about how you and your hus… Well, I don’t want to give away the whole ending, but Courtney is doing a really great job after starting late and starting from not a position of amazing financial security. Courtney, welcome to the show.

Courtney:
Thank you so much. I’m so happy to be here. I’m a huge fan.

Mindy:
Well, we’re huge fans of you. You’ve got an excellent story. Let’s jump right into it. Where does your journey with money begin?

Courtney:
I think that it’s all relative to go back in time and the fact that I was raised by my grandparents who went through the depression. Growing up, we lived in a nice neighborhood. We had a nice Brady Bunch house, but we never… That saying that more is caught than taught, that was definitely my experience growing up because we had cars that my grandparents only replaced their cars once in the 22 years that I had them in my life. Our house was well kept, but never updated. It was a time capsule for sure. They just were very frugal. But on the other hand, while they were very old fashioned and had gone through the depression, they were very smart about a lot of things.
My grandfather had purchased land. I live in a national park or outside of a national park. My grandfather had… Yes. My grandfather had purchased land when they built a lake on the lake. That was a really good investment that would later help me. He also purchased some private stock options in the company that he worked for. I guess there’s a private stock market. You guys probably know more about that than me, but he also purchased some stock options. I would grow up with these very frugal grandparents, went out on my own at 17. I worked back and forth between Houston and Arkansas as a very young adult. I was a modeled young in my life.
I had these really frugal habits that helped me, and I was very independent and entrepreneurial, but I would get married young to someone who had a lot of problems. We divorced, and then I got remarried at the age of 20 and had three babies. Within a very four year period, during that time, my grandparents passed away within five weeks of each other. They left me a small inheritance of about I want to say it was maybe $70,000. And with that money, I was able to purchase the lake house from my mother. At the time, it wasn’t worth a lot like it is now. I was able to take that money and stay home and raise my children.
I was also in college at the time and was in college until I was 29, going at night, working part-time and taking care of my three little boys. Fast forward, later in my thirties, I would adopt a little girl that was nine years old. And fast forward a little more than that, and at 40, my ex-husband and I got a divorce. I found myself with four teenagers. One, My youngest son, who’s 25 today, has autism. Here I am divorced, single mom. I’d been working part-time. I had become a yoga teacher at 30 and become a yoga therapist. I owned a school, a vocational school, and I used that money from that vocational school to build up and put myself in a position to be able to support myself.
But at that time, I was only making about $15,000. Right after that is when I met my current husband, which we dated for six years. Do you want me to go on or do you want me to stop there?

Scott:
At the moment, around the time of the divorce, what was your financial position like? You have $50,000 in income per year from it sounds like yoga and the related activities with your school you owned. Any other assets or how are we doing on debts?

Courtney:
15,000, not 50. I don’t know if you said 50 or 15. I had 15. I was making about 15. I had helped my ex-husband get through college with my inheritance. The debts we had, we had a house. I want to say it was probably we had about 170 mortgaged on the house. We had some Visa loans for some windows we had put in this old house that was built in 1930. We had my car loan and we had his school loans. When we divorced, I inherited part of that Visa credit card for the windows. I had my car loan and I had the house. I ended up buying the house from him. The divorce took about a year and a half. Over that time, I increased my income by, honestly, I went to work more.
I went to my bosses where I was teaching classes and asked if they had a job literally the day after we split up, and they did. They gave me a job as the director over all the fitness. I went to work just trying to earn more money. I don’t really know how I survived that first year, to be honest, but my position was that my net worth was probably about $20,000 at the end of the day and very little income. I didn’t receive any child support or support for about a year that first year. It was tough. It was really tough.

Scott:
You have four kids that you’re taking care of at this point in time?

Courtney:
Yes. My kids were 14, 15, 16, and 18.

Scott:
Wow!

Courtney:
Yes.

Mindy:
Those are the easy years.

Scott:
Could you give us any idea of how you were able to budget on that or managed through that in that particular year?

Courtney:
I remember calling my creditors and talking to them about the situation and working it out. I want to say that… I had a yoga school and I had had $14,000 put in the savings account for that yoga school. Now, I’m going to be honest, my ex-husband was not very good with money. I wasn’t lying about the money, but I would say that it was for the school. But I lived off of that money that first year in addition to the little bit of money I had coming in. There was about $14,000 in savings with the yoga school, I say savings in air quotes, and then there was the money I was earning, and then I started getting a little bit extra.
But we literally lived on scrambled eggs and peanut butter and jelly. There was no extra anything. I put my kids on free lunch at school and free breakfast. I think my ex-husband was having to pay half the house payment. It was such a blur because I started working so much and that held us over for a little bit.

