EP95 Learning to Pivot When Life Throws a Wrench in Your Financial Journey

Have you ever had life completely derail your carefully constructed financial plans? That pivotal moment when reality forces you to completely reimagine what you thought your future would look like? What do you do next?

This episode is for my First Gen wealth builders who are navigating financial uncertainty and who've worked relentlessly to overcome barriers only to face new obstacles. I share my own recent dilemma of being forced to pivot with these uncertain economic times. 

I also share my insights on managing expectations, recognizing when resistance is actually guidance, and redefining success on your own terms. Most importantly, you'll discover that pivoting doesn't equal failure - sometimes it's the most resilient path forward.

Follow me on Instagram for additional resources from experts in our community helping us not just survive uncertainty, but position ourselves to thrive.

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Chapters

• 0:00 When Life Forces You to Pivot
• 6:19 Military Exit During Economic Uncertainty
• 10:42 The Barndominium Dream Hits Reality
• 17:39 Navigating Manufactured Home Obstacles
• 27:38 Redefining What Really Matters
• 34:59 Finding Support In Our Community

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:18

We all have those big goals and hopes and dreams and we all have like that vision of our dream life in the near future or future, and we work really hard for it to accomplish that. Pero a veces life be lifing y los tira. You know, a big old wrench in our plans and we have to learn to pivot and adjust, and so today I'm going to share my recent time that I had to pivot so we can normalize that. Especially right now, with everything that's going on, a lot of us are being forced to pivot and adjust our plans and it can be stressful and it could be, you know, depressing, and you know you lose your motivation, and so today we're going to talk about that.

Speaker 1: 2:12

But first, hola hola, I am violeta, a first gen real estate investor and host of the money chisme podcast, where I talk about personal finance, especially real estate, investing and entrepreneurship, but also share the stories and expertise from people in our own community, because that's very important, because we have a unique experience. So if that's something that interests you, make sure to subscribe or follow the show wherever you are listening to this episode. So, as mentioned earlier, I want to talk about pivoting when it comes to our financial goals and dreams because with everything going on, with the economic uncertainty, we don't know what's going to happen, how bad it's going to get, and this can be annoying and stressful, especially if you are a planner. Like I am a huge planner, I like to plan. I have, like the next few years planned out or so I did right, and then now this happens there's a wrench in the plans and now we have to take a step back and adjust things and maybe put some things off or just do away with some of the things you know like immediate goals that we had. Especially sometimes it can be really exhausting, especially as a first gen and a millennial at that, like we've had to overcome so many obstacles and really work our asses off to get where we are right now. And we still are right. We're still having to overcome lots of barriers and obstacles and just as we are starting to come up right, we are starting to make progress in closing the racial wealth gap and home ownership, in real estate, investing in degrees, getting our degrees and all that. That like we are making huge strides and then bam, like we have another obstacle that we have to overcome.

Speaker 1: 4:30

And so a lot of people in our community, in the latino community, and we are having to take a step back and look at our finances, like I know so many people that have been impacted, including myself, right, and we've had to make some drastic changes and adjust what we were doing and even take a step back because we want to reduce our financial risk. And so I want to talk about that and share what I had to do recently on the financial decisions that I have made and have had to adjust because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know how you know the economy is going to be, because we have someone that is just making drastic decisions without, you know, really educating themselves on how it's going to affect the working class, and that is something that I had to do myself. So a quick background I am leaving the military in a few months, which I couldn't have picked a better time right to go from a steady paycheck, really reliable paycheck, on the 1st and 15th and now going out on my own when we have all this going on. And so definitely has been stressful and I've really, at first, just you know, part of my financial plan was to give myself a buffer of you know, a few months as far as emergency savings, but also I had started saving a little bit more because I wasn't planning to you, you know, work for the rest of the year, because I get out like August and so I have a few months left in the year and I really wanted to just kind of like take a break from working and, you know, enjoy being with my daughter, and also I have a lot of stuff to do as far as setting up the land, to set up the garden and chickens and all that stuff. So there's a lot of stuff that I need to do, and so I was already saving up, you know, parts of my paycheck so that way I can have the buffer of not having to work for the next few months.

