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Welcome to the Miko Love Podcast. I'm your host, Kamiko Love. And when I'm not educating about personal finance as the budget mom, I'm here diving into the exploration of my own passions and exploring a range of captivating topics. It's time to dive into conversations that ignite curiosity and inspire. Welcome to the Miko Love Podcast. I'm your host, Kamiko Love. And if you are new to the podcast, welcome. I am so happy you are here.

Now today I'm going to be sharing a very personal story. It's a story that I get a lot of questions about. It's a part of my journey that I get a lot of messages about, a lot of interest in. And today we're going to be talking about my journey to buying my dream home with cash. Yes. Just four years ago, I was able to hit probably one of the biggest financial goals on my journey and that was buying a home for me and my family. It's really a story about vision, discipline,

patience and really doing things differently than what most people expect. I'm going to walk you through kind of the ups and downs, the sacrifices, the mindset shifts, and really the emotional moment of finally stepping into a home that for me represented so much more than just a building. It was proof of a dream realized.

So whether you're working towards your own financial goals or dreaming bigger than ever before, or maybe you're on your path of trying to buy a home yourself, I hope this episode reminds you that you are capable of more than you know. So let's get into it. Now, before I begin really telling the story and journey about buying my dream home with cash, I think it's really important

that you realize that everyone's financial story, everyone's journey looks completely different. The goals might be the same for some, but the method, the steps, the timeline to obtain those goals might look drastically different and that's okay. I also realize that buying a home with cash might not be your goal. we're talking about me purchasing my home.

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over three years ago and a lot has changed with the housing market since then. It's funny because to this very day, my gosh, I count my blessings and I thank God that I bought my house when I did because to be completely honest, I would not be able to buy the property in the house that I did today in today's real estate climate had I not purchased it back when I did. So I do realize that buying a home with cash

especially in today's market, might not be your goal, or it might be. Some of you may not want to wait, right, the time it would take to save enough money to buy a home, and that's also okay. Renting is also okay. So whatever your goal may be, this is just my personal journey and how I got there. Now, maybe your goal is to save just a down payment or maybe a substantial amount for your home purchase. Whatever your home goals might be,

I really hope that this podcast episode motivates and inspires you to push yourself to reach for the stars. Now, this is my story, the steps I took to reach that dream goal and the lessons I learned along the way. So let's talk about when did I know that buying a home was something that I wanted? The first step that I took was realizing that I had this dream at all, right? So after my divorce in 2016,

and leaving the house and life that I built behind, I knew immediately that I wanted a place of my own for me and my son. Now at that time, it was just me and my son, James, that I have with my ex-husband previous marriage. Now I wanted a place to make memories, to grow old, and ultimately something that no one could ever take away from me. I knew.

that I never wanted to be in a position where I had to start from scratch all over again, ever again. So this feeling and desire, they were shaped by my past experiences and ultimately my divorce. And the truth is during my marriage, I lost myself, my strength, my confidence, and really the ability to believe in myself. I was so focused on being a good mom.

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and kind of building this picture perfect life, I forgot about everything that made me happy, not as a wife, not as a mom, but as an individual. So from that point on, I made a promise to myself to do things differently. So being able to buy a home was in some small way proving to myself that I could do it, even if it was all by myself. It was about discovering myself all over again.

And that's really where my dream of buying a home was born. Now I started small, okay, really small. After recognizing that buying a home was something I wanted, I started really small on the steps. This dream was born when I was making under $40,000, was a single mom, was going to a full-time job working in the finance industry. I didn't have a lot of...

extra resources. I didn't have a lot saved. I was struggling with money management at that time, and I was buried in debt. So I had just started recognizing my passion for helping people through the Budget Mom as a legitimate business. But still, most months, every penny of income I made through the Budget Mom business was put right back into trying to help more people and ultimately scaling my small business up.

So even though I couldn't make, say, these enormous savings contributions, I was still able to save really small amounts, maybe $50 here, $100 one month, $25 one paycheck. I accomplished what I could realistically within my budget at that time. What I didn't realize at that time was that even though the amounts that I was saving were relatively small and really nothing hugely significant,

the action of saving and those small victories would ultimately turn out to be one of the most significant contributors to my success. Now, my dream of owning a home really became a vision. As I thought more and more about buying a home, I kept asking, what kind of home do I want to buy?