Scott:
Awesome. Sorry to interrupt there. I just wanted to get a snapshot. Please continue with the story.

Courtney:
I ended up… Because I owned a yoga school. I had had it for two years, and it was pretty successful. I never meant for it to take off like It did. I was always happy just kind of making the grocery budget. But at this point, I needed to make a go of it. I’m working at the YMCA making about $600 a month. I am teaching yoga school. I decide I’ll go teach yoga workshops. I start traveling around every other weekend while the kids are with their dad or the oldest one could take care of himself. During the week, I start working, teaching more classes every day. On the weekends, I’m teaching yoga school, or I’m teaching yoga workshops. I would make anywhere from a thousand to $3,000 a weekend doing that.
But for the next nine years, I would work literally 28 days a month, but I was still able to be home when the kids got home from school. I was able to have some flexibility. Because when you teach classes, you’re either going to teach a morning class or an evening class. I had some flexibility to be there for the children when they needed me. I had a little bit of help with my parents, not financially, but they would help me watch the children if need be and everything. After I got divorced, I met my now… He was my boyfriend for the first I would say six. We’ve been together 10 and a half years. I do want to expand on Jim a little bit. My youngest son has autism level two, which means some support.
He is independent. He lives on his own, but I manage his money and we supplement his income and everything. I heard about this guy who had this dojo, he was a ninth degree black belt, that had all these kids with disabilities. My son was being bullied. I take my son to this dojo and my husband now meets me. He tells me now he says to himself, “I’m either going to lose a student or gain a wife.” As soon as he realizes I’m single, he asked me out and I’m thinking, “This seems like a really stupid plan. He’s my son’s teacher,” but we kind of kept it under wraps.
We started dating and I find out that he’s in law enforcement part-time at the time. He owns this dojo, and he is doing construction on the side. We fall in love, and I find out that he is in bankruptcy and he has tax liens. I’m like, oh no, this is not going to work. We don’t break up or anything like that.

Scott:
Just to get a quick thing, what time period are we in right now? What year is it?

Courtney:
I’m 51 now. We’re at the point I got divorced at 40. 41 when I meet him.

Scott:
This is 2012?

Courtney:
2012, yes. We met in late 2011 and started dating. I tell him like, “I will not get back in a situation financially like I was in before. I would rather live in a ditch than be married to someone who’s bad with money.” He goes to a Dave Ramsey class with me. I have been to two in my life. I actually want to mention that I started reading Larry Burkett, who is Dave Ramsey’s predecessor. He doesn’t often get much credit, but I started reading Larry Burkett 20 years before Dave Ramsey came around. I tell my now boyfriend at the time, “You’re going to go through this class with me and you’re going to get your financial stuff together, or I’m not getting married.”
It takes a while. It takes about four or five years he gets all of that ready. I mean, all that figured out. I started to help him with the dojo, and I realized it’s not really making any profit. This tenderhearted tough guy is letting too many people come to school that can’t afford to pay for it. The business is suffering because he’s not making people pay their tuition. Eventually we closed the dojo and I’m telling him, “This construction business you have is really something. This could be really good.” So I help him. I’m really good in the office and he is a hard worker. My husband is a cop, a Marine. He a former bareback Bronco rider and a ninth degree black belt.
When I tell you work workaholic, you get the picture. I am the opposite of all of that. He gets his financial stuff together. Around 2014, he gets the bankruptcy cleaned up, the tax liens. We get the business going on the roofing business, which is our main business now. We’re not married. We haven’t yet moved in together. 2015, all the kids have graduated. They get out of the house, except for the baby. We move in together.

Scott:
Can I ask one question before we get into that? What was your financial position like at that point when you met?

Courtney:
I worked myself up to paying my car off. I paid the Visa bill off. I paid my lawyer off for the divorce, which cost a fortune. I shouldn’t have. I buy the house.

Scott:
In a year and a half?

Courtney:
In four years. In four years, I go from making 15,000 to $57,000 by working all the time, just working all the time and living…

Scott:
Where are you living during this period again?

