Mindy:
Hey there. Before we get to the show, I wanted to mention BiggerPockets is hiring a full-time supervising producer for our podcast network. This is a remote position, and it’s a great opportunity if you have the right skillset. We’re looking for someone with at least a couple of years experience managing production teams and someone who will feel confident taking the lead when launching new podcasts. So would you or someone you know be a great fit? You can find the full job description at Biggerpockets.com/jobs. That’s Biggerpockets.com/jobs to apply for our open podcast supervising producer job. Okay. Now, enjoy the show.
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, show number 269, where we interview Jennifer Grimson from Micro Empires and talk about financial chaos, filing bankruptcy and building wealth, even when everything quite literally seems lost.

Jennifer:
I don’t think it really matters how people end up at the bottom, rock bottom. But how I ended up was relational so it wasn’t that I made a bad investment or I spent all or I just loved to fancy things or any of that. It’s just I kept making relationship mistakes and not taking care of myself first when it came to finances.

Mindy:
Hello, hello, hello, my name is Mindy Jensen. And periodically guts off being CEO rather than let my listeners down, I’m calling on my friends to join me. Today, the Paula Pant from the Afford Anything Empire is stepping in to fill his shoes. Paula, you are a rockstar and I am so delighted you could join me today.

Paula:
Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here. I’m excited to talk to you, to talk to the BiggerPockets Money audience and community. And I’m thrilled about this incredible interview that we’re about to share with Jennifer Brinson.

Mindy:
Jennifer is awesome. Okay, so today, Paula 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’re starting.

Paula:
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.

Mindy:
Paula, I am so excited to talk to Jennifer today because she has a story that is she used the word shame and I don’t think she should be ashamed of the things that have happened in her past life, financial chaos can happen to anybody. And she made the wrong relationship decision that actually had some pretty chaotic repercussions down the road. But she didn’t let that define her. And that’s what I love about her story. It’s definitely picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and jumping right back into the game.

Paula:
Absolutely. So Jennifer’s story, it’s one that isn’t talked about often. So many times when we hear cautionary tales, it’s the tale of someone who went on a few too many shopping sprees and overspent on their credit card. We hear these kinds of standard, we’ll say, normalized cautionary tales, in the personal finance space and in the real estate space. But we don’t often hear the tales of marrying the wrong person and the downstream cycles of financial abuse and people using the litigation system as a form of extended abuse.
We don’t hear very many people talk about that. But that’s a serious threat that it could happen to anyone. And Jennifer is, number one, brave enough to share it. And number two, has an incredible turnaround story though between where she started to where she is today is not only inspiring, but contain just packed full of lessons that anyone can learn from.

Mindy:
Absolutely. I am so excited to help her share her story because like you said, this isn’t talked about a lot. But is she the only person you’ve ever heard of that had a bad experience in a relationship? No. I can list literally every person that I’ve ever met, who has had a bad experience in a relationship and not letting the rather ugly things that happened, especially with the litigation, not letting that define her and break her but saying, “I’m going to put that to the side and I am going to move forward.” And that’s just so inspirational. I’m so excited to talk to her today.

Paula:
Absolutely. Finance is the place where it’s not just numbers on a spreadsheet, there’s relationship, there’s money, there’s relationships, there’s anxieties, there’s fears, there’s guilt and shame. And these very human elements of finance, these really come out in her story.

Mindy:
Yeah, they do.
Jennifer Grimson from Micro Empires. Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I’m so excited to talk to you today.

Jennifer:
I’m thrilled. Thank you so much for having me.

Mindy:
Let’s jump right into it because I know you have a lot to discuss. Where does your journey with money begin?

Jennifer:
Well, I was raised by two very conservative, hard working parents and kind of taught credit was bad, work hard, save your money, live below your means. So, all kinds of good messages in that sense. Don’t overspend. Money doesn’t define you. All those good things. But also stay small, don’t take risks, all those things. But I think my money story began, I was always a hard worker and kind of an entrepreneur even as a kid. But once I realized, I loved working, I loved working more than I love school.
Once I realized that I could manage to work 40 hours a week while in high school, that’s exactly what I did. And I realized, I didn’t know that I can graduate early. So once I realized I could graduate early, that’s what I did. Because I loved working. I just didn’t fit in school. I wasn’t very popular. I didn’t go to dances or anything like that. I just love to work. I love to be around people and to make money and the types of freedom that it gave me.

Paula:
What types of jobs did you have in high school and which ones were your favorite?

Jennifer:
Oh, my gosh. Well, actually, I got into the restaurant business like most people do. I started out as a brunch waitress at one of those giant Marriott hotels where you have to dress like a wench with the dumb outfit and the cab.
So I was a brunch waitress, but what that led to is a huge hotel with a five star restaurant attached. So because of that, if you’re willing to work, they would assign you to anything. So I did everything. I became a cook. I was a prep cook. I was a line cook. I was a dishwasher. I became a hostess, a waitress, a bartender. So anything having to do in the restaurant world, I did it. And I loved the pace. And just the craziness.
Anthony Bourdain type mentality, I just loved all of that. But actually, my favorite part was at one point, we had to have an ice sculpture every Sunday for brunch. And they let me and one of my best friends carve that ice sculpture with a chainsaw. But I was 16. I look back at that and I’m like, “Oh my god, it’s crazy.” It’s the ’80s.

Mindy:
Wow. So I want to say that if you are listening right now and you need to make some quick cash, waiting tables and bartending is an excellent way to do it. Especially right, right now where every is just having a hard time finding people to work. When I go out to a restaurant, I’m so thankful that I don’t have to cook. I’m tipping extra to the waitresses who I know are being run ragged, because I can see it happening. And there’s a lot of other people who are doing this as well. So making a lot of money as a lot of like, really quick, like you get your money that night. I just worked a six hour shift, I got $150. It’s right then and there.
It’s actually kind of bad when you’re 20 to be a waitress, because then you’re out like, “Oh, I could just go drinking. And I’ll just make up all the money that I spent tonight tomorrow when I work that next shift.” But if you need money fast, that’s a really great way to generate cash.

Jennifer:
Yeah, bartending and catering and working in restaurants was my life for 10 years. And I was really broke when I was living in San Francisco and going to school. And one of the reasons you work at a restaurant, this used to be the truth, was they always give you a meal. So, on the days that I worked, I knew I would get fed at least one meal. That’s a big deal when you’re living on rice to go get a nice big meal. I never ate at the kind of restaurants I worked at because I couldn’t afford it. But I agree with you, fast cash and a lot of cash. And if you need more cash, just work more. So not necessarily going to earn more per hour, but you can work more hours.

Mindy:
So let’s look at after high school. Did you go to college?

Jennifer:
I did. So I went out to San Francisco and went to college. Actually, that was part of my plan, graduated from high school early, bartended for a little while longer. Looked at my college choices and my parents were like, “You’re kind of on your own.” And it was extraordinarily expensive. And the one school I went to near where I grew up, which is near Boston in a town called Lowell, Massachusetts, if you’ve seen the movie, The Fighter, that’s basically where I grew up. And that’s where I went to college and I had that accent. So if you watch that movie, you’ll appreciate it now.
But it was expensive. And it was just like high school for me. And I thought this is crazy. I’m paying for this. I hated high school. That’s why I got out early. But I realized that if I went to California and got my residency at the time, you could go to a state school for like $375 a semester. So, that’s what I did. I went out there with the intention of once I get my residency, I’ll go to school, and I did. I went to San Francisco State University. That’s where I got my degree.

Paula:
What did you study?

Jennifer:
I studied international relations and Russian language.

Paula:
What led you to that?

Jennifer:
Oh, well, I wanted to be an ambassador. My plan had been, I lived in Russia, communist Russia before it … That tells you how old I am. In 1991, before it fell and I intended to round out my Russian language and then go into the Peace Corps, learn Spanish, then become a Foreign Service officer was my goal. But I met a man and I got married in college instead, which is the beginning of the story that probably leads me here today.

