About the Author Once You Lose Everything It Becomes Apparent What is Worth Living For

Turning Disadvantage Into Advantage

Bigger Problems, Bigger Solutions

After I graduated college I landed a great job and I was ready to make an impact, but life had other plans. Before health insurance started at my new job, I was severely assaulted and spent 30 days in the hospital. Before surgery I found out I was immune to most pain medications, my car was hit, I was sued by a loan collector, and I missed my son’s birth. The week of closing on my house my college sweetheart left me for a coworker leaving behind the house, a ring, kids and even the dog. I was devastated, lost my job, almost lost my foster daughter and house.

Facing ~200k of debt, I decided to pick up the pieces of my life. I land a better job, kept the house, fought for my foster daughter, buckled down and paid off my debt in five very committed years, found the FIRE movement and tripled my investable net worth, adopted my foster daughter, and took a mini-retirement. Now, I speak/write/teach personal finance and how to win with your money.

An Unfortunate Series of Events

At times in this article you might think I am exaggerating …unfortunately, I am not. This series of unfortunate events is an abbreviated list of some of the setbacks I have had to overcome on my FI path. And, in serendipitous almost cliché fashion it all worked out to be my greatest blessing. (We will come back to that.) Hence, my blog name RefinedByFIRE.co. I started the blog, in part, because I could not find anyone, that has had to overcome the obstacles that I have had to navigate, negotiate and resolve. I was hoping to find some case study for the tips and tactics to navigate these calamities but when I realized I was a misfortuned guinea pig, I wanted to start a blog and post my financial testimony for posterity.

Believe me, my six-year-old self never imagined this is what I would be known for. If you find someone worse off in FI please comment below let me know I want to hear their story …and buy them a stiff glass of bourbon. So far, with an open invitation on the world wide web for years, I have only ever bought one two glasses.

Cheers Tony, drink of choice Woodruff Reserve.

Cheers Laralyn, drink of choice gluten-free hard cider.

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Part 1: The Setup

I got accepted to a college I never imagined. Ranked second best university in the nation behind MIT for my major. This school boasted a 99.9% job placement ratio and an average starting salary of $60k/year for their graduates. I started college at an out of state Colorado school I couldn’t really afford. I figure I would just find a way, never give up and then make enough after graduation to pay back the debt. I mean $60k/year is awesome pay for a college graduate. I was not about to turn down what seemed like a guaranteed path to a successful life. When I got there, I realized I had signed up for the largest nerd factory in the world. This school was NASA intern boot camp of the nerdiest most introverted people you could ever imagine gathering together in one place.

I put forth my best efforts to make the most of the situation by joining a fraternity and become the social chair. I knew right away I could not make it four years at the video game capital of the world. I wanted a richer more social experience out of my college life. I wanted an experience like the ones my friends were Facebooking about. I was willing to trade a great promise of high income after graduation for an experience-rich college career.

At my second school, I was able to apply for scholarships, grants and financial aid to offset some of the escalating costs of tuition. I transfer once more to pick up another degree for the same school Big ERN graduated from. I use geo-scholastic-arbitrage to be able to afford to finish college and found an escape route that allowed me to scoop up three degrees on my way out the door. Can you say recession-proof hedge? At this point, I am just under $100k in the hole.

An Abbreviated Summary of Disadvantages

I got my college sweetheart girlfriend pregnant before marriage – oops sorry, mom was not proud. Now I am planning to be another $250K in the hole spread over the first 18 years of raising a child. A few weeks before my son was due my truck died. I cracked the engine block. Another $4,500 in the hole for a last-minute replacement Honda Civic with 150K miles.

I started my first professional job, yay, making $40/year after college. Two weeks after I started my professional career and two weeks BEFORE medical insurance kicked in I was assaulted, almost fatally assaulted. My injuries including: abrasions down to the bone, bruising across my face, significant blunt force trauma, chest kicked in, broken ribs, a punctured and collapsed lung, vital organ reconstructive surgery, and many others.

I get a month’s stay in the most expensive hotel in the world… the US hospital. This is when I found out I have a rare bio-chemical immunity to pain medication and they had to start surgery without pain meds. – possibly the worst day of my life …. Ha-ha, oh wait not even close, keep reading. The nurse accidentally turned off my breathing machine one night that kept my lungs inflated via 5 tubes running between my ribs into my chest…can you say relapse? I contemplated suing the hospital for malpractice but through my glazed-over eyes, I could still see the genuine fear and regret in the nurse’s eyes that she nearly killed me and would certainly lose her job. She completely admitted her mistake and took full responsibility. I chose the moral high ground and let that one go. Add just under another $100k to the tally.

Rock Bottom 1.0

After a couple of weeks in the hospital, it was apparent that my lung would not inflate and I would need lung surgery.  After a few days of post-op pain, to be completely honest with you, I didn’t want the pain to continue and contemplated pulling my own plug on my breathing machines. That’s when I was told my college sweetheart was in another hospital going into labor. I knew I had to grin and bear the pain. I knew that my new family counted on me to be there for them and support them.

I knew that while weak men are defined by their circumstances, strong men are defined by their commitments.

I was committed to supporting my family, so I grabbed the cold metal arm of the hospital bed, squeezed my fingers around the narrow bar back into my palm as tight as I could and clenched my teeth painfully tight until I eventually passed out from the pain and was able to get some rest. The next day I got to watch my son’s birth …via skype on a laptop the nurses brought in. I have never felt so powerless laying there in the hospital bed on my back miles away watching my girl endure as much pain as I was and there was nothing I could do for her, not even hold her hand.

Physical Recovery – Hostel Hostage Rates – Hospital Hospitality Rates.