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Now as the weeks passed and I kind of pondered this question even more, I started to visualize myself in my new home. And as I started imagining, you know, and my dream became more of a picture in my mind, it was clear to me almost immediately that I did not want to buy just any home. I wanted to buy my dream home. I knew that I didn't want to play the real estate game of buying a fixer upper, flipping it, selling it for money.

and then using that money to buy a better home. I didn't want the burden of packing up all of my belongings and kind of uprooting my son more than once. I didn't want a house where there could be unexpected repair costs that are common in older homes. For me, I really felt that was not my path. So your dream needs to become a vision. You must see yourself there. You have to picture it and have that picture be so clear

You can see every detail. You have to know exactly what type of home you want to buy. My vision was so clear that I would wake up in tears after having a dream where I could hear my son laughing and running through the front door of our new home. I could see the smile on his face as he played with our dog. I could literally smell the food as I dreamed about all of my family under one roof for the holidays.

I could see it. I could smell it, hear it, feel it. I went to bed every night thinking about my dream home and I woke up every day wanting it even more. That's when it became clear, not only that I wanted to buy a house, but what type of house I wanted to buy. Now there was this first financial plan that I had. When I first thought about accomplishing a massive goal of buying a home,

my mind immediately went where a lot of people might go, a mortgage. Now at that time, I was comfortable getting financing as long as I had 20 % down. Now that said, I also knew 20 % down payment for my dream home would be a lot. My business was growing and I found myself considering leaving my full-time day job in the finance industry to run the Budget Mom full-time. Now I paused my debt payoff journey

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And I really took the time to save for my emergency savings to prepare for self-employment. Now I accomplished that goal back in November of 2018. Now, even though I made huge progress on my debt payoff journey and I accomplished paying off my credit cards, this time I still had a pretty huge mountain to climb. I had to pay off my car and my student loans. Now my first financial plan was to save up enough money for my emergency funds.

to pay off enough debt, not all of my debt, but pay off enough of my debt and also save for a down payment on a new home before leaving my full-time job in the finance industry, which I plan to do in May of 2019. Now your financial plan must start somewhere, right? It might change during your journey, but there have to be specific goals and steps in place to really start. It's not enough to just say, I want to save for a home.

there has to be a very strategic plan in place on how you will accomplish that goal. Now let's talk about my, at that time, the budget mom business income versus my personal income. As my business had grown over the years, I left all of the income I was making past my business expenses in my business checking account. And to me, that money didn't really have a purpose except to be there in case I needed it for my business.

Now one day when I met with my accountant, he asked me what my plans were for the money I had just sitting in my checking account. And I kind of shrugged my shoulders. I didn't really have a plan for it. I remember him saying to me, you need to have a plan and be more intentional with your business income. Huge sums shouldn't just be sitting in your business checking account with no clear plan on what it's for.

So all of my business expenses and goals were being met. And now I had a fully funded emergency fund for my business. So I asked him if I could use that money that was sitting in my business checking account for personal financial goals rather than business goals. Now, ultimately answer is yes. With one significant distinction. Now, if I were to use any business income for personal reasons at that time and to maintain the protection of

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personal assets offered by my business structure as an LLC, I would need to use the money as an owner distribution. So I would also have to pay income taxes on any money used for personal reasons, since I would not be using the money solely for business purposes. Now at that time, I felt my business was fully prepared financially. at that moment,

I used the income that had been growing in my business checking account to establish what I called at that time, a dream account. Now this was an account I created to help me establish the life I really envisioned for me and my son. It would be this dream account that would ultimately help me reach my goal of buying my dream home with cash, even if I didn't realize it at that exact moment. Now here's where things kind of took a very drastic change.

After I had a personal emergency fund, a business emergency fund, and a tax savings account established for my business by, it was November of 2018, I finally felt comfortable focusing most of my saving efforts on saving enough money for a down payment on my home. Now, my business was still growing substantially and I was finding it hard to have my heart kind of in two different places at once.