Speaker 1: 7:03

Y luego, as far as the land, in Texas I had this huge dream of building a big barnumenium and you know I had planned to go pretty much all out because this was going to be my dream home, my final home. Yeah, no more moving from every few years, from the military. I was finally going to like settle down and have my house y arreglarlo how I wanted to right. Well, now, with the economy doing its thing and with the decisions that are being made. Is that, like I don't want to put ourselves in a financial risk like that because we don't know how bad the prices are going to be, and I don't want to be like struggling because the goal is to basically live a soft life, like just be out there in my backyard going to chickens, growing my own food and all that stuff. And so now I had to really take a step back and figure out, okay, what the hell are we going to do now? And this is where everything kind of at that moment felt like everything was going downhill.

Speaker 1: 8:28

Because now I'm like I'm about to get out, I'm about to leave such a stable job and paycheck and my husband had already gotten out last, at the end of last year and we're like, what are we gonna do? Like we like we're not gonna have jobs. Well, my husband has a job right now, but, um, we are used to two big paychecks and you know, we already knew we're gonna take a pay cut and all that stuff, which was fine because, um, we're going to, you know, we're going from California to Texas, which is going to be a huge difference in cost of living. Pero, like now it's like ooh, I don't know Like we really need to get on here and come together and figure out this budget now. And so when I started looking for the barnum inium, like it was like obstacle after obstacle from day one, the first thing was figuring out how I was going to fund this barnum inium.

Speaker 1: 9:35

And one of the things is that I'm used to using the VA home loan, but when you are building a house it is different. Um, there's, you know, uh, you have to get like a construction loan and then you have to then, after the house is built, come back and do another loan to kind of lump the house and also the land and then that way you have one mortgage, so it all becomes just one big loan. And that was a struggle because I didn't want to have to do two closings because I'm about to leave. And the problem with that is that now lenders are going to give you such a hard time if I don't have a job, right, because, again, my plan is that I wasn't going to work for the last few months. So lenders are not going to be happy if I go get this construction loan and then a few months later, once that house is finished and everything like that, um, and then with my husband he was 10.99 at that time, like it was it was just like obstacles all over the place, like I was like, oh, I'm not gonna be able to do that because then we're gonna be stuck with the construction loan and you can't do that. You have to uh finance um to another loan to combine the land loan and the construction loan. And so that was obstacle number one. It's like, how are we going to like fund this? And I lucked out and did find a lender. So I did find a VA lender that was going to actually be able to do a one-time closed construction loan to where you started off with the construction loan and it would automatically like switch over. I'm not too sure with the logistics of it because of you know, we didn't end up going through the whole process with them just because of other obstacles that ended up coming up.

Speaker 1: 11:44

So then the next obstacle was when I actually started researching how much it's going to cost to build a barn a minimum, and you know they used to be more affordable back in the day. But now, wow, like what a freaking eye-opener talk about fucking facing reality was. Like you know, I was living in this la la land of like, oh yeah, I'll just build a barnuminium and it'll be cheaper, and blah, blah, blah. Cool, because that was the reason I picked barnuminium. And, yes, it's definitely cheaper than a stick built. You know a traditional way of building a house, and it's faster, right, because, um, and you have more leeway on the layout of the of the floor plan of your house because, uh, you don't have to have like a, a load-bearing wall to worry about, like, you could basically design the floor plan any way you want, basically. And so I was gonna go with a few companies. I I started like researching and calling around, getting quotes and seeing kind of plans that I wanted, uh, but, wow, we'll talk about eye opening on the actual cost.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Now, the thing with Barnuminiums is that they will sell it to you in different phases, right? The first one is that they can send you just the basic kit. They send you all the tools, right, like the walls, the sheet, whatever, and they just mail you that and they send you with the plans and the engineering, all that stuff, and then you are in charge of finding people to build it, or, if you're in a county or something that allows you to build it yourself, then you can do that right. And then after that it goes into more different types of phases, ranging from they just come and set up the shelf for you and do the concrete, the steel framing, which is just the outer shelf, and they'll put the roof and may or may not include the windows. And then there's the second one that includes where they do the framing, the wood framing inside, where it sets you up for the whatever floor plan that you ended up. And then the third phase was where they came and did that and it included the foam insulation. And so just to do a phase three was already at 185,000. That's the quote I had.