Courtney:
I owned a house in town. Now we live out on a ranch.

Scott:
And which state is that?

Courtney:
Arkansas.

Scott:
Arkansas. Okay, great.

Courtney:
Very low cost of living. That’s very important to this story is Arkansas is one of the cheapest places to live. I was able to live on about $33,000 a year while making 57. I was saving the rest of it. I built up about a $25,000 emergency fund during that time. By the time he moved in, I would say we were making about 70 to 80,000 and we were living on about 33,000.

Scott:
I’m sorry to keep interrupting here. I just want to get the whole snapshot here. Could you go through those debts one more time that you paid off? You had the car loan. How much were all those debts that you paid off in those four years?

Courtney:
I owed 11,000 on the car loan. I want to say I had about 7,000 on the credit card. The house payment, I refinanced it. Ran me about 1,100 a month. I would later sell it and make a profit, and I’ll get to that. And then I had… I’m trying to think. I ended up getting another vehicle that I had a small car loan on because I was traveling. But it took me about four years to get out of debt, save a big emergency fund. It’s hard for me to remember the exact amounts because I also ended up paying my attorney about $10,000 and I paid my ex-husband $5,000 for the house.

Scott:
Overnight success in building a financial foundation in four years of just grind here with four kids in the house. Coming and going, it sounds like, as some of the kids sounds like they were getting… About time to move out or getting into early adulthood during that period as well.

Courtney:
Yes. Three of them went off… I say three, because I’m including my stepdaughter now. Three of them went off to college. My son with a disability, of course, stayed with me until a few years ago. I had a do you say failure to launch? I had a late to launch one as well, who didn’t leave until 23. Yes, I still had kids at home, but they were going to college from home. One of them was. Some of them were living at home, going to college. And while I didn’t make them pay rent, I did make them pay for their cell phones. I made them pay their car insurance.
I bought them each a clunker, like a $2,000 car, but they were responsible for repairs and costs that went along with that. While they had a roof over their head and I paid for their clothes and their food, I did make them work and be responsible, because I had to. Around 2015, my now husband, we don’t get married. He moves in. We get the roofing business going. The yoga school is going. I write a book, and then another one.

Scott:
What are your books on?

Courtney:
Yoga therapy.

Scott:
We’ll have to link to those in the show notes here.

Courtney:
Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate that. From about 2015 to 2016, we get the roofing business really going, and we’re debt free, except for the house. I have this one vehicle that I’m using to travel around and teach. It isn’t my personal expense, but the business was covering it at the time. We found this land that we’re on now. We have 40 acres. Mindy, I don’t know, Scott, if you remember the show Green Acres, but it’s Green Acres. I mean, I hear the song in my head.

Mindy:
Green Acres is the place to be.

Courtney:
Oh my gosh, it’s terrible.

Mindy:
Farm living is the life for me. Scott is not old enough to remember.

Courtney:
No. It was a show about a guy who wants the country life and a city girl and they get married. It’s hilarious. We buy this ranch. It’s 40 acres. It’s grown up. It has an old trailer on it, an old house, a barn, all these out buildings and about 40 horses just roaming around. I want to preface this. There was a local bank that took pity on me when I was going through my divorce. Getting a loan, making $15,000 a year and having debt was almost impossible. I went to four different banks, no one would give me a loan. There was the president of a bank who knew my situation with my ex-husband. And for some reason, that man took pity on me. I had a great credit score, and he gave me a loan.
I mean, I still can’t understand how that happened, but it was a local banker. I was able to buy my house from my ex-husband. Because I had paid that loan on time, never been late, paid a little bit extra, when it came time to buy this land, he gave me a bridge loan. Now, my husband now could not be on the loan because he had bankruptcy, so it was me owning the house. It was me buying this land. I think a lot of people see my husband and I, because we’re 12 and a half years apart, maybe they think he was my sugar daddy or something, but it wasn’t that way at all. We buy this land. We only borrowed 218,000 because we were going to remodel the old farmhouse that was on the property.
We purchased it for 120. My gym had saved $48,000 in two years to put down on this land. We put down 24. We used the other 24 to clear it and clean it up, which we promptly realized we cannot save the house. It’s falling and decaying. We have to build and we decide not to borrow any more money. Part of our story… I hear it a lot with the fix and flips, I believe that’s what you call it, is elbow grease. I mean, to the extreme. We did so much of this work ourself. We built this house ourself, except my husband did all the woodwork, the roofing, the insulation, the staining, the painting. We hired HVAC plumbing. And as things would come along, we would pay for them as we worked.
We were paying as we worked. We got in the house for 218,000 in 2018 and we got married. I still had my house in town. I could not sell it. It wasn’t selling. This was back in 2017-2018. It makes me sick now because it’s worth about 100,000 more than what I sold it for. I sell it and I made about $36,000 profit on it. I was able to pay off that one little car loan that I had. We’re completely debt free, except for the mortgage.