Mindy:
Okay. So upon graduating college, what was your financial position like?

Jennifer:
Broke, as broke, so broke. We were very, very broke. And we had very, very different money cultures. The question you asked me in the beginning is the question I ask in my show about money culture.
His attachment to money was that it defined him. So, we were flat broke. And I would eat rice every day and he would go out and buy meals at restaurants every day, because it fed his need to feel taken care of, which I can sympathize with now, certainly, but at the time, it was really crazy. My first job out of college took me a very long time to get one and it was in customer service. And I made $19,000 a year, which was not a lot of money. This was in like 1994. So, not a ton of money and continued to struggle throughout that marriage. And I was with my ex-husband, I met him at 21 and I left when I was 29, almost 30, I think.

Mindy:
Did you talk about money before you got married? Did you have any sort of conversations about money?

Jennifer:
No, no. And he was older. He was like 10 years older. And it never would have crossed my mind to talk about money. That had never even been a consideration, so no. And I honestly could not have understood that part of him until I started down this journey of podcasting and meeting other people and learning about money and understanding how it affects you on all levels.

Paula:
So when your path shifted, you originally wanted to be a Foreign Service Officer. Fast forward several years after college graduation that hadn’t happened, had your dreams changed? Was there a part of you that was still longing for that? Like, what was your mental space at that time?

Jennifer:
It changed because I had a baby. So, I had two children. And to jump to the end and then come back, the 32nd highlight of my entire adult money story is that I lost everything twice. So I ended up with no job, no car, no place to live, two children to raise and chapter 13 bankruptcy. And I did that twice. The first time was separating from my husband in California and moving back to New England, getting permission to move back to New England to live with my mom. Moved back in home with my mom.
But I literally showed up with my two kids, our three suitcases and that was it. That’s all I had. I had nothing else. And I had lived in financial chaos, that’s what I call it, up until then. But I knew I could get a job. I knew I could work hard. I knew I liked to work. And one lesson that I always learned was that it wasn’t about earning a lot of money, it was about earning a steady amount of money. I knew that if I could just get a steady amount of money coming in, that I could support us, and then I could figure out what to do from there. That was the first time around.
So, that’s really kind of what changed that. But what happened was what drove me into bankruptcy the first time was that my ex-husband, over a course of 10 years, sued me 25 times and I amassed over $500,000 in attorney’s fees.

Paula:
Wow.

Jennifer:
Yep. And that can happen. And all of this I kept a secret until I started a podcast because there’s a lot of shame in that. But the truth is, it happens to a lot of people. And if you want to punish someone through the legal system, you can, especially depending on the state that you live in. So, the first chapter 13 bankruptcy I had, I had landed a sales job. I had learned that I was good at sales. I was earning great money, but I also was hemorrhaging cash out every month to attorneys. So it didn’t matter how much I was making. I was still scraping by.
I bought a piece of land from my mom and I was able to build a house. And when I finally consulted with a chapter 13 bankruptcy attorney, he said, “Well, this would be a way to protect that asset and get you out of those lawsuits.” So that’s what I did. I filed for chapter 13 bankruptcy which of course ruins your credit for 10 years.
And I learned how to live on cash, which is really, really hard. But it was such a juxtaposition. You think about people living on cash or not having a credit card and you think that’s a certain kind of person. And here I was with a home that I built, as an executive salesperson traveling around, those two things didn’t really match up. And back then, you could kind of get away with a debit card and I had a secured credit card for 500 bucks. And so, that’s kind of how I worked through that system.
But the lawsuits continued and he just came back and back and back. And so, I had moved to Tennessee, which is where I live now. And I was in a relationship with someone, but at this point, I had this epiphany of, this is never going to stop. My philosophy have been, I’m going to earn as much money as humanly possible, so I can fight this battle. And then I realized, what if I didn’t? What if you can’t get blood from a turnip?
And so, my boyfriend at the time had said he really wanted me to move in. He was capable of taking care of me and the children. I had a very high level, high pressure, high paying job, that he wanted me to leave and he was like, “You can stay on for a while file chapter 13 bankruptcy again to escape these attorneys’ fees.” So that’s what I did.
That was really the end of the lawsuits. Because the reality of once I told my ex-husband, I said, “You realize I can do this every three years, right?” What do I have to lose? My credit is ruined, I have nothing. And if you keep doing this, you keep thinking you’re going to get more money from me, and I’m only paying attorneys. So instead, I can just keep filing chapter 13 bankruptcy, but you will be out your hundreds of thousands of dollars. And that’s finally what actually got the lawsuits to start was when my attitude in that sense changed.
But then, I jumped from the frying pan into the fire because I had moved into a house that didn’t have my name on it with a man who I was not married to. I was driving a car that was not in my name. Now I was able to, from the proceeds of the house, create enough money to pay for the kids’ school and do all those sorts of things. But it basically turned myself over to someone else. And I say this all the time. I don’t think it really matters how people end up at the bottom, rock bottom.
But how I ended up was relational. So it wasn’t that I made a bad investment or I just loved fancy things or any of that. It’s just I kept making relationship mistakes and not taking care of myself first when it came to finances or anything else really at that point.

Paula:
How old were your kids at this time?

Jennifer:
The second time? You mean at the time …

Paula:
Yeah, the second time that you declared chapter 13 when you had just moved to Tennessee and moved in with the man that you were seeing at the time?

Jennifer:
Yeah, I think my daughter was 9 and my son would have been 11. Yeah, I think it’s about right, 9 and 11. So eventually, when that relationship didn’t, and my daughter was … Actually, my daughter was 13 or 15. I found myself, again, with no car, no job, no place to live, no money. And I was in chapter 13 bankruptcy again. I had done it again.
And I just realized that second time around that I was going to rebuild. But I knew I could get a job. I knew that I could perform and be a good employee. But I wanted to create wealth in a way that nobody could take it away from me again. And that’s when I started that pattern. And I rebuilt my credit in about three years. Well, first of all, I mean I can talk about everything I did point by point. I had to move in with family again for four months. I found a job, rebuilt my credit.
Once I rebuilt my credit, I bought a house here in Nashville, Tennessee in a neighborhood that’s not so desirable but now it is. And then in 2014, I found out about Airbnb and that changed my life. And then I, through a series of house hacking, borrowing aides to 401k and Airbnb in four years, I created $1.4 million in income producing investments.

Mindy:
Oh, I want to talk about that. But before we talk about that, I want to go back to this relationship. You said, “I made relationship mistakes.” And let me tell you first of all, you are not alone. I have a whole string of losers that I dated before I found Carl. But there’s a lot of shame in that. And I think that shame should be lifted. He didn’t say to you, “We’re going to have a terrible life, I’m going to take everything away from you. And in four years, I’m going to kick you to the curb.”

Jennifer:
Right.

Mindy:
He came at you as, “Hey, I’m this great guy.” People can really sell themselves when they want to. There’s no shame, well, there shouldn’t be any shame in getting sucked into somebody who isn’t as great as they first appeared. But it can kind of perpetuate itself, especially in a situation like this, where you had sold your house and moved in with him, because he said he could take care of you. Hey, that sounds really great. I will do that because there’s all this other peripheral stuff with the ex-husband, who was really just, like I can’t imagine the stress load that you had there.

Jennifer:
It was miserable.

Mindy:
Sued 25 times. I’ve never even been sued once and then I’m not excited about the prospect of ever getting sued. But that just seems very heavy.

Jennifer:
It’s just the feeling.

Mindy:
I’m sure number 25, you’re like, whatever, throw it on the pile. But the first few are like, “Oh, this makes my heart hurt.”

Jennifer:
Right.

Mindy:
I want to say that it’s okay to make relationship mistakes. That’s how you grow. That’s how you learn. But when you find yourself in a mistaken relationship, I don’t know how to phrase that right to make it sound not so bad. But look for ways out, look for ways to extricate yourself from the position so that you don’t continue down that path. Because it’s really easy to just be like, well, I guess this is my life.

