Writing to you from my couch in Las Vegas.
There I was. Divorced for the second time and I was only 30 years old. $60,000 in debt and essentially homeless since my ex-husband took the house. I was absolutely wrecked. The detailed story of how I ended up to where I am today is a novel that perhaps I will tell at another time or in little snippets.
And I wish I could say that I had an easy time before my divorce, but in fact supporting my marriage financially, the last year of its existence is probably the reason why I'm at where I am today. It was during the time that I learned the importance of having multiple income streams. My husband at the time was running a startup and had decided to stop paying himself since the seed money was running out. Which meant that we were living off of my one 9 to 5 income.
Safe to say it was a struggle. I remember in an attempt to keep up with all of our bills, I even donated my plasma for a month to make an extra ($900?) dollars. It was an incredibly painful time of my life for so many different reasons. And after my divorce, I said to myself, I would never allow myself to be in this position again. I worked like hell, I picked up as many contracts as I possibly could, dug myself out of debt and bought a house on my own.
The lessons that came with my divorce, and the feeling of helplessness that I had of being in debt is the reason why I started thinking even more creatively about how I could create additional streams of revenue without sacrificing my sanity.
If I'm being honest, I've always been pretty good at finding things that I can monetize different skills, different assets. And I remember sitting in my new home and thinking “I can rent out these rooms.” so for the next four years, I slowly remodeled and DIY’d my home to not only one, but two separate Airbnb's, and have created a main living space which is also rented for events and photo shoots. I created a six figure business out of my very own home that I live in full-time that pays for my living and then some. And based on my calculations, including the remodeling cost, the down payment and mortgage payments up-to-date I will break even in about a year’s time.
And the most beautiful part of all that is that if for any reason, I no longer have my day job, I can still pay for my mortgage. I can still pay for my life because having multiple streams of income has provided me the freedom that I used to dream of when I was a very young girl.
My Dad once told me that he wrote down everything that he ever wanted on a piece of paper when he moved to America:
-Buy a House
-A Million Dollars
- A Loving Family
Of course, there were other things on his list, but only a couple years ago he told me that he got everything on his list and then some. And it's funny, because I remember when I was a very young girl before my dad told me any of this. I used to think to myself “I want to make six figures by the time I’m 30 and own a home of my own with a loving family.”
It's funny how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Because 20 years later, right after I turned 30 only a few months after it felt like my whole life was falling apart, I got everything I ever wished for back when I was a little girl and then some.
Part of finding your way out of a debt is recognizing that outside of saving and investing, you can also make more money and no it doesn’t need to be from your day job.
And if you don’t know where to start, I created The Day Job Wealth Starter Kit with actionable steps to help you get started to create additional income streams to start building a life that you choose.
If this resonated, drop a comment below — is there an income stream you’ve been thinking of starting but for some reason you haven’t?
And if you know someone who’s building something real on a 9-5, forward this to them.
Find me on Instagram/TikTok @_stephaniehuynh_ for the behind the scenes of everything I write about here.