Home Economics No. 48: A married mother of 2 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who owns a tiny cabin resort

There’s been a lot of chatter on social media this week about the fun New York piece “What Do You Do and What Do You Make?” which shares the job details and salaries of 60 New Yorkers. Alicia pointed out that many of the wealthiest New Yorkers featured have some sort of side hustle. “I think when you’re rich, side hustles are referred to as ‘diversified revenue streams,’” I joked. “And debt is rebranded as leverage.”

Debt versus leverage was top of mind for me as I was editing today’s edition of Home Economics. The writer makes a living flipping houses and short-term rentals around Grand Rapids, Michigan. Right now, she’s in the midst of her biggest project yet, and in order to fund it, she took a cash-out refinance on her primary residence, along with a land loan. As a result, she and her husband have aggressive debt repayments of $4,535 a month—hands down their biggest monthly expense.

The writer acknowledges that such a risk wouldn’t be possible if her husband didn’t earn such a healthy income as a real estate agent. She also comes from a family of entrepreneurs, where this kind of risk is normal. And as the old adage goes, you have to spend money to make money: She anticipates she’ll make a $225,000 profit when she sells the property later this year. (Of course with any kind of real estate investments there are no guarantees.) The plan is to use that windfall to jump-start their retirement savings in hopes of achieving “Coast FIRE,” which is a faction of the “financial independence retire early” (FIRE) movement where acolytes are on a slow(er) path to early retirement but have enough invested that they don’t feel pressure to have high-paying or demanding jobs. 

It’s been interesting to see how the concept of FIRE has evolved over the decade-plus that I’ve been writing about personal finance. When it first came to my attention, it felt like a very tech bro concept that didn’t factor in the cost of children (or illness). But while editing Home Economics for more than two years, I noticed more women with families sharing their stories of trying to achieve financial independence at a younger age while still raising kids. I like seeing how they are redefining this male-dominated movement and making it their own.

We’re always looking for new editions of Home Economics, and TBH, the submissions have been a bit light lately (and very NYC-centric). We’re coming up on the 50th edition next month! We’d love to hear if you lovely readers have any requests for types of stories we haven’t yet told. We’re still working toward our goal of getting one entry from every state. We need entries from: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. (Are you from one of these states and you filled out the form in 2024 or 2025 and you’re still interested in sharing your story? Let me know! We tend to prioritize newer entries, but we’re always happy to make an exception!)

Want to share your story? Fill out the form here.

And now on to today’s entry! 

Age: 40
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan
Relationship status: Married
Age of partner: 39

About me: I’m a native of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I love living in Michigan. I am an outdoor enthusiast and entrepreneur after being a stay-at-home mom for five years. My husband works in real estate. We have two kids. 

Income:

1. Your job title/salary: I’m self-employed, working as a licensed builder and owner-operator of a tiny cabin resort. I make roughly $150,000 a year and net $75,000 after business expenses and debt repayment.
2. Partner’s job title/salary: Self-employed realtor; $245,000 gross ($200,000 net)
3. Your monthly take-home pay (paycheck amount after taxes and other deductions): About $10,700 a month seasonally for seven months. I file Schedule E because of my short-term rentals and therefore pay regular income taxes and avoid self-employment taxes.
4. Partner’s monthly take-home pay (paycheck amount after taxes and other deductions): It varies a lot because he’s self-employed, too. Typically, it’s around $13,000 a month. He pays a lot in self-employment taxes due to not having his broker’s license yet and not being able to file as an S Corp. We probably pay an extra $10,000 a year in self-employment taxes. Yuck.
5. Side hustles: We are members of a title company (the middleman in a home sale), and last year was our best dividend year (quarterly payouts), as we earned $17,000 total! We initially invested about $7,500, and we’ve seen at least a 2X return on this initial investment every year. We got in early and have reaped the benefits.
6. Total monthly income: Approximately $25,000 (before taxes), but this varies greatly due to self-employment.