Scott:
When you say we’re completely debt free… I’m sorry to again interrupt, I just want to make sure that folks get the whole story here with these things. You mentioned that during this period before you got married, your husband paid off or cleaned up his financial situation. Would you mind giving us the highlights of that as well, and then returning back to this situation following selling the house?

Courtney:
Yes. My husband and I, neither one ever experienced… I probably grew up… He grew up very poor. His dad was a church builder. My husband lived in what was the equivalent of deer camp. I don’t know if you know what deer camp is, but it’s not very nice. He lived in an old house he rented for $500 a month. He did not have a lot of bills because he had gone through bankruptcy. He got the tax liens. I don’t know that they were liens. He owed a tax bill and he got it reduced down and paid it off. He went through that Dave Ramsey course.
But if you ask Jim, and I’m kind of glad he isn’t here because you never know what will come out of his mouth, but if you ask him what was the biggest thing is I had him sit down and write what his income was and write what he paid every month. He said realizing needs before wants was the biggest impact. Just needs before wants. He’s an old cowboy. He was the type that if his daughter wanted a $400 prom dress, he got her a $400 prom dress, even if that $400 was to go to the electric bill. He didn’t have any financial education. It was all about making his daughter happy. I mean, and not just her.
He was just always kind of living by the seat of his pants. For him, I just think once he realized that needs had to be paid for before wants, he just cleaned it up. I think during that time, I would also like to say he had open heart surgery. He’s very fit. They said he was the fittest patient they’ve ever seen for 64. He’s an athlete. He had to have open heart surgery and five bypasses. And that was a real wake up call as well.

Mindy:
Five bypasses?

Courtney:
That very year, nine months after that open heart surgery, he went to Italy and competed in Taekwondo for a world championship and won. I mean, he’s a beast. Anyway, I think also, I mean, not to toot my own horn, but I think he was so worried I wouldn’t marry him and I would leave, that he was willing to make whatever changes had to be made to stay together. He started to see the benefit. He said, taking that money, that 48,000 he had saved and giving 24,000 at closing or giving me 24,000 because I was the one doing, was the hardest thing he ever did. He started really loving that feeling of having money in the bank because he had never had any money in the bank.

Mindy:
I think we need to go back and focus for a moment on what you told him to do. Go back and write down how much you are making and write down how much you are paying out. It’s one thing to have a general idea in your head, but having those very stark numbers in black and white on a piece of paper staring at you with your income at the top and all of your expenses underneath, and then looking at that and saying, “Wow! My income is $1,000, but my expenses are $4,000,” that can be the slap in the face that you need to make the changes. I’m sure he never looked at that before you suggested that. I just make some money and then I pay some money, and that’s just how it goes.
If you don’t have the financial education and the financial background to understand this, it seems so no brainer to people who are listening to us sitting here talking about this, but that’s kind of the first step. Look at your obligations. How much are you paying out every month? And then how much is coming in? If you’re paying out more than you’re coming in, you’re not going to be saving anything. You’re not going to be growing anything. You’re just going to grow your debts, and that’s it. That was really like, yeah, he had a great motivator, to keep Courtney, but he also needed to do the changes himself.
He could have just said, “You know what? This is just how I am. I’m a good old boy, and that’s just what we do is we just have debts and that’s just how life is.” But he didn’t. He changed his life and changed his financial situation because he wanted to make the change. 10 years before, maybe that wouldn’t have been a thing. Maybe he would’ve been like, “I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

Scott:
It all comes from a particularly entertaining version of a money date before you got married. I think it’s fantastic.