Jennifer:
Right. And I think that’s a very valid point. But I also want to point out that the person I was in a relationship with was a good person, he was generous, he meant well, I think, he did as best as he could. But it just didn’t work out. And then when it didn’t work out, and I found myself in that position, that’s a very powerful position for him to be in. And I hated that even more so. But you’re absolutely right, I mean, my mentality and where I was, and the amount of pressure that I felt every day to have somebody be beside me and say, “I’ll help you through this.” And in fact, “I help you through this and we can take the pressure off of you.”
It felt really, really good. It felt amazing to be able to do that. So I’m grateful for those things. I try to look back on that and remember that. I think my mistakes are, when I look back now, I think it’s okay to say, “I’m happy to move in with you. But we got to figure out what that’s going to mean if this doesn’t work out because I don’t own this house. Where will I go?” Sometimes I talk to people and they say, “I don’t want to sign a pre-nup.” And I’ll say, “Well, why not?” Because if you have nothing and maybe your spouse to be does have something, then why not sign a pre-nup that just says that you’ll be taken care of for a period of time if it should not work out, you know what I mean?
Whatever it is, is negotiable. What I didn’t do and was to protect myself in that way which wasn’t really standing up for myself, but it was also kind of trusting like, you’re a good guy. And of course, you’ll do the right thing. When it all came apart, I was like, well, I need to find a place to live. And I need like six months to just kind of get on my feet. And there was not going to be anybody writing me a check for that. It was not going to happen.
And so thank God for family slash network, because that’s what brings that all back. And just one more thing about the litigious thing, because there are some people … This is very unique, most divorce is, no divorce is good, right? It’s terrible. But mine is really extreme. He also sued my mother and my brother and my sister. And so, he was just going to use the court system as a method of punishment, which is totally possible in this country. So, yes, and if you can avoid it, and to your point, like number 25, throw it on the thing, throw it on a pile, I think about those packages would arrive and the bill would arrive and the envelopes would be just bursting and I would be sick. I couldn’t even open it.
And now, one of the things I do with people is I just call it opening the mail and it’s really just like, “Let’s face it, let’s open the mail together. Let’s look at your bills. Let’s look at whatever it is that you haven’t been looking at because I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.”

Mindy:
Yeah. And not opening the mail doesn’t change what’s in there.

Jennifer:
No. It makes it worse.

Mindy:
Yeah, it could make it a lot worse because there could be some deadlines in there and not opening it, “Oh, I’ll open it tomorrow.” Okay, fine. If it comes today and you want to wait until tomorrow, permission granted, but after tomorrow, you could be missing deadlines that could have detrimental financial impact to you. You could lose a lawsuit simply by not responding to it.

Jennifer:
Absolutely.

Mindy:
And there’s just a lot there. So, yes, it sucks. I really hope this doesn’t happen to anybody. I’m really glad that you were able to get past it. I almost said get over it. And that’s not the right phrase, get past it and move on. And I want to give you one more bit of credit before we move into this $1.4 million worth of income generating assets in four years, because that’s a really awesome segue into the next part of your life. But you rebuilt your credit from section 13 bankruptcy, chapter 13 bankruptcy, in three years.

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Mindy:
I loved the mentality that you were in at the time. Well, I’m just going to file it again. What’s the worst that can happen? My credit is already ruined. I mean, why did you have like a 400 credit score?

Jennifer:
I never looked. I never looked at it. Because nobody has given me a credit card. I never looked at my credit score through those years. There was no point.

Mindy:
There is no point. It’s just going to suck. So, if that is the best option for you, based on these ridiculous legal bills or based on whatever weird circumstances, do it, trash your credit again, because you can rebuild it. So, how did you rebuild your credit?

Jennifer:
I rebuilt it. So this is interesting, because it wasn’t really that long ago to be frank. When that happened with my relationship coming apart the second time, I mean, I was 41 years old. But it was literally calling the credit agencies, calling everybody on. Because I hadn’t looked at my credit score, because I knew it was so bad, not only were all of the things that were true on my credit report, but there were some things that were wrong. So, having to go in, having to write letters, et cetera, now, it’s a little more automated, like you can keep up with it with some applications on your phone. You can even just dispute something on your phone and get the process started.
Back then, it was just writing letters and making phone calls, writing letters and making phone calls. And then, that’s just to repair what’s on that awful credit report. I got a secured credit card for $500, which is all I was allowed to have. And that really didn’t help my credit at all. But as I mentioned, I was going traveling and whatever and this was the only thing I had. So imagine, I went to a hotel to Chicago for one night to see clients with the car, the airfare, the hotel, buying dinner, that’s 500 bucks. So I would pay my balance three or four times a week.
So what I did, and there’s just a trick, I actually talked about it. So, when you’re a corporate executive, you book your travel, I book my flight today, maybe I’m not traveling for two weeks, but I booked it today. And I can take that receipt and submit it right away. So, I would submit my expenses as soon as I booked them, not when I traveled, so that I would get the money. So, I would have the money to pay the debt before, when I finally landed. Plus, I mean, I did have an income, I did have a salary, that sort of thing. But that’s how I survived that way.
The other way I rebuilt it was, and this was a real game changer, I landed with a company and started working for them. And part of the requirement and this is the thing, like people just assume that you’ve got the wherewithal to be able to do this. I was in a position that required me to purchase, basically I was building clinics for large employers. So, I had to purchase everything, like all the storage supplies, everything, thousands and thousands of dollars, and then expense it, and they expected me to do that on my own credit card.
So, I had to, which is very normal, there are sales reps out there that have a $10,000 credit card on their own credit, and they have to submit an expense report to get that back. And an average week for me it would be five to $6,000 in expenses for work. Yeah. This was another thing of sort of coming out of the closet or getting over the shame. I went to my boss at the time and I said, “I just have to tell you what my story is. I don’t have a credit card and I have no way of getting one. Would you consider putting me on a corporate credit card,” which is unheard of. But I was a valued employee. And she went to the company and asked and they gave me one. And that instantly because it tied me to the credit of the company.
And so, I got the bill. I paid it. It never went to them. I took care of it. And there’s another hack to do that now that I didn’t know about back then. I tell people to do it all the time is, so if somebody is struggling with their credit, they can become an additional signer on a credit card. You probably know this trick I’m thinking. It’s a great trick. I did it for my stepdaughter when she got out of college because she had no debt and which is wonderful because her dad paid for college and all that good stuff. But she also had no credit.
And I said, “Well, I’ll add you to my credit card.” And honestly, I didn’t need to even tell her that. I could have just added her never given her the card. But it immediately tied her to my credit. And within three months, her score went up like 70 points and she got her own credit card. So, by my boss allowing me to do that, probably within a year, I got my first, my own credit card, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. It was a really big deal. I did a timeline because you have to wait for the chapter 13 to be discharged as well, which is much longer than chapter 7 or 11. It’s like 10 years.
So until it’s discharged, even if you’re paying, if you’re trying to be a good soldier and do all the right things, until that is completely discharged, it remains on your credit score. So, I was waiting for that. And then I also got my own credit card. And that changed everything and allowed me to buy a house.

Mindy:
Wow. So, my mother did that for my sister and I when we graduated from high school. She opened up, this will tell you how old I am, she opened up a credit card slash calling card, because cellphones weren’t a thing then. And we could use it. So, she and my dad opened the card and my sister and I were authorized signers. I wasn’t even 18 yet. So I couldn’t be on the card by myself. But we were authorized signers, and after a couple of months, my 17 year old self had an 800 credit score because that’s what my parents had.

Jennifer:
Wow.

Mindy:
That’s unheard of when you’re 17 years old. Or maybe it was 18, I mean, I wasn’t checking back. This was pre internet.

Jennifer:
Right. We didn’t do it. You had to like write to somebody or call somebody to get it.