Speaker 1: 14:27

Now again, this is raw land. Now I did have electric and water at the street level, so that didn't include pulling the water line and setting up electric from the, from the road, all the way back to the house. It didn't include a driveway. I still would have to put a septic tank, and so this 185 is not going to include the hvac, the plumbing, electrical, having to do the drywall, putting cabinets, putting flooring down.

Speaker 1: 15:06

So you can see how easily it could get. You know more than that. It probably would be at least 100k, maybe 120 around there on top of the 185, to do all this extra things that I would have to do, because for just the 185k it's only phase three and they just basically build your shell and a little bit of the framing inside. So, wow, big eye opener for me now. Remember, I still owe the land and even though it has some equity uh, it was I could use some of that equity to basically be a down payment for this loan. But with just the building of the house it would have been close to 300k, right. And then on top of that, like I said, I owe still 114. That easily gets up there, right, almost a 500k house, which would have left me, um about, uh, I think at that time it would have been almost a four thousand dollar mortgage and I was like, oh, definitely not what I want, because that's what I was doing over here in california. I had a 4200 mortgage plus whatever I owed for using a home equity loan.

Speaker 1: 16:37

So, which is the reason I sold that house? To just get rid of that debt and I didn't want to go and move to somewhere where it's supposed to be cheaper and have to worry about having a four thousand dollar freaking mortgage, especially when I wasn't planning to work right. So I really had to sit back and think okay, what are we gonna do? What do I have to do now? I have to adjust, because I was freaking out because now it's like I'm gonna be homeless because I can't afford to build this barnum indium. And then, needless to say, when I went to go try to get a pre-approval for this, like they were not gonna give me, uh, that much, which I got, I'm not gonna lie I got a little bit spoiled with easily getting pre-approved. But now that I have, you know, more mortgages because I have rental properties right now, which is one of the reasons I'm going to move them to LLCs because, uh, I need to be able to get pre-approved for stuff now Um, I also had another barrier of because we're going, you know, to a communal state as well, they I would have to have my husband on there, which I was going to anyways.

Speaker 1: 18:03

But the problem is, um, as I said earlier, is that he was 1099 and with 1099s, the trying to get a loan with that is already a huge obstacle, because you are self-employed and banks don't like that. They want a huge history, usually at minimum two years and you have to try to prove your your salary for two years with tax returns and everything. Well, my husband had just became a 1099, he just left the military, so he didn't have that. But of course I would have to also take his debt, so I couldn't include his income but I could sure enough include his debt. So what? That was one of the reasons I couldn't get a high, high of a loan that we would need for the barnum and yam. So we had to then adjust and do our next pivot.

Speaker 1: 19:07

But I also want to mention that I did take some time to grieve the loss of this dream of, you know, having this nice big house and whatever. And I want to kind of normalize that and because it's okay to grieve it and even though it was kind of like, probably unrealistic of me, because I should have done my research before I, you know, got my hopes up or whatever. You know, sometimes it just happens. Sometimes you plan for things and you work so hard for something and just things just doesn't work out, or you realize that you know what, you're just not quite there yet and that's what I had to come to terms with and you know like it was stressful and I had to really take a step back and just kind of like, just grieve it right. And if that's something that you're going through right now, um, with everything that's going on and having to adjust, just you know, take that time to grieve.

Speaker 1: 20:12

So that put us back to the drawing board. We had to figure out like, okay, so what are we going to do? What kind of house can we put on this land? Because we don't want to do a stick build One, we can't afford it. Two, it's going to take way too long. We were at this point, like around November time frame, and you know we're supposed to move in June, end of June, so we don't have that time. We don't want to be homeless in June, end of June, so we don't have that time, we don't want to be homeless. And then, two, barmenium is out the window, because also kind of time, but also way more than what we expected.