Courtney:
I think he also saw the opportunity. He really wanted a ranch and a farm and all of that. He saw that there was a way to have those things, but you have to save and work for them. Once we saw the black and white… I think what he was doing was he had this job at the court and it was a W-2 job, and then he had all this side work he was doing and he wasn’t really counting that money. You know what I mean? He was just a sole proprietor and he wasn’t really counting that money. He didn’t know how to turn it into a business. I didn’t go in and just say, “You’re going to do this.” I said, “Would you like my help? This is what I want out of my life now. I’m 40 years old. This is what I want my life to look like.”
I also had gained my own independence knowing that I could support myself. And that helped a lot, because I got to the point I didn’t feel like I needed anybody. That was a lot healthier position for me to be in for us to go into it being a team, I would say. I forgot to tell you too, that one thing I did do right, because I had been following Larry Burkett and Dave Ramsey and all of those, and I had been very big into the voluntary simplicity movement, I don’t know if you all are familiar with that, that I did… When my ex-husband got his job, we both worked at the college, the local college. I worked in health and fitness and he’s now the vice president of computing.
One thing I did know to do was we had a 401(k) there and I made sure to get the match. When we divorced, there was about, oh my goodness, $180,000. He never once questioned that that was our 401(k) because we’d been together since we were 20. I did get half of that and I put it in a brokerage firm account. And it never really grew. Needless to say, when I found you all and J. L. Collins, my life changed greatly when I got away from that broker. I just stuck that money there and I never touched it. We come back to 2018. We’ve purchased this house, but we’re still working ourselves to death. I’m still traveling. I’m still owning the yoga school.
I’m exhausted. He’s working as a police officer and court security. We’re running the roofing business. We built an Airbnb on our property with the money that was left over from the sell of my house, so that $30,000, and then we cash flowed the rest of it. We actually built it for our son who’s disabled, but it didn’t work out. He ended up getting… My son is on a HUD program and they won’t let you rent to your family. I could not rent it to him. A friend of mine rent it to him. I’ve got this cabin on my property and I’m like, “Okay, well, I guess we’re Airbnb now.” We have an Airbnb on our property as well.
Over that four year period, we keep hustling, grinding, hustling, grinding because now you don’t know how to get out of the hustle and grind, right? You’re so used to it. We paid off our house in four years. We were paying an average between maxing out our IRA at $14,000 a year, 7,000 a piece because I’m 51 and he’s 64 now. We paid about $40,000. Was it 40? No $60,000 a year on the house. Our house was paid off this March. I moved everything over to Vanguard. Thank you. We make about 110 to 145 a year. Most of the time it’s around 110, and that’s suggested gross income. We paid off the house. We were maxing out the IRAs. We built up an emergency fund of $60,000.
In that amount of time, in 2019, I decided to leave the school, to close my school because I went to work for a doctor. I had been working for him and I went to work full-time for him as his yoga therapist for the clinic. We’ve just been hustling and grinding. I don’t know what to say about that. It’s not really glamorous. It’s like we’re frugal. We hustle and grind. Mindy, I heard you on that show with is it Ramit?

Mindy:
Yes.

Courtney:
I’m the one that got all mad when you started crying. I was like, “Don’t pick on Mindy. I know what that’s like. I have so much trouble.” It’s so hard to enjoy spending when you aren’t really used to it. You’re not used to spending all this hard money that you’ve been working for. That’s where we are today. Now, today, do you want me to go through where we are with our finances now?

Scott:
That’d be great, yeah, If you could share where at.