Mindy:
Exactly. And I mean, credit wasn’t a thing. You didn’t talk about it. It just was. And they put parameters around the credit card. They said, “Here’s the card. You can spend whatever you want on it. You have to pay it off at the end of every month. This is primarily for emergencies.” If I got a flat tire, I would have to pay that off. But the cute little shirt that I got at the Gap, I had to pay that off. Or they would take the card away from me …

Jennifer:
Right.

Mindy:
… which was like, “Oh, no, I want that card. So I will just pay it off. I won’t charge more than I can pay from my waitressing job which is just free cash all the time I had cash, always so I could just pay that card off whenever.” But them setting me up like that was enormous. And it wasn’t even like a thing back then. And now there’s ways if you didn’t have the access to the company card, you could potentially pay Paula to sign onto her card. And that’s a trade line is when they call this, Paula would sell a trade line. And I’ve seen them being sold for $150. If you need credit, you’ve got the great job, you’ve got everything but you’ve got chapter 13, Paula’s amazing 800 credit score can help you out for $150.
Now, Paula says, “Okay, credit card, I want to add Jennifer to my card, but send me the card.” So, Jennifer never gets the card. Paula’s great score kind of transfers over to you after a couple of months. And there’s other issues involved. Like if you’ve had a bunch of late payments, it doesn’t really matter Paula’s great credit score. But if you just have low credit or no credit, like when I was 17, my credit score was zero, which is actually way better than 350 or 400, which is like the lowest it can go. But that’s a huge gift that your company gave you.

Jennifer:
Yeah, it really was.

Mindy:
It wasn’t even probably something that you were looking for. You were just like, “Hey, I want to be able to buy all these things for my clients.”

Jennifer:
I was not going to be able to perform my job. I mean, that was the end that it is. Like if you want me to do this job, I am unable to perform this job because I am unable to get a credit card. And that was a dilemma they’d never seen before that I was a high income, I was a six figure earner. So they knew what I was making. But that doesn’t mean I had $15,000 a month to buy materials for a clinic. That wasn’t going to work. But it’s that assumption that most people can get a credit card of some kind and that they want the points and all of that stuff.
But yes, this hack is amazing to me. And if I had to advise my former self, I would have added my children as additional signers. And I never would have probably given them the card or told them. They just would have been like this is miraculous, my credit score has gone up. If they actually bothered to look though they would also see that they were tied to debt, so maybe not. But yeah, that was a huge game changer for me. And it allowed me to start the process of trying to find a home, which was also still for a lot of people … I had people look me right in the face and go, “Be realistic, you’re never going to be able to buy a house.”
And people say stuff like that to me, and I’m just like, “Okay, good, then I’m going to buy three.”

Paula:
What gave you that confidence? What kept you going?

Jennifer:
I think that the realization that there’s a way out and that I knew that if the only thing that stood between me and financial peace was hard work, then I can do it. Then, I can do it. If the thing standing between me and financial peace is that I have to be a super whiz, math whiz, well, I may never be able to do that. But if it’s just hard work, I’m not scared of that. That’s the thing I taught. Anybody who listens to the show, or any of the shows that all of y’all are on. None of them are afraid of hard work, or they wouldn’t be listening to this.
So that’s what kept me motivated. And money just gave me a sense of peace of that $400 emergency that Americans can’t handle. When I got a flat tire, if you don’t have the money to fix that flat tire, and you can’t get to work your problems compound. And raising my kids on my own and by the way, I got no financial support from their dad, big surprise. If the kids got hurt, or something happened, the ability to write a check and nobody shutting my lights off. That’s really was the motivation. It really was the motivation.

Mindy:
Okay, let’s move on to this 1.4 million. We’ve teased that a couple of times.

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Mindy:
You said you discovered Airbnb. And then you created $1.4 million of income producing assets in four years. So how did you use the Airbnb? And what year are we talking here?

Jennifer:
So it was 2014. I wish I had actually discovered Airbnb, wouldn’t that have been great? It was 2014. I was at an art studio painting and someone mentioned it to me, “Hey, have you heard of Airbnb?” “Never had.” I wrote it down on the card, I still have the card, came home, looked it up. And I was like, wow. And I had a roommate at the time. I had a friend of mine move in, she was helping me pay the mortgage, she was giving me 600 bucks a month. And I did the math and realized that if I could rent my house six nights a month, it would cover my entire mortgage. And I realized, if I did that, that was the equivalent of another entire income.
So, I went to my roommate. Now back then, no regulations, no permitting nothing. And people had not heard of it. They didn’t know what it was. People knew what VRBO was, but they didn’t know what Airbnb was. I went to my roommate, and then I’m like, “You got to go,” kicked her out, so.

Paula:
Sorry.

Mindy:
We’re still friends. But I was like, “Look, the math. I got to do this. I’ve got to get ahead.” I felt very behind. I don’t know that I was really thinking about retirement or anything else. But I wanted to create. And that’s why the name of my show is Micro Empires. I wanted to create small pockets of wealth. So, I was already painting and selling my paintings. I was doing side work like I always do, because I always have three streams of income, student side work writing, executive level CVs, and I had a job.
So, I got my house ready. I put it on Airbnb. And within the first week, I was booked for three months out on the weekends, because I only opened up through the weekends because I did all my own cleaning and all my own managing and all that stuff in addition to traveling and working. But what I did was I made myself homeless because I had to go sleep on my mom’s couch. And so, I quickly realized that this was a great idea, but that I needed a different avenue.
And the second thing that gave me a real game changer is when I realized that I can borrow against my 401k from my employer. So I had liquidated my 401k several times, for obvious reasons. But once I got back into the workforce, one of the tricks that I’ve always done is I always max the 401k, for me, simply because it lowered my income because I wanted my kids to be able to go to school on scholarships. So, it lowered your income by 20 grand a year.
So I had been maxing it out. So I had about $100,000 in there. I called my 401k provider and said, “Do you let people borrow?” And they said, “Yes,” and it was $22,000. So I said, “Yes, please write me a check.” And you pay that back through your paycheck and without interest or penalty and the money you’re getting it pre-tax. So it’s better than taking it out of your bank account. The first time I did it, I paid off some debt. And then I repaid myself and went back and said, “Do I get to borrow that again?” And they said, “Yep, you sure do.” So I borrowed it again.
And then at that point, I had joined a real estate investors group, which has really been the big game changer for me. And I didn’t even know that I could do this. But with good credit, I could buy a home if it was my primary home with 3 to 5% down. So, I found a house, another house here in Nashville in a not so great neighborhood. And I put 3% down. I bought that house for like, honestly, like $11,000 was my move in cost.
And it was in a rough, rough neighborhood. There was a house next to me that had cracked pipes in the lawn. And the one across the street had a giant swastika hanging in the front window. But it was a beautiful house and it was brand new and it’s what I could afford. And so, I moved in with my air mattress and my dog because I had to leave everything behind. Like the blow dryer, the spoons, you got to leave everything behind with the Airbnb. I moved in. I used the rest of the money to furnish the house, which I did on flea markets, et cetera because I furnished the entire house for, what, $20,000, which is not a lot, put it on Airbnb.
I had repaid the 22,000 with the income from the first house. So the second house got put on Airbnb and then I borrowed the $22,000 again, and I bought a third house and I moved in with my air mattress and my dog. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. And those houses crap. And this entire time, so this is 2014 until 2020, because I sold them all one month before COVID hit. Isn’t that crazy?

Paula:
Yeah. Do you have a crystal ball?