Speaker 1: 20:55

And so my husband was like, what about manufactured homes? Because he has lived in manufactured homes when younger, and then his parents currently live in a manufactured home right now, which, by the way, they got for a dollar, which that will be a. I could tell y'all that story in another episode if y'all want. But uh, he mentioned that and I was like, uh, I was a little hesitant because I'm not too familiar with manufactured homes, I don't know what to look for. It's kind of like out of my realm of you know things that I know. I've always just lived in regular houses. But he kind of like talked to me about it and what they you know. They're basically similar homes and it's just a little bit different, which I can get into that in another episode and so I said okay and we started looking and we found one, a builder that was local and he had some options, and so we started looking at the options. I found a few that I liked and there were about.

Speaker 1: 21:53

I still was with the mentality of getting this big house of 20. I think the one we were going to go for was like 2400 square feet, a little bit more. I think it may have been 2600 and I don't remember at this point. But I was still trying to have like this big house and everything and it was going to be more doable because, uh, manufactured homes are way cheaper than uh having to build a barnumum, enum or a stick build and they're actually built faster, because manufactured homes are built in a factory right and so they're able to push them out faster, and then you put them on the land and do slab or whatever you want to put as the foundation, and so that was the next thing that we were going to consider.

Speaker 1: 22:43

But we still had the obstacle of my husband being a 1099, which he works at a startup, and they were going, um, to make everybody w2 employees this year, which now he is, but at that time he was still a 1099. So we still had that obstacle. But because the manufactured home is way less than we, it was going to be underneath, uh, what we were actually pre-approved for. So it was going to work out, except that now we have the the problem of it being a manufactured home and with the va loan they can get pretty tricky on what they are going to approve for, especially with builds. Um, they're very nitpicky on who gets to work on the property and they want everything that needs to be licensed that requires someone that's licensed, like, for example, electrician things like that. You have to have them do it right, and so there's a little bit tricky with the appraisal as well with manufactured homes.

Speaker 1: 23:58

And so when we went to the builder we had like this whole back and forth of with VA loan and they're like, look, it's going to be difficult and which was proving correct. And so then they wanted us to go and basically go back to the where you get a construction loan and then go refinance it into a regular loan and they call it like chattel loans, which it can be good or bad depending how you do it, and stuff like that. We didn't want to do that and we're like no, because we explained it's like, hey, she's going to be out of the military soon and so we're not going to have the ability to go back and then refinance it out of a chattel loan or whatever into a regular loan, so that's not going to be an option. So we did find a lender that was going to give us the same option where it's a one-time close loan. But then we still had the 1099 problem and that was such a headache, like we've been dealing with that for months. And then they didn't want us want to give us, um, the same amount because they got wind that I was going to get out. So then that scared them off of like, oh well, she's not going to have a job, you know, like she's getting out in a few months and he's not going to have high enough. Well, first, first of all, they didn't want to even accept him because he was 10.99 at that time, and so then that like scared them, and so then they didn't want to give us a high enough loan. They wanted us to do a secondary home, like it was.

Speaker 1: 25:44

It was just like, oh my god, like, just like craziness, and I want to say and kind of like point out, I'm one of those people that believe in kind of signs from the universe, right, that when you start feeling resistance towards something and you're really trying to make something work, but more obstacles seem to get in the way, I see it as like you know what, then this is probably the direction that I need to go. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that this is a bad decision, or I need to adjust my, my plans, or whatever I this isn't the path I'm supposed to go. And I took that the same way with the military. I started having resistance with, you know, uh, being able to maintain my weight and dealing with, you know, infertility, and I just felt like so many things were coming up that was making it hard for me to be in the military, and I took that as a sign that you know what it was time for me to go. It was time for me to like sign that you know what it was time for me to go.

Speaker 1: 26:55

It was time for me to like, you know, um, make my exit strategy that I wasn't supposed to go you know the full 20, which ended up being the right decision, because there's a lot of things that are going on right now that I am glad that I am leaving. Uh, although I still have to go to the reserves, but I don't have to deal with everything. I mean y'all seen it in the news with firing federal workers and all these programs that are getting cut and everything like that Like there's stuff that's happening that is just like it's a struggle that I'm glad I'm not staying in because I don't want. We can't even get some stuff done. It's, it's ridiculous. So, um, definitely glad that I made the exit. Now, which side note all of these are just my own views and opinions and, you know, don't reflect the military's views and opinions or whatever it's not an official thing of the military opinions or whatever it's not an official thing of the military, it's just what I've been thinking and you know my thoughts and views of what is going on. But with the decision of leaving the military, you know that was a good decision.