Account balances:

7. Checking account balance: $15,000
8. Savings account balance: $10,000 
9. High-yield savings account balance: $2,000. We don’t have a lot to contribute right now, and we’ve been in debt-payoff mode for so long that I haven’t kept much liquid (a regret I have now, but I’m pivoting).
10. Monthly contribution to savings account: Since we both get paid in larger chunks, we put funds aside as we’re able. I typically set aside 30% from each paycheck for taxes.
11. Retirement account(s) balance: 
    • Roth IRA (Husband): $7,500 
    • Roth IRA (Me): $37,000
    • SEP IRA: $171,000. We plan to do Roth conversions from our SEP once our tax bracket lowers around retirement age.
12. Monthly contribution to retirement accounts: $1,250 monthly to the SEP IRA
13. Investment account balance: $500 in a taxable brokerage account. We will hopefully put the proceeds from my business sale (~$225,000) in this to grow for an early retirement option
14. Monthly contribution to investment accounts: $500. We just opened our brokerage account.
15. 529 account balance: 
    • Son (12): $15,000
    • Daughter (8): $22,000
16. Monthly contribution to 529 account: 
    • Son: $230 (to catch up to our daughter)
    • Daughter: We are no longer contributing to her 529 (growth only until age 18).
17. Custodial brokerage accounts for our kids:
    • Son: $85,000 
    • Daughter: $16,500
18. Monthly contribution to custodial brokerage accounts for our kids:
    • Son: We are no longer contributing to his brokerage account (growth only until age 18).
    • Daughter: $605
      
      Our goal is to be able to give each of our children around $150,000 when they turn 18, which will be held in both the 529 and custodial brokerage accounts. They can use this toward education, business startup costs, asset acquisition, etc. This should be more than enough to get them through a state college/university. We realize this will be a huge benefit for them to start life hopefully debt-free! 
19. Emergency fund balance: We consider our savings account to be our emergency fund, but we hope to grow this to $75,000 after the sale of the business.

Total in checking, savings, and investment accounts: $381,000

Housing:

20. Size of your home: We live in a 2,300-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath, single-family home just outside of the city. It was built in 1960, and we’ve done a number of updates. We consider this our “while the kids are living with us” home. I imagine we’ll downsize after kids leave home for college.
21. Mortgage: We had paid off our house, but then I borrowed $550,000 against this for my business build-out using a cash-out refi. We pay about $3,445 a month in loan repayments that technically are a mortgage, but we keep it categorized as a business expense in our brains, ha! 
22. Current home value: $735,000
23. Current mortgage balance: $547,000
24. Year you bought your home: 2022
25. Price you paid for your home: $585,000. We made a lot of updates to the property, and I’d guess we invested another $125,000 for all those renovations. I was either the general contractor, or I did the work myself.
26. Mortgage interest rate: 6.37% (yuck)
27. How much was your down payment? We put 68% down ($400,000).
28. How long did it take you to save for the down payment? We used the equity from the sale of our previous home to be able to put about $400,000 down on this house. We started buying homes in 2011 (then in 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022) and moved every two to three years. We started with a $20,000 down payment on our first home and rolled the appreciated profits forward with each of the following six homes so that we were able to put down a big down payment on our current home.
29. Did you have any family help buying your home? We received a $20,000 gift from my parents that we used toward the down payment of our first house. My older sister had severe disabilities, and she died when I was just two years old. My parents had a life insurance policy in her name, and they used the death benefit to help my other sister and I go to college, and the extra money we used for the down payment.
30. Home taxes: $7,700 annually (no escrow, pay out of savings)
31. Home insurance: $2,000 annually combined with auto for discount
32. Electricity: $350. It’s an old home that’s not efficient. We also got a hot tub last year, so that’s about $75 a month in the cold months.
33. Water: $85
34. Natural gas: $155
35. Cell phone: $80
36. Internet: $70
37. Housekeeper: $0
38. Gardener: We inherited a very elaborate garden and landscaping when we purchased our house. We have about one acre, and I’m in way over my head. I do pay for seasonal weeding ($200 a month for five months), plus we pay someone to cut back all of our plants and do leaves in the fall (about $1,600). This is one expense that is a bit painful for me. We mow our own lawn and have underground sprinkling hooked up to our pond, so no added expenses there.
39. Pest abatement: $70. We have a lot of mice activity due to our lovely ground covering!