Courtney:
Okay. I had two realtors come out and look at the ranch. We have two newer cabins on the ranch. One’s 1,800 square foot. I would say ranch. I use that term lightly. We have adopted animals. They’re all rescued, except for two. They’re just our pets. It’s not cheap to take care of them. We have 16 right now, so horses, donkeys, cats, and dogs. We have 1,800 square foot cabin and a 420 square foot cabin and 40 acres. It is valued at between 750 to a million, depending on which realtor you speak to. We don’t owe anything on it. I say 750 because I feel like that’s a conservative place.
But we have the problem that I hear you all face, because I listen to every episode, which is most of our net worth is tied up in our home. Our investments, that’s taken a big hit. They’re down. I’m in Vanguard. We’re in VTSAX and an international index fund and an international bond or in a bond fund, index fund. I don’t remember exactly, but those are down quite a lot. They’re about 177 combined. Mine is about 160 and his is about 17 to 20. And then in cash we have… Oh gosh. I do listen and I implement. I would say that I think that’s the one big thing is I’ve implemented all the things I hear you all talk about on your show.
I keep what, I guess, you would call CapEx funds or emergency funds for all the businesses. The cabin, I’ve never taken any money out of it. Thank you. There’s $4,500 in the cabin bond. The yoga fund, because I’m in a heart clinic, we’ve really taken a hit with COVID and my income is hit and miss with that. There’s $4,500 in what I call the yoga fund, which doesn’t really need to be there, but I have to pay for licensure and stuff like that. $45,000 in our money market. And then right now there’s about $85,000 in our roofing account. We have just switched over putting me on the roofing as an employee.
I know this is more of a money success story, but that’s where we are. We’re trying to get to the point where by next year we’re semi-retired. We’ll keep our roofing business open and the Airbnb, but my job may be phasing out anyway. I don’t know if I’ll keep being a yoga therapist. I’m not sure. That’s where we are. It’s been a lot of grind. I guess my message is always, when I see people in the group, I especially get tickled with the 30 year olds who think they’re getting a light start because I’m like, it’s all right. You’re going to be all right. In 10 years, we went from broke to technically being millionaires, but it’s not been anything other than just doing the steps that you learn on here.

Scott:
That’s fantastic.

Mindy:
That the thing, there’s no magic button. I mean, winning the lottery would be super awesome, but that’s not repeatable and that doesn’t make for a very interesting story. Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. Thanks. I won the lottery. Okay, and that’s the end of the show. That’s not fun to listen to and that’s not repeatable. This is repeatable because you recognize what you were doing was not the path to wealth. You changed your actions. You changed your habits. You changed your entire financial life, and then started growing it. It didn’t happen overnight because that’s not how it happens. It happened over 10 years.
But how many people have we talked to, Scott, where it happens over the course of about 10 years starting from zero? You can get to financially free or so close you can taste it in about 10 years. That’s the message I want to send to anybody who’s listening who is thinking that, “Oh, I got a late start. Can I even do it?” Yes, you can. In 10 years, you’re going to be 10 years older if you start today or if you don’t start today. In 10 years, you’re still going to be 10 years older. Start today.

Scott:
After a 10 year period of self-sacrifice, grinding it out at work, raising your incomes, studying the subject of money in a general sense, building out cash reserves, boring old cash reserves, and then investing consistently in something, you can recreate this type of situation. Yes. That’s the story. That’s why people don’t do this at a large level is because it’s not… There was no secret to your success here. It was just hard work and consistency over a long, long period of time to get to that. Now, let me ask you this though, is your life better today than it was when you started this journey?

Courtney:
Yes.

Scott:
Has it been getting better?

Courtney:
Yes. I mean, it’s better. It’s so much better. I don’t have any kind of financial insecurity like I used to have. In that way, it’s so much better. I mean, in all ways it’s better. But I do want to say to people, there’s a lot of joy in the journey. I think people are so afraid of change because it’s scary and they are afraid that it’s going to be hard, or they can’t do it, or they’re attached to their ideas about it. But we have a saying in our family, which is, “I would rather be rich than look rich.” I know this is crazy, but I kind of took pride in my husband driving around. We just got a new truck. Not new. New to us. It’s a 2007, but my husband was driving around a 1999 Ford that we paid $1,000 for. My husband is a dirty farmer all the time.
I mean, he’s usually in dirty Wranglers and an old cowboy hat. He looks like he just got through picking potatoes. But yet I’m like, but he’s got it down. It made me proud that we’ve made these choices. I don’t mind driving a 2013 Honda Accord at all. It doesn’t bother me in the least. I just take a lot of pride in that. There’s a lot of joy in that for me and finding ways to hack things also. I find so much joy in that. Going to a matinee and out to lunch is half the price than going to an evening movie, an expensive dinner, but I get the same value out of it, or using credit card reward points to pay for a vacation that cost me a quarter of what it would cost me if I didn’t know these things. It’s just exciting when you do that.

Scott:
Travel awards are very powerful when you own a roofing business, I’m sure.

Courtney:
Yes.

Scott:
Well, let me ask you this, how much does your life cost you today?