Speaker 1: 28:05

But as far as the financial portion, that's the thing that then I had to look into and also realized that there's a lot of resistance that was happening in terms of the finances and financing of the manufactured home, because again, we still had the obstacle of being only being able to get pre-approved for a certain amount. So that big 24, 2600 square foot, you know, manufactured home that I was thinking of getting, like this double y that looked all nice and everything like that, uh, that was out the window. So that was another time that I had to kind of go through and kind of grieve and be like, like, because it felt like everything was just going wrong at that time. You know, on top of everything that's going on with the economy now, personally, like I'm being affected with all the decisions, it felt like I couldn't you know I couldn't catch a win. So then we had to look for a smaller manufactured home and this is where I want to get into a little bit of um, adjusting and managing your expectations and kind of going through.

Speaker 1: 29:22

Even though you're going through like this grieving process of this big dream, there's also like a time where you need to step back and reanalyze what your actual goals and dreams are. Because in this case, with the barnum, enium and stuff like that, this big dream of having this luxurious, luxurious house, was that really what I was dreaming of? Was that really my goal in life? And when I started reflecting on that I realized that that wasn't the dream. And the more I reflected on it, the more I started realizing things.

Speaker 1: 30:10

So over here in california I mentioned, I had a house over here and it was a four bedroom, two-story, 2400 square foot home that was on half an acre. And then I started looking back and remembering over the years of staying in this house. And this house also had a second living room. And let me tell you that second uh living room all it served was to have stuff in it, junk in it. It ended up just being kind of like a storage for things, uh, for random stuff. Originally we had kind of made it into maybe a second office and we would try to make it into a second game room, but realistically it never got used. We used the main living room as the game room and my stepson used his room to game with his friends. So nobody realistically used that second living room besides the random junk and plants and like it, just like, ended up having random stuff in it.

Speaker 1: 31:14

And so, like I started thinking I was like, okay, so I was trying to get this other house that had a second living room because I had I thought like, oh, I could make it into like a gym or whatever, which I did have a gym in the garage and let me tell you how many times that got used. Right, it just the equipment just stored in there. And because my husband, we like it just became a garage. And so then the more I started thinking about it, I was like man, like I'm over here wanting this big house and all that is going to happen realistically, is that those? Because, because from history, my history is that we didn't use these spaces, we just ended up having more storage space.

Speaker 1: 32:01

Basically, and same thing with the four bedroom house. You know, ideally, realistically, we were thinking that you know, we would have my step steps, on which he did live with us at that time. But then the other room was just an office that I didn't really use as much. I only used it to like, do you know, record YouTube videos or, you know, a random podcast here and there, because I wasn't too, you know, consistent with my podcasting, and when I did that I used downstairs. I would just take my laptop and work on the couch because I wanted to be part of the family, right, and so that room kind of got used but again ended up being just more storage for random stuff, and the other bedroom we ended up just renting it out right to a friend of us of ours that needed a place to stay, and so, again, we had this big house and we didn't actually use it.

Speaker 1: 33:03

So that's when I started reflecting on like okay, you know I'm over here depressed that I can't have this big house. Then, looking back, when I did have the big house, I didn't need it. It was just a lot of wasted space. And so then I started thinking about like, yeah, so I don't want to have to pay, because even though we went from a barnaminium that would have been like 4k, uh, for a mortgage it went down to like 3200, and then, like for a mortgage, it went down to like $3,200 for a mortgage. And then I was like, okay, we could go lower than that. We only need three bedrooms. I only have one my daughter. If my stepson comes and lives with us again, there's an extra room. If not, I'm going to use it as an office now, because I do need a space now to where I could record podcasts and do interviews and all that stuff, and we don't need the second living room we have. You know, just one living room is perfectly fine.

Speaker 1: 34:06

And so now we settled to a three bedroom, two baths, 1700 foot house and it's perfect size. Like all I had to do was really just look at this. Uh, what I really actually needed and wanted, it's still going to have, you know, a, an open floor plan and stuff like that. And the rooms I really don't care. I mean they're good sizes and stuff, but I don't really, you know, I don't chill in my room like I just sleep in my room. So, although my husband's gonna need his own desk in the room because he does remote work.