Transportation:

40. Monthly car payment: $0. Both cars are paid for.
41. Car insurance payment: $3,300 annually (bundled with home insurance)
42. Gas: ~$350–$400. We both drive a lot for work. My husband has client meetings, and my business is about two and half hours away in Northern Michigan. We also drive both kids to school every day to avoid excessively long bus rides.
43. Car maintenance: $200 on average, between oil changes and tire rotations every couple of months, plus repairs and maintenance
44. Parking: $0
45. Monthly public transportation: $0
46. Ride shares (Uber, taxi, etc.): $0

Children:

47. Number of children and their ages: We have two kids, a son (12) and a daughter (8).
48. Day care: $0. We did not have help with child care from any family members, which is one reason why I stayed home until kids were starting school.
49. Nanny: N/A
50. After school: N/A
51. School tuition: $0. We are big public school peeps!
52. Babysitter: ~$120 ($15 an hour for a couple of date nights a month)
53. Extracurricular activities: $400 covers the kids’ hobbies, therapies, camps, piano lessons, membership to a local climbing gym, and other activities.
54. Other: We pay for an annual pool pass in our neighborhood. This just increased and is now around $500 a year. (The pool is open Memorial Day to Labor Day.)

Debts:

55. Student loan total balance: $0. My parents had set aside $20,000 for my education, and believe it or not, that covered my undergraduate tuition at a local state university! My husband’s parents paid about $15,000, and he took out a loan for the other $15,000. We were able to pay off his loan in the first year of our marriage. I was a graduate assistant during my grad program, so that was paid for, and I got an $800 monthly living stipend. I feel very lucky that we only had to pay off the $15,000 in student loans.
56. Student loan monthly payment: N/A
57. Personal loan total balance: I borrowed $40,000 from a family member for an additional capital project related to my business. It was a 12-month interest-only loan (with an interest rate of 10%), and I’m due to pay them back this year. I also took out a land loan for my business. The loan balance is $103,000.
58. Personal loan monthly payment: $334 for the family loan and $1,090 for the land loan.
59. What did you use the personal loan for? Both were for my tiny cabin resort build-out. We had some driveway issues that I wasn’t anticipating, and my family member came to our rescue with the interest-only loan.
60. Credit card balance (if you carry a balance month to month): We pay off our credit cards every month. I love points!
61. How much do you spend on your credit card(s) each month: ~$5,000

Food:

62. Groceries: $900. I love to shop at Trader Joe’s, and I also shop at Meijer (regional chain). I don’t love to cook. We keep the basics around and rotate through a bunch of standard meals roughly every two weeks. We’re not great at eating together as a family because we’re all so busy, but we try at least a couple of times a week. 
63. Dining out: $250. This covers one to two date nights or lunch dates per month, plus one family night out.

Socializing and Entertainment:

64. Subscriptions (streaming services, magazines, etc.): $75, which includes Amazon Prime, Netflix, a rotation of premium streaming subscriptions (currently we have Peacock), and a few Substacks (and The Purse!)
65. Memberships (museums, etc.): $10. We generally will have one membership a year to the zoo, our local garden, a museum, etc.
66. Movies, concerts, other events: $250 quarterly. We like to spend on experiences: comedy shows, local music, big acts coming to town. Our biggest splurge ever was four Coldplay tickets for a show in Madison, Wisconsin, because my son is OBSESSED, and we knew it would be a bucket list item for us all. They were about $500 EACH—yikes! We considered it one of our vacations that year.
67. Entertaining and socializing other: $100 for extra food/items for social gatherings. Most of our friends/family entertain potluck style.
68. Hobbies: My husband’s hobbies are much more expensive than mine! I budget $650 a month for him, which covers his spending on photography, music, and fishing, as well as $98 a month for a small space he just built out as a recording booth. (He was a musician and audio engineer in his past life.) I budget $200 a month for myself, which covers things like my paddling trips, movies, books, and hiking supplies.
69. Travel: We have started taking about two family trips a year, and we might sneak in one trip away just the two of us. I’d like to start setting aside a bucket of $750 a month or $9,000 a year in our HYSA to not feel bad about spending money on travel. We value it, and I can cut back in other places in order to have this time with our family. I typically don’t like to travel with friends, with the exception of camping in the summer. We do some very cheap vacations, and some run around $4,000–$5,000. My parents also have a cottage that they live in half time, so we visit there for free a half dozen times a year.

Miscellaneous:

70. Clothing: $75. I typically buy secondhand for my kids or use my Old Navy/Gap points for kids and myself seasonally. My husband might splurge and spend $250 a couple of times a year to replenish basics. We aren’t high-end clothing people, but we do have name-brand winter attire due to where we live.
71. Home supplies: $0. These are part of our grocery budget.
72. Exercise: $15. I like to hike daily and paddle when I can. I do some free weights at home. My husband has never enjoyed going to the gym. I just got a Planet Fitness membership because the cost is so low, and I figured, “Why not?”
73. Personal and self-care (haircuts, manicures, massages, etc.): $600 year total for the following: 
    • Lotions/makeup: $150 a year
    • Hair: I usually go to the cosmetologist-in-training at our local salon for a big discount haha! I pay about $50 every other month for root touch-ups and trim. My kids have their hair trimmed a couple of times a year for about $25 each, and we cut my husband’s hair at home.
74. Pet supplies: $100 for food and litter, plus we pay the neighbor kids to come feed/let out our dog and two cats
75. Pet insurance: $0
76. Donations: $700 to various political and local causes
77. Tithing: $0. We do not attend church anymore, though both of us grew up going. We give directly now to charities.
78. Events (birthday parties, etc.): $250 for each kid per year. We usually grab a couple of friends and do a bounce house/amusement park type day. My husband and I don’t typically exchange gifts, but we opt for thoughtful notes and cards.
79. Other: We pay $758 to my husband’s brokerage, which is a requirement of his job as a real estate agent, because he doesn’t have his broker’s license.

Insurance:

80. Life insurance: $145 for a term policy. We initially took out policies for $300,000 each in 2017, and we bumped them up to $1 million each in 2019.
81. Health insurance: $650 for private health insurance ($7,500 deductible), plus $1,600 annually for four dental memberships at our dentist (covers two cleanings, X-rays, and discounts on treatments). Since we’re both self-employed and our income varies, we get our insurance through a private insurance broker, not through the exchange. We have to be healthy to qualify, as it doesn’t cover any preexisting conditions.
82. FSA contribution: N/A
83. FSA balance: N/A
84. HSA contribution: $600. I just started this as part of our investment strategy (triple tax benefit!).
85. HSA balance: $1,000. We just opened this account in January.
    

Total monthly spending (includes annual expenses divided by 12): $16,827

Tell us more:

86. What are your top financial priorities? 
    Goal number 1: Get a steady emergency fund of $75,000. We have seasonal dips in income, which can be stressful without significant savings. I make most of my money in the summer months, and while I try to set savings aside for the winter months, it can get a little stressful when our savings account dips below $15,000.
    
    Goal number 2: Sell my tiny-cabin business and put a lump sum of $225,000 into our brokerage account so we can retire early at 55. This is a seasonal business (summer months), and my plan is to sell it mid-season this year.
    