Jennifer:
No, I don’t have a crystal ball. It was my money culture, what happened in those six years is that the city exploded and I kept telling my real estate investor friends how lucrative it was. And they didn’t believe me, they just didn’t believe me, because they can be old and crotchety or stuck in their ways. And I’m like, “I’m telling you, this is an incredible opportunity. If you have a house, there’s no rules.” Couple things happen. The city started to crack down and put in ridiculous parameters especially around single family homes, which is what I had. So I spent three years along with every other owner in Nashville fighting for the right to continue to use my property as I had been doing.
My properties increased the value of the neighborhood because they were always pristine and always in great shape. And that’s the truth about Airbnb properties. They’re always better than a long term rental property. But the other thing is that as the city changed the rules, what they did was they opened the door for a mass influx of investors who bought up huge chunks of land and built all Airbnb, like hotels with rooftop bars and fireplaces and pools and I couldn’t compete.
So in 2019, I was watching my numbers go down. And for the first time they had sat empty for a couple of months. That had never happened. And so I was like, “I’m not really sure where this is going. But it made me sick because I still had carrying costs.” It’s $7,000 in carrying costs a month. So I made the decision to sell them. And they sold in one day, of course. And I mean I had no way of knowing that literally three weeks later, we’d be in complete lockdown and Airbnb completely canceled everybody’s reservations across the world. And all of those owners, many people, lost their shirts during that time.
And I may not have lost my shirt, but it would have. I would have been sick with worry. And I would have been miserable to live with. So, for those reasons, I think, it was very good to get out at that time in this market.

Mindy:
Yeah. Not only did they cancel all the reservations, they refunded everybody who had made the reservations in full. And I don’t think that there’s any sort of right answer with regards to how they handled that because the owners were upset that no refund policy was waived and Airbnb just did it. The but if they hadn’t then all of the renters would have been upset that their vacation was canceled, and they couldn’t go and get they weren’t getting a refund and it wasn’t their fault. And you could have done a 50-50 thing and then everybody would have been unhappy. I don’t see a good way out of that. And hindsight is 2020, we can sit here now and be like, “Oh, you could have done this.”
But really, at the time, it was like, “We’re going to shut down.” The whole thing shut down. Everything is just like done. And they got a lot of flack for that.

Jennifer:
They definitely did.

Mindy:
I just can’t think of a good way that that could have been handled that anybody would have been happy.

Jennifer:
I mean, nobody in March of 2020 none of us knew what global pandemic would look like, none of us had ever lived through a global pandemic. And remember, I say this all the time, remember in April of 2020 when we were saying to each other, “Did you hear we might be in lockdown until August.” Do you remember when we thought that was a long time?
I think, whoever made that decision, whatever it was, was thinking this is a bandaid and we’ll pick up in a few more months, and we’ll be okay. Not knowing that for some people, I mean, I have a friend who was $70,000 gone, gone, your expected income completely gone.
And so, but anyway, and it’s interesting, because now, I’m actually going to get back into short term rental, but I won’t be doing it in Nashville. I like to go where I’m treated best. And I like to go where I can have as much control as humanly possible. So I am not going to choose an area that has a ton of regulation, and a ton of competition. I’m just not going to do that.

Paula:
So what market are you going to go into?

Jennifer:
Well, Tennessee is still a really good market. So Nashville proper, Davidson County is what I would avoid. But there’s lots of lake regions, mountain regions, all kinds of things around. This city has become a mecca for building and businesses and you can’t get a house in this town anymore. So, the more people that come in, the more opportunity that there is. So, my thought in Tennessee is more of a spot that’s a little bit out of the way that you could do a girls’ weekend or a wedding venue or that sort of thing, which is completely not allowed anywhere in Nashville proper or the county area.
So you could have a great big, beautiful house with 16 acres here in Davidson County, and you are not allowed to have a wedding at your Airbnb. I don’t know if there’s like a venue or something or a commercial property or something, but. And the thing is, though, and this is interesting, because I’ve been having this conversation with other investors right now. And there’s a lot of like narrow thinking of, “Oh, it’s too expensive. It’s too bad. We’ve missed the bubble.” Whatever it is, and I just don’t believe that I just don’t. And there’s always opportunity.
But you always have to factor in what you’re used to. In Nashville, we only do 10 minute circles. And Mindy knows this because I took her to pizza one night. And she was like, “How far away is it?” And I’m like, “There’s nothing more than 10 minutes away in this town.” And that’s true. So because we’re used to that, the idea of, we could have a beautiful place by a lake that could cash flow like crazy and it’ll take 45 minutes to get there. If you’re in Nashvillian you’re going “Oh, well, no one would go there.” Yes they would when they come from Michigan and California and Ohio and Texas and all the places that they come from, so.
I have that mentality that there’s always opportunity. And when I went to buy my first house and people were looking me in the face and saying that’s impossible, I just was like, every door that slammed I just kept moving and kept moving. I was like, “That’s ridiculous. Of course, it’s not impossible. Of course, it’s possible. I just have to find the right people to make it happen.”

Mindy:
So, what did you do with the money when you sold the houses?

Jennifer:
I went shopping. No.

Mindy:
Great story.

Jennifer:
Yeah, great story. I did my first joint venture in an apartment complex in Knoxville. And I am not a big risk taker. I’m a small risk taker. That’s why it’s called Micro Empire. I always tell people, if you’re doing something new, in my opinion, do whatever you want. But my experience and my opinion is when I’m doing something new, I invest a small amount that will not crush me and will not make me puke. That’s the number. What’s the number? The number that doesn’t make you puke with fear.
So invested in this small apartment complex because I wanted to learn about multifamily and we are selling out of that 18 months in advance at our three year goal. So that’s worked out really well. And then, I spent the next few months learning more about multifamily and just in 2021 made two more investments in Clarksville, Tennessee and Chattanooga, Tennessee. All of them are apartment complexes because they’re syndications. It is very passive for me.
And it’s interesting, right, because joint venture is passive, but you still vote, you still meet, you do have a lot of decision making power et cetera. Syndication is literally like, go check the web and figure out what’s happening. So it’s very, very much removed. But still, those are doing very well. And probably, the biggest thing about that is there is some cash flow, but you’re really not getting the heavy cash flow that you could from something like short term rental or if you own it yourself. And so you have to say goodbye to your money for a little bit, for like three to five years. So you got to be ready to do that.
So, in addition to those investments, which are doing fine, I also bought a piece of land and sold that. I’m looking for the next short term rental because one of the things I’ve learned in this year and a half that I’ve taken off from short term rental is I like cash flow. I like a lot of cash flow. And cost segregation was a big thing too, which of course you get access to that through … And I’m not sure if your listeners are big real estate people but that was a big game changer tax wise and that can be applied to any kind of short term rental.

Mindy:
Paula, have you done anything with syndications?

Paula:
No. Nothing with syndications or joint ventures. I’ve done short term rentals and then of course, traditional rental properties. I’m curious Jennifer, you mentioned you bought a piece of land, bare land, I assume, and then sold it. What triggered both the buy and the sell?

Mindy:
So unique opportunity is what that was. So there is an area called Troubadour and it’s part of something called a Discovery Land Project, I think. It is a very, very, very exclusive for the ultra, ultra rich resort living. They have one in Nashville. They have one in Cordyline, Idaho. They have them in Mexico, whatever. And you buy into this, you buy a piece of property, you buy a house there, and you pay an annual fee, kind of like you would on a country club. But once you’re there, it’s full resort living. So there is a swim camp for the kids and you don’t pay anything, you get in your golf cart, all the drinks are free, the food is free. It’s just a very exclusive high level living, which is nothing I would ever do.
So all the Nashville celebrities have houses down there, all the predators have houses down there. My husband, I did get married, finally. I married a former hockey player and he had a hockey player friend who was working for them. And he said, “Listen, we’re selling these lots for $750,000. But there’s this older development, where there are lots for $300,000 that you can buy.” Now, this is a city lot. So it’s like a 7,500, 8,000 square foot lot. Not a big lot. I’m used to getting those for 60 grand or 80 grand. So the idea of 300 made me definitely want to puke.
But we decided to do it by partnering with myself directed IRA. So we did a third from each of our self directed and a third in cash. We put it in. And especially with COVID, the need to be isolated, the need to be in a community the need to be small is what COVID has exploded, right? So we sold that for over 600 in like a year and a half. So, that was incredible.

Paula:
That one that you bought for 300?

Jennifer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It’s the same. It’s crazy.

Paula:
That’s not bad. I like that.

Jennifer:
Especially, there was no work done. We thought about bringing a builder, we would have made a lot more money. But we’re not builder types at all. Like I don’t even like to pick a light fixture. I’m not wired that way.