Courtney:
Well, with inflation, it’s definitely been a little bit of a jolt. I was thinking we could retire on about 30,000 a year. And of course, we’re in a very low cost of living area. I was just up in your neck of the woods, because my son actually goes to school in Fort Collins and I come up there quite a bit. It’s a lot more expensive where you live. I mean, definitely hands down. I’ve been listening to Carl and Mindy talk about their budget, and I’ve decided that right now while our life is probably costing us about $42,000 a year currently, where before it was about 36, that I will feel comfortable retiring on about 48 to 50 with a nice emergency fund.
I would like to say to the people who are older like we are, we have a plan too for the inevitable, which is if something happens to one of us, we have a trust. We also know that at some point we may downsize and sell this place and get a smaller place. I think it’s important to… I’ve seen my mother lose two husbands at young ages, and I think it’s important that people also have a plan for your future. You can live for it today, but you definitely need to have a plan, then that helps you enjoy life more in the present when you know you’ve got those taken care of.

Mindy:
How much income does the Airbnb generate?

Courtney:
It’s paid for because we cash flowed it when we built it, but I would say on average about 600 a month is what I came up to, because I knew you had asked me that question. During the pandemic, my son was in Maryland, one of my boys was in Maryland for a while, and he came back here and lived and just worked on the farm in exchange for living there. We opened that in February of 2020, and we all know what happened. It hasn’t been consistent. When I keep it open, it’s very consistent, but around 600 is my profit every month.

Scott:
Awesome. What would it be if you kept it open consistently the next six months?

Courtney:
I think I could double it.

Mindy:
Okay. You said there are two on the property?

Courtney:
There’s the house we live in, and then about 400 feet away, there’s a little cabin, a little 420 square foot cabin.

Scott:
How much of the house you’re living in Airbnb for?

Courtney:
Oh gosh, I don’t know. I know that the rent on the house that we live in would be around 2,500 a month here. Rent’s a lot cheaper here than it is where you are. But I don’t know. I never really thought about it because quite frankly, I’m really weird about… I don’t really want to manage. I don’t love doing Airbnb. It’s not hard, but we’re older. We’re tired. We’ve been hustling for 10 years. When we retire, we want to spend four years traveling. We plan on doing some of that. We’ve been trying to do more of that now because my husband is still healthy at 64 and very fit, but we don’t want to Airbnb forever.

Scott:
We’ll have to think through this at a future time, maybe on a Finance Friday to think through how we can get over that retirement hump in the next couple of years as fast as possible here. I think that would be… Do you think that would be fun?

Mindy:
I think that would be a fun exercise. Yeah, let me think about this for a little bit and we’ll get her back on and do a Finance Friday as well, because I see a lot of opportunities here.

Courtney:
Yes. I have lots of questions. Because our roofing business is weather dependent and we had a really bad storm this year, and I know Scott’s going to get here in a sec, but we’ve been really profitable this year. Like crazy profitable. And now I’m freaking out. What do I do? Where do I put this money? Because I’m looking at the market and it’s just like, okay, I know it’s on sale, but it’s still scaring me quite a bit. I’m trying to figure out where to… All that money that we were putting on the house, where do I put it now?

Mindy:
My philosophy is with the market going down is you’re not investing for tomorrow. You’re investing for 10 years from now, five years from now. It’s okay that the market’s down a little bit right now because you don’t need this. If you need this money tomorrow, do not put it in the market right now. It’s not the best time to do that, because you don’t know how long it’s going to be squidgy. But you will need money in five years. You will need money in 10 years. That’s the thought to have. But yeah, if there is money that you need in the next five to 10 years. Actually, Scott, what timeframe do we want to call that, two to five years?

Scott:
Well, I think, Courtney, when do you want to retire? What’s your goal?

Courtney:
My goal right now is to save $200,000 in cash in the next four years and have 400,000 in investments. I have contacted Fidelity about a solo 401(k). I also contacted Vanguard. They make it hard. Fidelity seems…

Mindy:
Go with Fidelity.

Courtney:
Yeah. I’m looking at putting some of that cash in the Treasury bonds as well.

Scott:
It’s a four year goal. We want to get to the best position we can in four years, right? That makes things harder, because it’s one thing to say, “Oh, just stick it in index funds because in 30 years they’ll probably be higher,” right? Well they may not be higher in four years and that’s going to be the challenge in thinking through how to set up your portfolio. You got to design it so that it’s in finished state, ready to be drawn down in four years, not invested for a long-term maximum value.

