This weekend I lost my “why” and that is OK.

But, don’t tell Lauren I’m writing a post all about my “why”.

She absolutely hates this phrase even though she is in the real estate space talking in general about her “why”. Lauren just has a mental block about the phrase “my why is….”, but I digress.

This weekend we went on vacation to our new short-term rental up in Oakhurst, CA. This was supposed to be a trip where we got to enjoy our new place after all the set up but we had one little hiccup.

The dishwasher that we ordered for the initial renovation arrived three weeks late and our job was already completed.  Also, Lowe’s would not deliver to our property…

So at this point we needed to rent a U-Haul trailer to pick up the new dishwasher. 

It was going to be an easy project…

I’m comfortable at towing, so that was not a problem.  However, I needed to learn how to install a dishwasher because it was the weekend and no plumbers were available in our small town.

Thank goodness for YouTube…. It is amazing.  After watching a few YouTube videos I as able to figure out how to completely install a dishwasher….

Lauren watched too, so she could watch me and give pointers…

Clearly, we were complete professionals after watching these videos.

In fact, we were so good at dishwasher installation that we performed the task twice… Because the first installation attempt resulted in a small leak.

But the good news was the second installation was much faster….

I was able to pull the dishwasher out, identify the leak, which was a poorly tightened water intake,  fix the problem and we were good to go.

Everything was going great…. And then I lost my “why”….

After completing the dishwasher install I was ready to chill and enjoy the labors of our hard work.   I was looking forward to hanging out on the lake and hiking in Yosemite…

But first, I needed a shower as I was pretty filthy…

And that is when the hot water heater died…

We weren’t planning on taking cold showers for the weekend even though ice baths are all the craze. This was a bummer.

At this point, Lauren and I felt slightly defeated because this set up was a little more challenging than some of our others.

That is the moment that I lost my “why”…

Why were we doing this, why don’t we just rent somebody else’s place, this was a “bad” purchase… I just crumbled for a while this weekend… it happens and that is why we are sharing…

In reality, the water heater going out was a small thing.  It just happened to be the last event of a bunch of things going on and I was exhausted.

Now Lauren, who “hates” talking about the term “my why” came to the rescue and brought me back to baseline.

She reminded me that we purchased a beautiful place and we should be proud of the set up. They kids and our good friends were having a great time and we just needed to take a step back and appreciate what we accomplished… She was right.

With Lauren’s help I recovered and we were able to enjoy the weekend even with these hiccups and extra work…

Lauren and I rented a boat, went out on the lake all day Saturday, went paddle boarding, and our kids had a great time.

On Sunday we went and hiked the Mariposa Groves in Yosemite and saw the great Giant Sequoias.  The girls crushed that 6 mile hike.

It was a special day and we had a great time with our little ones and close friends.

There is  not much more that you can ask for. We got to experience all of this while building generational wealth for our family by literally enjoying our investments. (Even when things were tough ;). We took a few cold showers and got the water heater repaired on Monday.

Now the argument can be made that my time would’ve been much better spent by hiring a plumber to install the dishwasher and that is absolutely true. With that said, I will say that there is a silver lining to all of this drama. 

Lauren and I have learned a lot about home repairs and projects over the last few months.

These projects are just like any new procedure that you perform in Medicine, it might be a little intimidating at first… until you actually do it.

I’m grateful that we have learned how to fix water heaters, install dishwashers, set up ring alarm systems, change out ecobee thermostats and all the other projects.

Yes,  we can pay someone to do this and I may do so in the future. However, I think knowing the steps is really helpful and will be useful when speaking with contractors.

So, this weekend I briefly lost my “why” but Lauren helped me rediscovered it.   We share a common “why” even though she might not admit it and she is my rock.

The goal of our investment strategy is to purchase and enjoy properties as a family while building generational wealth for our little ones.  The process is not always perfect but we are moving forward along our path.

We hope you’ve had a great weekend building your short-term rental portfolios and solidifying your “why”.

Enjoy your Journey to Financial Freedom