Paula:
But you made a smart decision to double your money instead of triple it with literally no work, right? I mean, were you mowing the lawn or trimming the trees or?

Jennifer:
No.

Paula:
So there’s this romantic notion that, “Oh, I’m going to buy a lot, and I’m going to build my dream house.” You are setting yourself up for a nightmare because I’ve never ever, ever heard anybody say, “We built a house and it was great. It was an awesome experience.” There’s a show in the UK. It’s called Grand Design. Have you ever seen this? These are the people that I was just talking about who are like, “We’re going to build a lot and we’re going to build our dream house and it doesn’t matter if there’s little cost overruns, because it’s going to be this amazing thing.”
If you want to build a house from scratch, I demand that you watch at least five episodes of Grand Designs because they’re all the same gorgeous houses. Well not all of them get finished but most of them get finished. They start off with the plan to like this is our plan. We’ve got this much money. They’re like, what are you going to do about cost overruns? Oh, it’ll be fine. And then, they go through the process and there’s one entire season that they were recording in had like massive rain, torrential downpour rains, every day for six months. You can’t build on a lake, like in the actual water. You have to wait till it dries out.
And it was just this nightmare of a season and you can’t control the weather, you can’t control the cost overruns. Last year would spike up and was like seven times the price that it used to be like overnight, that we’ve got supply chain issues now. It’s just a really, really soul crushing endeavor to try and build a house. And I say that from somebody who popped the top. I didn’t even build a whole house. There was an actual house there. And then we just added a second story twice, we’ll never do it again.
It’s so much work and the romantic notion of, oh, I can have everything I want. You can have almost anything you want in a house. You can find something really great to live in. So, good for you for not jumping into that because that is like the … You could always make more money on an investment if you just did whatever.

Jennifer:
So I did build a house in New England when I was living back there with my mom. And I’ll just tell this quick side story, because I think it’s a good message as well. So, New Hampshire is known as Live Free or Die. I don’t know if you know, that’s our state statement. So there’s very little licensing laws like we don’t have a helmet law in New Hampshire. Can you believe that? When you ride a motorcycle, no helmet law. And so, there’s not actually a law that you have to be a licensed contractor. So, I hired a contractor, I got all of his references. I checked with everybody. I did all the things, all the right things.
I picked a home, a design that was easy, simple, the fastest. It’s like a crackerjack box with a little bit of sprinkle. That’s it. Because I just was like, “Just build me a house and I’ll do the rest.” And it was six months into the project and the work slowed down, the work slowed down, people were coming to me calling me. I’m like, “What’s going on?” And he never paid the subs. So he took $70,000 from me.
So, the house is half built. The sheetrock is sitting inside the house. At this point, the contractors are trying to break in to steal the sheetrock back because that’s the only option they have as well. And I went over and slept in my empty unbuilt house to protect what was mine and it was awful. And again, that was another situation where using my network, I found a friend slash contractor and I was like, “I’ll do anything we’ve got to finish this house.” This was timing with filing my chapter 13 bankruptcy. The house had to be complete and had to be moved in in order to do that.
So, it was all part of the strategic plan. And he worked miracles. But yes, I agree. I would love to never do that again. I would love to never build a house again. This house that we’re in is brand new. We found it while it was being built. And I think the builder was so happy because we were like, “I don’t know.” They were like, “Do you want to pick light fixtures?” “No, we don’t care. You do it. I don’t care. Let us know. Let us know when the lights are on. We’ll be there.” I just was like, I’m not a builder. Let’s you figure it out. You tell me. Go where your strengths are, focused on.

Paula:
It was a dream job for the builders.

Jennifer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, I think so.

Mindy:
So what is next for Jennifer and her Micro Empires? You’re looking into getting back into Airbnb? Have you started seriously searching for those properties? Or are you still trying to figure out which location you actually want to invest in?

Jennifer:
Yes. So when I start something, I usually do some heavy research for a good long time. So, Tennessee is pretty fruitful. So, the Smokies are a great area. I went up there and put up a cabin under contract. I’m a big believer in secure something and then do your due diligence, right? And it’s okay to do that. So people who haven’t done real estate before will feel really bad about that or whatever, I don’t feel bad about it at all. So I’ll put your house under contract while I do the due diligence, it’s going to cost me a few hundred dollars and if I am not happy, I’m out.
And that’s what we do. And I know you guys know that definitely. So I got a cabin under contract and some pieces of land. I went up a few times. It was a very different culture. I just kept getting told, it’s the Smokies. My deposit on a $750,000, my earnest money on a $750,000 asset that I was buying was $1,000. That’s what they asked me for. I was like, “Okay, here you go. I got to go now. Don’t look at me, [inaudible 01:00:04].”
And I never knew that could happen. But it’s just it’s just a different mentality. I’m an East Coast girl at heart. But after going up there a couple of times, about three hours from my front door, I realized the amount of work that was going to take to get the cabin rehabbed, then we were going to do new builds. And that was going to require me to be on site, because that is something that I have learned. I just finished an apartment above my garage, and I nearly strangled my contractor.
I’m sure no one can identify with that. And I’m one of these people, I’m like, “You’re the expert, just do the work and see you later.” And that is a mistake that I make over and over. So, this is a long way of getting back to the Smokies. The Smokies is a great area. I recommend it, I may still invest in it for me, I’m going to buy something completely turnkey when the time comes, probably something small. I went down to the Emerald Coast of Florida. I’ve spent a good long time down there. I just actually got out of a contract down there.
But then, I just read an article, I think it was in the Wall Street Journal that just came out that said that Nashville is number one for real estate in the country in 2022. And number one for, sorry, in the top 10 for new builds. So I’m like, “Why am I leaving the state of Tennessee? What am I doing? Why not just stay right here and find a $300,000 house, which you can find not probably in a beautiful neighborhood here, or depending on what you want to do with it, right?” You can’t short term rental, none of those things in the county of Nashville.
But I just believe that this is where it’s going to be. I’ve also had a big shift where I’ve decided to bring on some investors with me just a couple of other women that are really interested in learning about short term rental. I was like, “Why am I tackling this giant thing on my own?” Just because I did it the first time, that doesn’t mean I have to do it. Now at this age, I can share it. I can share the debt and the carrying costs and I can share the experience and the benefits.

Paula:
How has that been so far? The difference between working with other investors, other partners versus doing it solo? Like what? What have you enjoyed about that? And what have been the drawbacks?

Jennifer:
Well, being an investor myself and watching like in syndications and joint ventures and seeing how it … That’s a different setup, though, because I’m kind of the customer and they’re the provider, I guess. What I’ve learned in the short term is that this is really, really exciting. But I think the most important thing, and actually, I’d love to know what you both think about this, I think, the most important thing is going to be that I have to find people who share my mindset. I know lots of people with lots of money, and every idea I come up with they say, “Oh, no, that’ll never work, that will never work.” And maybe they’re right, maybe it won’t work. But I think it’ll work. And I’ve run the numbers. Anything I look at has to have three exit plans, at least.
And I’d love to know what you think is it’s just coming to me, like there’s somebody I’ve been thinking about partnering with and every time I bring something up, she says, “That won’t work.” And in a way, I think, our needs are different. She loves a really fancy, gorgeous, expensive, beautiful place. And I would love that too. But I’m okay taking the average Little Joe down here that can earn a lot of money and do well that will eventually lead to the really extravagant location. So, that’s what I think I. What do you think about that?

Paula:
Mindset, and more broadly, culture fit. Even a small team has its own culture inside of it. I’ve seen that within Afford Anything, the company, the entity. Culture, and that’s something I would have discounted, even as recently as two years ago, is perhaps one of the most important elements of any small team. And so, I think, you’re spot on that the mindset needs to be shared, the culture within the team, the way that you communicate with one another.
If that’s not on point, then resentment starts to build often unexpressed. And that can quickly grow toxic.

Jennifer:
Right. Right.