87. How do you feel about your current financial situation?
    I know we are incredibly lucky to be where we are! One tactic we used up until our current house was that we were willing to move every two years (avoiding capital gains) and ride the real estate wave in Grand Rapids. Home values have probably tripled since we got into the housing market. With each home we bought (six total!), we were strategic in order to be able to move in a couple of years and pocket a chunk of equity. Most people aren’t willing to be in transition that much, but honestly, I liked it because it keeps our “stuff” light. I hate “stuff,” and I’m constantly purging and reorganizing now that I know we’ll be in our current house for the next 10 years until kids are out of school.
    
88. How is your financial situation or approach different from 5/10/15 years ago?
    My husband and I had to really scrimp and save during the early years of our marriage. And then his career took off, while I was earning less working in the nonprofit sector.
    
    We didn’t have any child care support from family, so by default, I became a stay-at-home mom for our two kids. I was home with our kiddos for five years, and while I loved being with them, it just felt like the antithesis of who I am. I like to work and create. So I decided to start flipping houses and short-term rentals around Michigan. Thanks to my husband’s income, we’ve had the privilege of qualifying for financing that others might not be able to. I also often work unpaid for three to six months before the payoff begins.
    
    Doing this work has been really important to me. I wanted to prove to myself that I was capable and self-sufficient, and that I could be the breadwinner in our family if I wanted to be. Unfortunately, I did fall victim to the idea that earning money equals a large part of my “value.” However, I am slowly untangling my value as a person with my ability to produce/earn money. This is a tough one!
    
    Our entire marriage, my husband and I have always been in debt payoff mode, first tackling his student loans and then our mortgages. Thanks to our success building equity with our successive home buying/selling, we were able to pay off the mortgage on our current home (before I took out a loan against it for my business). Now, I want our focus to be more on accumulating, and I’m hoping the windfall from this sale will be a catalyst.
    
89. What are your money stressors?
    Like I said, we’ve been in full-on debt repayment mode, not keeping much liquid while the going was good and we were earning good salaries. In hindsight, I would feel more relaxed if we had more of an emergency fund buffer. I had about $40,000 reserved going into the slow season, but my business isn’t bringing in money off season, and my husband’s paychecks are sporadic for these few months, too. We have money now, but I know how quickly it can run dry!
    
90. Do you expect to receive (or have you received) an inheritance from a family member?
    My parents have a cottage, and they’ve indicated that the proceeds from its sale will be split between my sister and me one day. This will be approximately $600,000 (today’s value). They are healthy, and we’re not counting on this inheritance as part of our retirement planning. 
    
91. Do you receive any financial support from your family?
    We receive no ongoing support, with the exception of a business loan paid back with interest here and there. We had no assistance with child care when our children were younger. We might get a few weekends a year with kids being shipped off to Gma and Gpa’s. Financially, we received $15,000 from my husband’s parents toward his schooling and $20,000 from my parents’ toward mine. I worked a couple of jobs all throughout college to pay for my living expenses and books. We also received $10,000 toward our wedding and $20,000 for our first down payment. We are in no denial of our privilege! This is largely why I want to build a nonprofit one day. I want all women to know how to be savvy and take what they have and do something valuable with it!
    
92. Do you financially support any family members beyond yourself and your nuclear family?
    When we sold our last house, we gifted my husband’s parents $100,000 from our home sale knowing that they don’t have much in the way of retirement accounts. This was to help them pay off their home quicker and lower their living expenses. We know we have more time to earn more money, and they don’t! We know this will come back if there’s any leftover once they are gone, but we are not planning on this repayment.
    