I was also struggling with saving enough cash for a down payment fast enough. Day after day, my heart was telling me it was time to leave my full-time job. Still, I was kind of terrified about getting financing for a home as a 100 % self-employed individual with, by the way, no proof of W-2 wages.

and not at an extended length of time for my business being in existence, right? I only had filed for my business license just back in 2016 at that time. So I knew it would be challenging to get the financing I needed for the home that I wanted, especially being self-employed. So I was kind of rushing the process. I was still at my full-time job. I felt trapped and really at that time, ultimately defeated on which way to go. So one night,

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I was sitting there as crunching numbers, trying to figure out my next move. And a friend of mine reached out to me and the question she asked me would end up changing literally my entire life. She goes, well, why don't you just pay for your new home with cash? Now, before that very second, I honestly never thought about that at all. In fact, I didn't even think at that time it was possible, at least not for someone like me in my financial situation. I still had debt.

I was a single mom working with only my income and I had some house savings but nowhere near the amount that I needed to buy my entire dream home with cash. Now I remember her saying to me, look, your business makes enough income where you could reach this goal in only a couple of years. You can do it. Just do it. Now I fell asleep that night thinking about what she said. And that night I slept like a baby. I woke up with a new...

kind of sense of direction. And for the first time since deciding to buy my home, I felt a sense of peace. And that's when I knew that buying my dream home with cash was the path I was meant to take. I had to follow my heart. Sometimes making a decision isn't just about the numbers. It's about peace of mind. That is something that you can't put value on. So I had a new financial plan.

After deciding to buy my dream home with cash, I had to come up with a new financial plan. Right? Anytime there is any kind of significant life change, you need to reevaluate your financial goals. You need to make sure that they kind of still align with what you're trying to accomplish. And I spent a ton of time researching homes in my area and the costs associated with buying a dream home ever since I was a kid. I always had a dream of kind of building a home on land.

And this would give me the flexibility to build something that was truly unique and exactly what I wanted, especially since this was my dream home, it was my forever home. I would not be moving or selling it. So after doing the research on land and building costs, which took a lot of late nights and phone calls, I came up with an initial goal to save $350,000, which eventually turned into $400,000. Now in my mind, that would be enough to buy the land.

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and start the building process. And then I could continue to save during the first couple years of that process to really finish the build if I needed it. Now, my new financial plan meant going back to 100 % debt payoff effort. In my gut, I felt like I couldn't give my all, 100 % of my discretionary income and put every extra cent of my income towards my home goal until all of my debt was gone.

So that's what I did. Now I was lucky enough at that time that my business was still growing. What once started as a hobby for me and a passion unexpectedly turned into a full-scale successful business. know, for me, for the first time in the Budget Mom business history, I was making quadruple the amount I was making for my full-time job in the finance industry.

I was able to use some of my business income to help me reach my debt payoff goals and ultimately, I became debt-free in January of 2019. So let's go over this question of where do you put your savings? Now in February of 2019, I made the ultimate decision to use an investment account for my house savings. Now up until that point, I had a separate savings account at my credit union. So when deciding where to place

Any type of savings, whether it be your house savings, vacation savings, you must determine a couple of things first. How long do you plan on saving? Will you need the funds within one to three years? How do you handle risk and the turbulence of the stock market? What does your financial picture look like? When I decided to invest that money, I knew that I would not need that money for one to two years. And even still, that's a short-term time horizon for investing.

This is considered a very short-term investment. So I had to make sure I was fully aware of the consequences of investing before making that decision for myself. I also knew I was comfortable taking on some small risk to get a higher return during that time, possibly if I could. Now I ended up by investing my money in an individual investment account. It's an individual taxable brokerage account.

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Now this type of account can hold a variety of financial assets, which includes stocks, bonds. It's also a type of account where the dividends or growth that you earn in that account are subject to taxes in the year you receive them. So this is not a type of retirement account. Now I decided to invest at that time with American funds and very safe mutual funds, which my financial advisor did help me establish that.

Now, ultimately, it ended up working out to my benefit. Now, when I had my house savings invested, I made about an average of a 6 % return, which is a lot better than at that time that you would get at, a traditional bank and like a regular savings account or a credit union, or even at that time, a high-yield savings account. So it's imperative though that before you decide to invest, you speak to an advisor if you need help.

