At this point in time, our plan was to keep the Brooklyn House and rent it out. Once the Myrtle House renovation was complete, we would move in and continue to rent out the Brooklyn House. This would be the beginning of our real estate investing (or so we thought). In order to fund the renovation for the Myrtle House, we knew we had to save as much as possible and we nervously asked my parents if we could stay with them temporarily. (They sweetly agreed.) We thought the renovation would take about a year and cost around $25,000 (hilarious).
Becoming Debt Free - Part 1
Our debt-free story is far from conventional (like most things in our lives :). We didn't simply save all of our pennies and pay off each debt one by one. Though not the typical path, it got us to our destination nonetheless, and we hope to inspire others to think outside the box when eliminating debt. Before I delve in to how we are 100% debt-free and own our humble little home outright, I need to talk about how we got into debt in the first place.
Our Free Kitchen Sink
One early morning, I was cruising Craigslist and found a posting for a free kitchen sink. If you have any experience with Craigslist, you know that a "free" posting is basically the start of a race to see who can get there first. I showed Brian, told him it was probably already gone (the pickup location was about 40 minutes from us), and then started to take Lola for a walk. Five minutes into the walk, I couldn't get the darned thing out of my head, so we ran back (literally) to the house, jumped in the car, and headed downtown to see if it was still there. Miraculously, no one had picked it up yet, so we hauled our VERY heavy new sink back home.
We Sold the Brooklyn Street House!
If we are Instagram friends (if not, can we be?!), you may have seen that we sold our little house in downtown Raleigh! Lots of big changes in the works for my little family (you can read more about that here!) and I am super excited to share, but before I go into all of that, I wanted to post a few photos of our first abode all staged and looking pretty. :) You can see more before and after photos of the Brooklyn Street House here.
Budget Travels | A Day In Wilmington, NC
We celebrated our five year wedding anniversary back in June. Brian and I are not big gift people; we would both much rather have an experience than a possession. This being said, instead of giving presents or going out for an extravagant dinner, we opted for a mini adventure! Crazy as it may seem, in the 29 years of my Raleigh residency, I have never been to Wilmington, NC. For those not familiar with North Carolina, Wilmington is the closest coastal area from where I live - a quick two hour drive down the highway. Brian had never been either, so we started planning our day trip around this destination.
DIY Cabinet Trim Update | Brooklyn House
My most visited blog post is our DIY Kitchen Cabinet project where we added inexpensive wood trim to our 1950s flat panel cabinets for a shaker-inspired look. After 2.5 years of having someone else live in the house (with a gigantic dog, I might add), I was very curious to see how our little project held up to the wear and tear of everyday use. Once we took back possession, I was quite surprised to see that it held up pretty well, all things considered!