Mindy:
Unexpressed in the beginning, and then it builds and builds and builds and then it explodes and you’re like, “Whoa, I didn’t know you felt this way.” I completely agree with Paula. Now this woman that you want to invest in and she wants the big fancy and you want to start a little less fancy, maybe she would still be a great person to partner with on the big fancy that you eventually want to get to.

Paula:
Correct.

Mindy:
But for right now, she’s telling you, when she says this isn’t going to work, she’s saying this isn’t going to work for me. And I think that just because somebody has a lot of money doesn’t make them a good partner automatically. I’m in the process of extricating myself from a partnership that, in hindsight, wasn’t such a great deal. And, of course, who could predict all of the craziness that we’ve had happened, but I think I really wanted to get into a deal more than into this specific deal. So, even with all of my experience and all of my everything, I was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” And I probably shouldn’t have and that’s on me. But be slow to partner with people that you have no previous experience with.
I got some people that I will partner with, anytime they call up, you need money, great, I got money. It doesn’t matter if I am sitting on a Scrooge McDuck pile of gold coins. I don’t have any money for them, because it’s not a good fit for me. And like you said earlier, you have to be able to not want to puke.

Paula:
Right. Exactly.

Mindy:
I am investing to grow my funds. Not every investment grows. But I can’t get involved in a partnership that I don’t believe in wholeheartedly. So I 100% agree with you. If your mindset isn’t in the right place starting off, you’re going to grow apart. It’s not like she’s going to say, “Hey, I want this big fancy thing.” And you’re like, “Well, let’s buy this little one.” And she’s like, “Okay,” and she’ll be fine with it. She will most likely still want this big fancy thing. That’s a different kind of investment and a different kind of partnership. But yeah, I agree with Paula.

Jennifer:
I think knowing what your true strengths are is really important. And it’s taken me this long to figure out. I love the visual cues, Mindy. It’s an audio show, by the way.

Mindy:
No, we release video, too, you can watch all of my excitement and my agreeing with you.

Jennifer:
I think that knowing your strengths is so important. And I don’t think here I am at this stage in my life finally going, “Oh, this is my real strength.” And I say this proudly, I have a real strength in seeing opportunity where other people do not see it. And I have a real strength in seeing pitfalls before other people. That’s why I sold my Airbnbs, not because I knew COVID was coming. Although I was wearing masks in February, by the way. But that’s just my healthcare background.
But people thought I was nuts to let other people stay in my house. People thought I was nuts to buy my first house in Nashville. The realtor wouldn’t get out of the car when I pulled up the first house national and I’m like, “I love it, I’m buying it.” The second house, people thought I was crazy. And that vacationers wouldn’t want to come to that neighborhood. Well guess what, they did. And now, if you look at it, demographically, everything coming in all of the industry, all of the opportunity, and I would love to have an opportunity in downtown Nashville. I can’t afford that right now. I can afford something just outside.
And guess what, just outside isn’t going to exist in two years. That is going to be, think about California. People consider San Francisco to be commutable from Sonoma, if anybody understands what that is. It’s like a two hour drive. And they’re like, “Oh, that’s a commute.” So it’s having a little bit of vision. Now, I’m not visionary enough to have built all of the things that I should have done that I thought were a good idea that I didn’t do. But I have learned that I am pretty good at that and pretty good at seeing like this could be really something spectacular.
We made an investment with a company called Third Home, probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And I had told my husband that we only make investments that earn money. Then, I learned about Third Home, which is a luxury home exchange organization. If you look it up, you’ll be like what, and it’s crazy. And you have to have a luxury home to live in it, to be in it and exchange your home with other people. But you can travel all over the world to 12,000 properties in 95 countries.
So when I found out about it, I called the CEO and learned a little bit about the company and asked, “Are you taking investors?” And he said, “Yes.” And so, I invested. I came home and I said I’m investing. And my husband said, “Didn’t you just finish giving me a lecture about everything has to cash flow?” I said, “Yes, I did.” But I use self directed IRA funds so they weren’t really doing anything for me anyway. And it has given me access to luxury travel all over the world and for nothing, I mean, for literally nothing.
And so, that’s another thing too, it’s either going to cash flow or it’s going to give me an education or it’s going to give me an experience. But even the amount that I invested, if I lost it all, it’s not a number that would make me puke or die or lose my hair. And now my husband is their in-house counsel. So it’s all kind of worked out where this has become a huge part of our lives. And I just knew that it was a good opportunity. So I think knowing that and I think knowing … I’m so glad to hear you both say that about culture and partnerships, because I think I know what I know already. I already know it, I’m just fighting it inside my head, and I shouldn’t be.
This investor is a great person who’s had great success, but I kind of need somebody who’s in the bootstrapping mindset like I am in for right now because I’m going to buy something not pretty, and it’s going to get pretty.

Paula:
I like forced appreciation.

Jennifer:
Yeah, me too.

Paula:
And I also like that you took a chance on an investment, with an amount that you could afford to completely lose. It wasn’t going to push you out of your house, push you into bankruptcy, push you into destitution, it just was enough to test it out.

Jennifer:
Right. And that’s the micro, the micro, right, because you don’t have to be wealthy to build wealth, which is how I started was, I was building wealth and I was not wealth. Honestly, I think, I woke up in 2017 and I was like, “Wait a minute, let me do the math.” And I did the math and I’m like, “What I have this much in assets. I did what?” And it wasn’t until then or 2018, 2019. I don’t know when it was that I realized what I had put together because I was just busy working. But I was working in a way that like, well listen, if this falls through, I can always move into a house. Or if this falls through, I can rent that house or I can get roommates. I am not afraid of hard work and I’m not afraid of being uncomfortable.
I’d like not to be uncomfortable again, preferably. But I can do it.

Mindy:
I love it. Jennifer, this has been so much fun hearing your story and hearing how you didn’t let obstacles define you. And I love that, I’m not afraid of hard work. That is such a good mindset to have. I really, really appreciate you sharing your time with us today. However, we’re not done just yet.

Jennifer:
Okay.

Mindy:
We still have our famous four.

Jennifer:
Okay.

Mindy:
Are you ready?

Jennifer:
I’m ready.

Mindy:
Okay, Jennifer, what is your favorite finance book?

Jennifer:
The Simple Path to Wealth. Even though we didn’t even talk about the stocks, but yeah, The Simple Path to Wealth. I just love the approach that he took.

Mindy:
Yeah, he wrote it for his daughter.

Jennifer:
Yeah.

Mindy:
It was very easy to understand. There you go.

Jennifer:
For your visual. Holding up the book for those of you following along on the TV.

Mindy:
Yeah, he wrote it as a way to explain stocks to his daughter, because she didn’t want to hear it. And he’s like, “I still have to give you the information. So here it is when you’re ready to hear it.”

Jennifer:
Yeah. And you know what I love about that book was it perfectly suited me. I have zero desire to learn about the stock market, but I want to capitalize on it if I can. And I want to capitalize on it in a way that I can just make an investment and walk away and not think about it. And that’s exactly what I did. And my husband got on board with it too. But same thing, it’s like I tend to read these things and tell him about it and go, and you should too, and then he usually goes on.

Paula:
All right. What was your biggest money mistake?

Jennifer:
I think my biggest money mistake was abandoning myself. So, don’t ever abandon yourself. And I say that meaning, put your oxygen mask on first. So, if you’re in a situation where you’re going to move into someone’s house and it doesn’t have your name on it, or you’re going to take a risk with your own well-being just think about it like that. We cannot help anybody if we don’t help ourselves first. I abandoned myself for many, many years, I gave up and put myself second. So, you can’t do that. You got to love you the most, even though that’s hard to say and hard to admit.
I love you, but I love me more. Otherwise, how do we get through anything? I think that’s my biggest financial mistake actually.

Mindy:
That’s a great one. We’ve not heard that one before. I mean, that’s so true.

Paula:
Are you able to recognize it at the moment? Or do you think that like knowing what you know now or if you were to give advice to a 20 year old or something, would that person be able to recognize in the moment that they are abandoning themselves?