Courtney:
My plan is to have some savings built up to use in that period from the time I’m 55 to the time that I’m 59 and a half or 62. To have cash reserves to use because also got to get my health insurance down. If I’m going to be on the ACA, I’ve definitely got to get my income down.

Scott:
Well, this will be a good discussion. Let’s have you back on in a few days here and talk about the what’s next part of the journey and think it through.

Courtney:
Thank you. It’s been such a joy to talk to you both. I appreciate it.

Scott:
Courtney, we really appreciate the story. This is phenomenal. Thank you so much for sharing the struggles and the triumphs that you’ve had over the last couple of decades here. We really appreciate it.

Courtney:
Thank you so much.

Mindy:
Courtney, this was a lot of fun. I really love your story because it highlights the rewards for hard work, which is exactly what you and your husband did. Tell him kudos from all of us. He did a great job fixing his finances. You did a great job fixing your finances. But we’re not done yet. Today, we’re going to do the Famous Four. Just me asking because Scott is having technical difficulties.

Audio:
Famous Four.

Mindy:
Courtney, are you ready?

Courtney:
Yes.

Mindy:
What is your favorite finance book?

Courtney:
I don’t know that I have a famous finance book per se, but I love the course Voluntary Simplicity, which is a book, but Voluntary Simplicity. It’s a book and a course, and I was a volunteer facilitator for that for about 14 years.

Mindy:
That’s interesting. Okay, I’m going to have to check that out. I haven’t heard of that one. What was your biggest money mistake?

Courtney:
Oh, so many. There’s so many. I’ve thought about this and I actually have two. The first one would just be like I wouldn’t trade… I don’t look at life in regrets. I look at life as an educational experience. One thing I share with my children is it’s very important the person that you marry. Your financial situation…

Mindy:
Yes.

Courtney:
…is who you marry. The second one was buying a car with someone who didn’t have the title in hand. I don’t know that I even need to expand on that because it was so stupid.

Mindy:
You know what? We can’t go back and change any of these things. I am not here to tell you that you made a big mistake. We move on. We learn from our mistakes. But buying a car in general is one the most frequent biggest money mistakes.

Courtney:
Yes. Yes.

Mindy:
Well, let’s switch gears and say, what is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?

Courtney:
To try to stay out of debt. Avoid debt that doesn’t have an asset tied to it. That’d be my number one.

Mindy:
I like that a lot. In honor of Scott, what is your favorite joke to tell at parties.

Courtney:
I had to write it down. Ii don’t have a favorite one to tell at parties because I can’t remember any of them, but what sound does a cow make when it runs out of milk?

Mindy:
Oh, I don’t know.

Courtney:
None. There is utter silence.

Mindy:
I have one for you based on yoga. What do you call a bagel that has mastered yoga?

Courtney:
What?

Mindy:
A pretzel.

Courtney:
That’s good.

Mindy:
And why does everyone love yoga teachers?

Courtney:
Why?

Mindy:
Because they bend over backwards for you.

Courtney:
Oh, that’s sweet. Thank you.

Mindy:
Okay, Courtney, where can people find out more about you? Give us the names of your yoga books and all the ways to contact you.

Courtney:
The best way to find out about me is just to Google my name, which is Courtney Robinson, and put the word yoga with it because everything I’ve ever done will come up. Courtney Robinson yoga, Google. My book, I like to promote my publisher because she’s independent, Et Alia Press, but you can go into Amazon. And if you put, again, Courtney Butler-Robinson yoga, you’re going to come up. It’s called The Mud & The Lotus. Both of them are The Mud & The Lotus, different versions. One is actually… I’ve done three books actually, written two,,= and then I’m a contributor to a textbook on yoga therapy.

Mindy:
That’s awesome.

Courtney:
Thank you.

Mindy:
Courtney Robinson, thank you so much for your time today. This was a delight to talk to you.

Courtney:
Thank you. I appreciate you so much.

Mindy:
I appreciate you listening. We will talk to you soon. Wow! What an inspirational story. We are going to have Courtney on again in a few months to go through her numbers for a Finance Friday episode and dive a bit deeper into her numbers and her story. From episode 333 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, he was Scott Trench, I am Mindy Jensen and saying see you later, alligator.