And I also have some articles that I'll link in the show notes of this episode that might help you through that journey as well. Now my journey, even though it felt like it took forever, I really had to learn how to stay motivated. Now as my business continued to grow, I could no longer sustain two different full-time jobs. Now I was working full-time hours for both jobs.

at this point for the past three years. And I ended up leaving my full-time job in the finance industry in February of 2019. Even with all the accomplishments and progress, the thought of saving $400,000 was absolutely terrifying. I knew that it would be the biggest goal I set out to accomplish during my entire financial journey next to paying off my debt. And the hardest part of saving for my dream home wasn't

the actual saving itself, it was knowing that I could be living in my dream home, something I so desperately wanted immediately if I would just finance. And here's the truth. I could afford a mortgage at that time. I could afford the payments. And I was 100 % financially stable at that time enough to afford home ownership costs that came with buying the home. I could do it at that exact moment if I wanted to.

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The hardest part was being able to restrain that feeling on instant gratification because I knew that what I was fighting for was so much more important. I wasn't just fighting for a home. I was fighting for my identity. And that may sound silly, but for me at the time, the identity I lost during my marriage, my first marriage, and through that divorce, I was fighting for a future that it...

I envisioned with my son, where debt was no longer part of that picture. I knew that my decision to wait and to stay dedicated to my plan of buying my dream home with cash, of following my heart was worth fighting for. And at this time in my journey, my dream home journey, this is really where I found my confidence. One way I stay motivated

on that journey was being confident enough to know that I was making the right decision for me and my family, regardless of what people thought. Now, after I revealed to the world that I wanted to buy my dream home with cash, I received emails and messages telling me I was stupid. They were calling me unrelatable and unrealistic. I was told I was a horrible financial expert for choosing to rent

over buying a house as an investment. The list goes on and on that I was stupid for buying my house with cash rather than investing that money. But here's the thing, didn't matter what other people thought about my dreams or goals. I had the confidence to believe in myself, in my decisions, in my ability to reach for the stars. And the journey to home ownership is about you and no one needs to understand it. It's not for them.

It doesn't matter if you are listening to this episode because you want to buy your home with cash or you want to save a large portion for a down payment. If that's your dream, own it. And one of the things I always said to myself is one day I will have my dream house and I will pay for it with cash and know what true financial fulfillment feels like for me. When I walk up the stairs to my beautiful porch,

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I will kneel, I will thank God and cry with my son happy tears. And it will be on that day that I will thank the heavens that I ended up following my heart. Now, one of the things that I learned on my journey to buying my dream home with cash is you have to track your progress no matter how small. Whatever your goal is for purchasing a home, it's a long fricking journey. And during that time, it can feel like you're not making any progress at all.

Now, if you are noticing progress, that progress seems to be like it's not happening fast enough, right? Nothing gave me more satisfaction than visually seeing my progress. Now, personally, I use charts that I would color every time I save money. I track monthly numbers to show that I was making progress, even though it didn't feel like it, and even months when it was really, really small.

Remember, saving money for a home is not an overnight event. It's going to be a very long journey full of ups and downs by continually tracking your progress. You have the visual proof that you are moving in the right direction. And sometimes that's all you need to see to continue. Now saving for such a large goal, I really had to take one small bite at a time.

Now, one of the things that I implemented on my journey was breaking down that really large goal into small, realistic kind of bite-sized chunks. Now, I did this because in our minds, smaller goals are more attainable. When we can believe in the possibility of reaching our goals, we kind of find this new motivation and hope. Now, sometimes it's better not to focus on the end goal itself,

with the small goals and action steps we must take to get to that bigger goal. So I stopped thinking about my end goal of $400,000 and I started focusing on only reaching $100,000 and that in itself is still a massive goal. But in comparison, I'm breaking it down. Now, both of these numbers are just huge. But in my mind, reaching the smaller number seems some way more doable, which gave me the confidence

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I needed to push forward. So I would create these smaller goals throughout the month. Like I would say, I'm going to save a thousand dollars and even smaller goals for the week. Like I'm going to save $50. It's an amazing thing that happens when we reach a financial goal. Not only does it feel good, but it creates momentum. All of a sudden,

We are now capable of doing something. So it gives us the motivation to push even harder. Every time I reached a goal, even if it was 25 bucks, $50, and I saw my visual board on the wall, I thought to myself, well, if I can do everything right now on my visual trackers up to this point, I can do anything. Another thing I realized on that journey is consistency is key. Now, when I look back,

on my dream home journey, realized that what led me to success wasn't the times I was able to say, make these enormous savings contributions, which I had a few of those on my journey, or the times I went above and beyond and put in that extra effort. Those are only the outcomes of something smaller. The action steps you take daily, no matter how small, lead up to the huge signs of progress.