    Both of our kids are adopted, and we have relationships with both birth mothers. My daughter’s birth mother has zero support from anyone, no family members around for emotional or financial support. We have chosen to help keep her above water on a monthly basis, giving her around $500 to $600 a month, as she parents two other children. We help her with rent and general life assistance, and we have done lots of debt bailouts while trying to help her understand how to avoid scams and payday loans in the future. She feels a lot of anxiety when she’s a few hundred dollars short each month. We’ve probably contributed about $20,000 to $30,000 over the past eight years, and family/friends have contributed another $5,000 to 10,000.
    
    We know everything is a Band-Aid, and progress will be slow. We’re attempting to “teach her to fish,” but we realize there are systemic and generational barriers against her. She is one of millions of women in her situation.
    
93. How do you and your partner split your finances? How did you decide to go that route?
    We have always blended them together. We were young when we got married, grew up conservative, and didn’t know to ask a lot of questions about what best suited our setup with finances. I have taken the lead and handle all of the bookwork for our personal and business finances, but I am challenging my husband to learn more and be more a part of our money conversations. We each have our “guilt-free fun money” for our hobbies and interests.
    
94. What are you willing to sacrifice to meet financial goals?
    I’d be willing to downgrade our house. A house is just a house to me.
    
95. What are you NOT willing to sacrifice to meet financial goals?
    I’m not willing to sacrifice time and experiences. 
    
96. What is one financial goal(s) you still want to achieve?
    I want to set us up for the option of early retirement between 55 and 59, if we want to. I doubt we will ever not work in some capacity, but the allure of not having to make a certain amount is certainly the carrot! This will be accomplished with the sale of my business. And as I’ve said, I want to keep more emergency fund reserves in an HYSA as well.
    
97. Tell us about one financial accomplishment you’re proud of.
    We paid off all of our housing by age 38! Paying off our mortgages has always been really important to me because a 30-year mortgage feels like a long-term commitment, and there’s so much uncertainty when it comes to self-employment. I always worry our situation might change. Of course, I borrowed against our house for my business. But I hope to “repay” us with the sale in the next 12 months.
    
98. What do you regret spending your money on the most?
    I’ve had a few real estate projects that weren’t total wins. I did a lakeshore project at the height of COVID lumber prices, and I got slammed with blown budgets when all of the retaining walls and decks needed to be rebuilt and prices were 3X what they usually are. Contractors were also in high demand, and I’m pretty sure I was taken advantage of because he knew it would take me too much time to find someone else. I’ve learned to be more assertive in a male-dominated industry. Ultimately, we sold that project for a bit of a loss when the time came. I learned a lot, so the takeaways aren’t always the bottom dollar. Again, I know how privileged we are that the experience didn’t tank us.
    
99. What is one thing you spend money on that makes your life better
    Experiences! Food and travel. We probably take “middle of the road” trips and usually focus on outdoor activities, but when it comes to food for the adults, we don’t skimp. We spent five days in Maine last summer (one of my favorite places) and had lobster every day. I think we had about $1,000 in food expenses for our family, and it was worth it!
    
100. What is one thing you spend money on that drives you crazy
     Anything car related. They’re nothing but hunks of depreciating metal!
     
101. Is there anything else you would like to add?
     I realize the stability I enjoyed as a child was a huge advantage in a world where any kid can be dealt any hand at any moment. My parents have always lived below their means, and this was the main mantra instilled in me my whole life. I’m thankful I have an interest in personal and business finance because I’ve improved my financial literacy over the years. I recently made the huge leap of taking over management of our financial accounts that we used to pay an advisor to handle. I’ve been able to customize our long-term strategy in a way that I understand and meets our goals. This was hard because our old advisor was a longtime friend, and it was nothing personal. I just knew we’d spend (probably) hundreds of thousands in fees over the lifetime of our accounts, and with my growing confidence, I wanted to take the reins. It was a bit scary, but I feel excited!
     
     Two of my favorite resources in growing my knowledge are the podcasts Financial Feminist with Tori Dunlap and Money with Katie with Katie Gatti Tassin. These women helped me tremendously and sparked such confidence in me that I could take charge of my financial future!

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