Hello all and thank you for letting me join your forum. I have read many of the posts on here so far and am quite impressed with the knowledge base here.
My name is Kevin and I live in McKinney, TX (North DFW). I am 36 years old and have been on my financial journey for almost 4 years now. I grew up in Southern California (Anaheim to be exact) and moved to Texas 4 years ago. We bought a house in Cali at the right time and we were able to sell it 2 years later for a profit of almost $200K. With that we moved to Plano, Texas and bought an even bigger house. It was literally less than one month after closing on that house that I found out about Rich Dad, Poor Dad and kicked myself in the a$$ so hard it took me months to recover.
Nonetheless, my wife and I admitted we made a mistake and decided we were going to use our money to start a business but all of it was now tied up in equity in this huge house (it was a really nice house, though). So we went and found a location to start up a restaurant and bought a house with 0 down across the street from that site and then sold our big house. We actually made about $12K on the house even though we owned it less than 6 months but considering the money we spent on furnishings and making it home we probably lost 30K. We decided we were going to open a quick service style restaurant serving Teriyaki Bowls, Burgers and Wraps.
But now that it was sold we had over 130K to put into the restaurant. We both had credit scores pushing 800 with over 150K in credit card available if necessary. Our preliminary feasibility study showed that we would almost have enough to cover the startup cost so we signed a lease and waited for the building to be built. That was before Hurricane Katrina hit and prices of construction more than doubled by the time we got the place built. In the end we managed to get it open but started with both feet in the gutter with almost $200K in debt. The restaurant was a huge success as far as operations go, I was very proud of what we accomplished. But, unfortunately, it was not a financial success and we closed 9 months later, bankrupting the business and both my wife and myself. That was in July of 2007. In hindsight I realize many of the mistakes I made. The biggest one was location. The second was attempting to establish a new genre of eating in an area that is not keen on trying new things.
It was hard going through that but I almost feel like it was necessary. I have not given up my quest for financial freedom and now we're going to have to learn even more skill to make it happen. In February I got my old job back at GMAC Residential mortgages making a pretty fat salary. Since then I've taken up reading again and have joined the local DFW-REIN. We are just about ready to start the next phase of our quest and I hope to learn much from all of you on this site as we head down that road. I intend to get into real estate now but haven't quite determined the exact path I want to take.
Thanks,
--Kevin
My name is Kevin and I live in McKinney, TX (North DFW). I am 36 years old and have been on my financial journey for almost 4 years now. I grew up in Southern California (Anaheim to be exact) and moved to Texas 4 years ago. We bought a house in Cali at the right time and we were able to sell it 2 years later for a profit of almost $200K. With that we moved to Plano, Texas and bought an even bigger house. It was literally less than one month after closing on that house that I found out about Rich Dad, Poor Dad and kicked myself in the a$$ so hard it took me months to recover.
Nonetheless, my wife and I admitted we made a mistake and decided we were going to use our money to start a business but all of it was now tied up in equity in this huge house (it was a really nice house, though). So we went and found a location to start up a restaurant and bought a house with 0 down across the street from that site and then sold our big house. We actually made about $12K on the house even though we owned it less than 6 months but considering the money we spent on furnishings and making it home we probably lost 30K. We decided we were going to open a quick service style restaurant serving Teriyaki Bowls, Burgers and Wraps.
But now that it was sold we had over 130K to put into the restaurant. We both had credit scores pushing 800 with over 150K in credit card available if necessary. Our preliminary feasibility study showed that we would almost have enough to cover the startup cost so we signed a lease and waited for the building to be built. That was before Hurricane Katrina hit and prices of construction more than doubled by the time we got the place built. In the end we managed to get it open but started with both feet in the gutter with almost $200K in debt. The restaurant was a huge success as far as operations go, I was very proud of what we accomplished. But, unfortunately, it was not a financial success and we closed 9 months later, bankrupting the business and both my wife and myself. That was in July of 2007. In hindsight I realize many of the mistakes I made. The biggest one was location. The second was attempting to establish a new genre of eating in an area that is not keen on trying new things.
It was hard going through that but I almost feel like it was necessary. I have not given up my quest for financial freedom and now we're going to have to learn even more skill to make it happen. In February I got my old job back at GMAC Residential mortgages making a pretty fat salary. Since then I've taken up reading again and have joined the local DFW-REIN. We are just about ready to start the next phase of our quest and I hope to learn much from all of you on this site as we head down that road. I intend to get into real estate now but haven't quite determined the exact path I want to take.
Thanks,
--Kevin
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