Every decision you make with your money affects your end goal. I had to remind myself of this consistently. The two questions I asked myself daily were these. Number one, if I spend my money now, what am I giving up in the future? And number two, what am I doing today that will get me a step closer to meeting that goal? Now there'll be days where you aren't going to save money. There are going to be days

you know, or pay periods where you aren't able to accomplish what you want to. That doesn't mean you should give yourself permission to do nothing. I learned that there was always something that I could do every day to help me reach my goal. I could track my spending so I could make better decisions with my dollars in the future, right? I could plan out my budget for the following month.

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So I could really look for areas where I could cut back so that I could save even more. I could create a savings challenge for myself to make my journey a little more fun. Every day I push myself to do things that positively impacted my money and my finances, even though they didn't seem directly tied to that end financial goal. A savings journey isn't just about the dollars you save. It's also about

developing lasting habits that change you as a person. Now, ultimately, my dream home became a reality. In November of 2019, I hit my savings goal. And on that day, I took every penny that I saved from my business throughout the year and everything I was able to save from my personal paychecks, and I used it for my house goal. Now, at that time, I also decided to keep my dream account intact.

And I didn't include that in reaching my $400,000 goal. Now reaching that goal was one of the best days of my life. I cried a lot, happy tears. I felt like slowly but surely I was finding my strength as an individual and I could see that my hard work was paying off. Now that said, revealing that I reached such a massive goal

with the rest of the world on my Instagram caused me to receive a lot of negative comments. I was told that I was unrelatable and my journey was unattainable. And that really hurt my heart. By sharing my journey, I wanted people to see that it doesn't matter how much you make. Making a lot of money isn't what makes you rich.

Having a lot of money doesn't allow you to accomplish or obtain the things that matter most to you in your life. Now, sure, it makes things easier. It might give you the opportunities, but money doesn't make you turn those opportunities into reality, right? Wealth is not gained by how much income you make. Real wealth is achieved by the lifestyle you choose to live. Learning how to manage the money you do have well is what creates wealth.

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It's finding happiness, not in money, but in the things money just can't buy us. It's learning to be grateful for what you have, the people that surround you and having the mindset of not always wanting more. Now I made an offer on land and I quickly discovered something. Remember my plan was to buy land and start the building process, which would then give me

some time to save up more money as I'm going through that process. Now I looked at four potential land options. Now, before I searched for a place to build my house, I kind of set a $35,000 budget for the land purchase. Now, $35,000 today won't give you anything. In fact, there was five acres in my neighborhood just across the street that just went up for $500,000. That's $100,000 an acre. It literally almost peed my pants when I saw that sign go up.

But at this time, I knew that I could afford that price and still be left with enough cash to start the building process. Now, throughout my entire journey, I really followed my heart and I listened to my gut. All the land options I looked at were entirely out of my budget, some by like over 90%. But they were exactly what I wanted. Now, after many restless nights, I knew that spending so much on land

was not the right move, so I waited. I was patient. Now here's the thing. When you want something so badly and you have the money to obtain it, it's tough to step back and be a patient spender. Now on your home buying journey, listening to what your heart is telling you, trusting your instincts and being patient are critical. Sometimes what happens is the excitement can get the best of us and we end up making financial decisions that don't

give us the best benefits or align with what we're truly trying to accomplish. And being patient for me paid off. In December of 2019, I made an offer on land with a contingency based on feasibility studies. Now, the land I ended up falling in love with was raw land, a no sewer, no electricity, no water, no driveway. So I started researching the cost to turn the raw land into buildable land.

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I made phone calls and I had different experts come out to run tests. my gosh. Was I in fear like a huge surprise? The estimate over $250,000. That is so, it was so over my $35,000 budget. Not only that, but experts were now telling me that it would take years to complete, not months, years.

And it's fair to say that I was absolutely devastated learning this. Now on my journey, I realized and learned that sometimes you must make a change and that's okay. It's important to know that what you set out to do and accomplish might look very different by the time you reach your goal. Why? Because you learn things along the way that change your course of action.