Speaker 1: 34:44

But once I started having this mindset shift, I started realizing, you know, that I really am not giving up on my dream, because the dream, the actual, real dream was to be able to live, you know, close to my parents and have a family compound, which that's still going. That's still the dream, that's still in the works. Right, they have the lot next to me now. They just got to start building. They're just waiting for me to be there. So they because they don't want to, like you know, not have someone looking at what's going on, and so that is still there. My sister's moving there too.

Speaker 1: 35:28

I'm still on the land, I'm still going to be able to raise my chickens, I'm still going to be able to have animals and grow my own food homestead. And the best part is that I'm not going to put myself at a huge financial risk, because now I went from like possibly what? 4k, possibly more, because with the interest rates um of a, a mortgage and now I've brought down to 2600 is what, um, the current thing is. But then, once I start homesteading and all that stuff, I could start using the agricultural um tax uh benefit. You know where it reduces your property taxes and you know I do plan to eventually move into maybe a a she shed where I could do my podcast and stuff like that. So there's still like opportunity. That the the dream life is still there, and now I could even reach financial freedom faster, because my costs are way lower than what I originally had planned for and, matter of fact, with these three rental properties are already enough to cover the mortgage that I'm going to have. So I'm already halfway there. I just need a few more rental properties to cover all of my bills right, cover all of my bills right. And then, also, I still am going to have money to travel, to be able to buy a property, a second home in Mexico, so I could go live. A hybrid situation. And so, even though I had to pivot, it didn't necessarily mean that I was failing at fulfilling the life that I had dreamed about, because, again, as I was mentioning, I'm still able to do all the main things that were actually important to me not necessarily having this nice fancy house and so I want.

Speaker 1: 37:32

Basically, the takeaway from this episode is that, with everything going on, a lot of us, our finances, we're having to figure out what to do with our finances, because I know I've seen a lot of people in our community that have businesses that are having to adjust, and some of them have had to take a step back and go back to a nine to five. They still have their business, but because of the uncertainty and the impact to their business, they don't want to put their families at risk. So they go back and get a nine to five to ride out this. Ride out this um, this you know new obstacle and uncertainty that we're going to and pivoting doesn't mean that you are failing, it's just, you know, choosing to be resilient and being flexible and that's what's going to help you survive and get through this chaos. And so if you are going through something similar where you're having to kind of like, take a step back and adjust your you know your plan, what you're doing, especially when it comes to finances maybe you're having to do the same where you have to get, maybe go back to a nine to five or a more steady income, or maybe take a second job and get, you know, more income to kind of like boost that emergency fund or whatever.

Speaker 1: 39:03

Like. It's hard. It's definitely hard right now for our community, but we are out here to support each other, our community, but we are out here to support each other. I have found a lot of support from our Latina community, our Latino community, and we are out here and we just got to keep supporting each other, keep motivating each other and also realize that your dream is not lost, it's just kind of put on pause. Or maybe you're taking the scenic route, you're taking the longer route to your final destination, your dream life, and maybe you're just like me, where you had to kind of manage your expectations, I guess, and adjust what really mattered, because sometimes we do get lost in this also, you know, trying to live it big when in reality, we really want something more realistic, and you know that's what matters. So, just keep your dream alive, keep working towards it.

Speaker 1: 40:11

And finally, I do want to remind y'all that we do have lots of, you know, experts in our community, from our community, that are out here helping, you know, our Latino community, not only like plan on how to survive, but also how we can thrive with the next few years, even with all the chaos that is going on on how to protect our finances.

Speaker 1: 40:36

And a lot of these are, you know, have been a guest in this podcast, so make sure you check those previous episodes out, because they have come on here to share their expertise. But also, if you're not following my Instagram, definitely follow because I do share those resources on my ig stories from. You, know those in my network and also follow the blog. I post them on there. So all you have to do is look right. Just a quick look and you'll find us out here trying to help y'all out. So just wanted to do a quick reminder because sometimes we forget when we are stressed out and we get so lost in trying to survive. So just a quick reminder, but other than that, that's it for this episode. I will see you in the next one. Bye.