Jennifer:
I guess it depends on the person, if you told my 20 year old self, you’re abandoning yourself by marrying somebody who’s clearly not a good choice, I would not have listened because it was my first boyfriend and that’s what I really wanted.
But I do think that when I make that statement, it really kind of hits people pretty hard. Because I think most of us, on some level, especially if we’ve struggled in some way, recognize that I abandoned myself. Like I didn’t stand up for myself, I didn’t look into the money, I didn’t marry the right person, whatever it was that we did. And by saying, “Don’t abandon yourself,” it’s really complementing. It’s saying, ” I wouldn’t treat anybody or talk to anybody the way I can talk to myself in my head.” And in most of us that’s true, right?
So I just think it depends on the person in how enlightened they are. But it usually hits people pretty hard. So, I hope it does. I hope 20 year olds out there listening, get it.

Paula:
I hope so too.

Mindy:
This kind of tags on with that, what is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?

Jennifer:
My best piece of advice for people who are just starting out and if they’re just trying to like build wealth in a small way, that’s what I did. If you’ve got a job, I would say capitalize on your 401k, like it or not. And whatever certain people certain gurus will do, because you can use it in several ways. Number one, it will lower your taxable income. And that’s usually a good thing if you’re trying to accomplish certain things. And number two, especially if you can borrow against it. I would use the tools that you have at your hand, your salary, your tax benefited, things that you can get at work.
And then, I would start to really investigate things that you think you can make money at. So for me, I knew it was going to be real estate. I didn’t know how. So I thought about being an agent. I thought about being a flipper. I thought about all these things. And then I did one tour of the projects here and knocking on doors and asking people if I could buy their house with a good friend of mine. And I realized that’s not for me because I’m not handy. And that wasn’t it. That wasn’t going to be my way out. But there are a million ways to do it. So I would say just learn as much as you can, and research stuff and go to people who have already accomplished it.
There’s so much opportunity now. You don’t have to call up Mindy and say, “Hey, can I take you to coffee and pick your brain?” You can just watch all the YouTube videos and podcasts and everything else. You could have a mentor who doesn’t know that you exist. Oprah is my mentor, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know I exist. So, it’s easier now than it used to be. And then, build those alliances and go to them and ask for their referrals.

Paula:
What’s your favorite joke to tell at parties?

Jennifer:
Oh my gosh, okay, not my favorite joke to tell at parties but my favorite joke to tell [Joe Salcy 01:18:24] because he’s the king of the dad jokes. So, what do you call a chicken? Who balances her own checkbook?

Paula:
What?

Jennifer:
A mathema-chicken. I love dad jokes. I know. I love dad jokes. I get a million that are appropriate for five year olds. My five year old grandson like fell over laughing on that. I’m like, okay, even he gets it. So, I guess that’s pretty good. I’m surprised he knew what a checkbook was.

Paula:
Right?

Mindy:
Okay, Jennifer, we’ve mentioned Micro Empires a couple of times, tell us where people can find out more about you.

Jennifer:
Well, my website micro-empries.com and of course, the podcast. Anywhere you find your podcasts, I would love for your folks to subscribe and listen and send me a note. I love hearing from listeners and I get a lot of really heartfelt emails. And that has been incredibly, incredibly humbling and wonderful. And most of it, men and women, because like 40% of my listeners are men.
They tell me the most intimate things and I think it’s because I went ahead and shared this awful story that is my life. But most of us have something in our closet that you know we’re not really happy about. So, that’s where you can find me.

Mindy:
Awesome. Well, thank you for your time today. This was so much fun. I really appreciate it and we’ll talk to you soon.

Jennifer:
Thank you. Thank you, guys. This is awesome.

Paula:
Thank you, Jennifer.

Mindy:
Okay, Paula, that was Jennifer’s amazing story. What do you think?

Paula:
She is so inspiring. Not only has she been through hell, I mean, wow, she’s been through so much and for her not just to come out of that, but to become a self-made millionaire and then to have the bravery to share that story with us. I mean, there’s this expression, teach from the scar not from the wound. So, the fact that she is courageous enough to be able to share that story publicly and not have that be prohibitively triggering, or prohibitively re-traumatizing that indicates some degree of like this has turned into a scar that’s made her stronger.

Mindy:
Yeah. She’s healed. I wanted to share her story because she’s not alone. And I want people to hear not only the awfulness that she went through, but how she turned it around, how she was able to grow from it, how she was able to not let that define her. And she’s created a huge empire, but also little micro empires, a bunch of little micro empires that collectively are this huge empire. Money makes her feel secure and she is now secure. And I hate that phrase, money makes her feel secure. But that’s what she needs to know that she’s going to be able to pay her bills, she knows that she’s going to be able to afford her life, she can afford anything.

Paula:
And did you notice she mentioned that she always has at least three streams of income and at least three exit strategies.

Mindy:
Love that. We did not jump on that enough, the three exit strategies. When you buy something, you do one investment and you’re like, “I’m going to exit in this way.” What happens if you can’t? I don’t have any other plans. Well, you’re just limiting yourself. You’re really setting yourself up for a lot of risk. And like she said, that could make you want to throw up. And she, having all these different exit options, the first one might work. In all probability, the first one is going to be a great exit strategy. But having the other backups just can’t hurt and can just solidify your position. There’s so many fun lessons we’ve learned from her today.

Paula:
Yeah. Contingency planning is good planning. And I think she sort of alluded to that in her answer about how her biggest mistake was abandoning herself. I mean, in so many of the examples that she gave, when she was telling the story of her life, abandoning herself took the form of handing all of the power, the trust but also all of the power, over to somebody else. And then not having a contingency plan for what happens if this person whom I love and trust does not do right by me.

Mindy:
Yeah, and having that contingency plan doesn’t mean you’re planning for failure. It just means that you are protecting your interests should something happen.
Okay, Paula, what’s new with you? I feel like I haven’t talked to you in a hundred years.

Paula:
Well, thank you for asking. So, for those who don’t know me, I host a podcast called Afford Anything. It is built on the idea that you can afford anything but not everything, every choice that you make is a trade off against something else. And that applies to any limited resource that you need to manage whether that’s your money, your time, your energy, your attention. So, it’s very much a show about resource management. Although if you say it like that that sounds super boring.

Mindy:
And it is not super boring.

Paula:
And truly what I like to think of it as a show and our newsletter also at affordanything.com is very much an idea about thinking from first principles told through the lens of money and told through the lens of these resources that we have to make daily decisions about. So, for people who don’t know me, just head to the Afford Anything Podcast on your favorite podcast player, hit subscribe. And we have a community and course called Your First Rental Property with about 2000 people inside. And we open our doors twice a year. And we are gearing up for the next time that we’re going to open our doors, it’s going to be in a bit. We don’t have a solid date yet. But it’ll be in about two months-ish. So, if you go to affordanything.com/VIPlist, you can sign up to be the first to know when we are ready to open our doors. And we give you all kinds of really great information about real estate investing, money management, I mean, it’s very largely real estate investing. But we send you loads and loads and loads of free super helpful information just for indicating that you want to learn more. So affordanything.com/VIPlist.

Mindy:
Awesome, Paula. That sounds super fun. I’m super excited for the people that are going to be in that class because I know that you give just an enormous, I don’t want to say overload, because that makes it sound bad, an enormous volume of information about the right way to invest in real estate, a smart way to run your numbers and make sure that you’re making a smart investment because not every single property makes a good investment. So I’m super excited for this next class that you’re having.

Paula:
Thank you. Thank you. Coming from you, that means a lot so thank you so much.

Mindy:
Okay, Paula, should we get out of here?

Paula:
Absolutely. Let’s do it. This has been great.

Mindy:
This was wonderful. Thank you so much for filling in for Scott, who’s off being a bum. From episode 269 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. She is the Paula Pant from Afford Anything and I am Mindy Jensen and we’ll see you around the bend.