Now after learning about the unknowns of building a custom home on land, I quickly realized that was not the journey I wanted to take. With the land I wanted and now with what experts were telling me, I would have to use almost all of the money I saved to get the dream home I wanted. Now I had no guarantees of finding water, no guarantees that the county would approve my private driveway, and there were so many other variables.

So I decided building wasn't for me and I retracted my offer. Now it was at this moment that I decided to buy instead of build. So anytime there is a change to your financial goal, you need to reevaluate your finances at that time. Now, could I still afford to get my dream home with cash by buying an already built home? Now, that was the question. Was it even doable with the cash that I had?

Now I was planning on using the cash I had saved to get me through some of the building process, right? Leaving my savings account intact during that process and then saving money as the building developed. That would no longer be the case if I bought a home outright. Now it was possible for me to do with cash. I just had to make one major decision. Instead of only using my house savings,

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I would also have to utilize my dream account for my business savings. Instead of paying for the build as we went along, I would now have to consider purchasing upfront. And that was the reality I faced. If there was one major lesson that I learned during this time on my home journey, it's this. If you are debating on buying versus building, make sure before

purchasing land that you know exactly what you are dealing with. Get experts. Do your own test. Get estimates. Never make an offer on land without a feasibility study in your contract, period. Now, let's jump to one of the most emotional days truly of my life. In February of 2020, my four-year, poor year dream home journey came to an end.

and I was able to reveal to my son for the first time that I got our new home. Now I did a whole YouTube video. filmed this whole moment and I will tell you around the Antiverse, I'm gonna cry talking about it right now. Gosh dang it. When I look back at that video, which I still watch around the Antiverse, we were buying my home to this day, it still pushes me to fight for my dreams. And it's so.

amazing and so crazy at the same time that as I'm sitting here talking to you, as I'm doing and recording this podcast, I just put my second little baby down, down for bed. My other older one is in bed, has school tomorrow. And that moment over three years ago, today we're turning this property into our dream homestead. it's just amazing, amazing.

that I am here today. And to be completely honest, I still don't have words to describe that moment in my life. It's just tears. If I can put into words what I felt or experienced that day, it would be that I discovered just how strong I am. I realized that I was truly capable of anything I wanted for my life, just as long as I fought for it every single day. Now people say all the time that your home is where you make it.

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Your home isn't what dictates whether you are happy in your life and where you choose to hang your hat isn't what makes it a home. It's the people who live there. And I do agree with this statement, but for me, this was about something much deeper. I needed to do this for myself and for my son. I think having this emotional connection to reaching such an enormous goal was a big reason I was successful in the end.

I didn't want to go the rest of my life without ever trying to reach my dream. Now I got a lot of comments, a lot of messages after posting my dream home journey. know, I'd comments like, Miko, I don't own a successful business. This isn't doable for me. Now, when I first set out on this journey, my business was barely making enough money to sustain itself. Not only that, but I also had a lot of debt. I didn't have a lot of savings and I was working with one income.

Will your journey be exactly like mine? Will you reach your goal in the same timeframe I did? No, your journey will be very, very different. But that doesn't mean you can't do it. After everything I've accomplished so far in my life, I believe you are capable of anything. This life, the one you are given is too short not to fight for it. Don't set yourself up for failure before you even give yourself a chance to try. Trust me.

you will surprise yourself every single time. Passion, dedication, purpose, consistency, motivation. If you have those things, please reach for the stars. Where you are right now financially does not determine what you are capable of. It also does not dictate how big you're allowed to dream. One of the kind of mottos that I came up with on my dream home journey was don't leave the big dreams to the millionaires.

Dream big now. I hope this episode has answered a lot of the questions that I receive about buying my dream home with cash. And I thank you so much for joining me today. Buying my dream home with cash wasn't just a financial milestone. It was a life milestone for me. It showed me that slow progress is still progress. The sacrifice that you make can lead to reaching your biggest dreams. If your path looks different,

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from everyone else's, that's okay. If you're working toward a goal that feels impossible right now, I hope my story can give you some encouragement to keep going. As always, thank you for being here for listening and for allowing me to share my heart with you. Until next time.

join the podcast, make sure to subscribe, share this podcast with your friends and leave a review wherever you are listening. Your support helps me reach even more listeners and keeps the conversation going. Until next time, keep feeding your curiosity.