Recovery house hack living back with dad during recovery. – yup, a grown man living with my parents, yay. One of my student loan lenders claimed bankruptcy and the bankruptcy attorney came to collect the amount owed in full to settle the bankruptcy case. If you can imagine being in my position at this point, it as laughable that I would be able to pay the loan back in full (cue over-enthusiastic infomercial voice) “in just one easy payment!” I actually remember laughing aloud before the despair of that letter set in. I had to get an attorney to represent the fact that there was no way I could pay in full at this point in my life. We will come back to how I got an attorney for $26 later and the FI hacks to absolve me of all remaining amounts owed, thank God.

This is when the medical bills started rolling in. The first bill came in from the hospital around $10,000. I though fwweeewh that was not as bad as I feared for a month’s stay. But then another came in for the anesthesiologist. Wow! they get paid well, and another from the surgeon and another for the ER, and another for “medical supplies,” and another for nurse expenses, …I guess flipping the switch to off on my breathing machine was a lot of work? (Shrugging shoulders)

The corrupt hospital administration gratuitously overcharged. Seriously, why should it cost so much? Ask for an itemized bill if you ever end up in the hospital. You will lose your lunch. And if it is a hospital lunch, that jiggly jello, and dry cardboard cracker will set you back $35 a meal! You will learn that they charge $5 per latex glove and $30 dollars per milliliter of saline solution.

Saline solution is a fancy pants word for saltwater. I know what you are thinking, my first grader told me the surface our big blue bulb called Earth is 75% saltwater and yes, it is the most abundant resource on the planet but according to a hospital, this conspicuous commodity is sooooo precious that they decided to charge $30 dollars for every milliliter of this crap! I am starting to understand why some are so passionate about saving the ocean, there is a fortune to be made in bottling it up.

Don’t even get me started on what they charge you for a roll of toilet paper in the hospital. Sure, outside the hospital a roll of TP might cost 17 cents but step inside the magical portal of the hospital doors and al-la-ca-dabra! That roll of TP is magical worth $17. This is the reason it is such an argumentative process to get a complete and clearly itemized bill. When you get the first bill everything is categorized so vaguely if not lumped into a single payment. You have to call for the itemized bill and it will take several iterations.

They will also delay each iteration to intentionally push you behind your due date. This is an urgency tactic to get you to pay before you realize what you are paying for. It is reasonable to ask that it be emailed or faxed within two business days. Don’t let them pressure you it is important for you to realize that medical bills do not get reported to the credit bureaus. The hospitals are embarrassed to admit what they are actually charging you for everything so they try hard to obfuscate the detailed itemization. Keep pushing.

Why can the medical system in America get away with this hospital bed robbery? Because you have no other choice but to accept treatment when your life or health is on the line. You will spend your hard-earned life savings if it means your life and the medical system has figured that out.

Bedrock Bottom 2.0

After all said-and-done, I am just under 100k more in the hole. At this point, I grab my degrees, hop on a plane and never come back to the US ever again. I leave the gluttonous, cash-consuming higher education system and broken medical system in America.  As I step on the plane I turn back and shout, “Screw your greedy busted systems! You deal with the debt your busted systems produced! I am out!” with a favorite finger of choice proudly hoisted high I turned my back to the broken system and stepped on the plane never to return.

Now I could start at net zero, in say, the beautiful mountainous country of Austria, think Sound of Music gorgeous, go ahead let the sound of music soundtrack play in your mind.  I could live a simple and decent debt-free life in the fragrant flower-filled breeze blessed peaceful mountainsides of Austria.

(Cue record scratch stopping the Sound of Music track) OK, that last part about ditching America only happened in the theater of my mind. In reality, despite my gripes about the outrageous overcharging of the education and medical system in America, I chose, of course, the path of greatest integrity. In reality, I stayed right here in the US and chose to take the debt head-on. Trained and disciplined surgeons deserve to be paid for their skillful reconstruction of my vital organs and hardworking professors did indeed earn their wages to provide me with a good education. I am grateful for the hours they invested in their education and training and I intended to prove it with my dollars.

FI tip: You need to press hospitals to itemize down to the level of enumerating each roll of TP. Then it is much easier to negotiate price with them. They know it is completely unreasonable to charge $17 for a roll of TP but that is what they charge because they are successful 99% of the time by lumping all the expenses together. But we in FI are just a little bit smarter and more determined than the average bear. Very few people press hard enough to get the bill itemized out that much. It may take several phone calls and several escalations before they give in. Staff is trained to resist and make you feel like a lunatic for asking. Press on! This will give you great leverage to negotiate the bill down to 1/10 of the initial amount. More on tactical negotiation with hospitals later.

Financial Recovery: Climbing Out of the Debt Hole

Fast forward five VERY committed years later I was debt-free thanks to numerous FI hacks. – too many to unpack right now. I had to figure out how to hack the medical system, the legal system, house hacks, debt negotiation, medical debt relief programs, car hacks, insurance hacks, career hack and negotiations, geo-arbitrage, tax hacks getting my tax rate to zero and many more.

One year later I finally had enough cash stashed for a down payment for a wedding ring and a house. And it was time to get my house in order, literally. I am more than ready to turn this nightmare into the American dream. I landed a great paying job in a very low cost of living state at a fortune 30 mega-cap company. Someone cue that Sound of Music score back up. My life finally felt back on track!

I found a big house for a growing family. Despite being left medically unable to have the big biological family I dreamt of after leaving the hospital, I was able to get a foster license and had a foster placement in my home. A beautiful little blond girl that everyone mistook for my very own daughter. Things are finally looking up. I am designing a beautiful custom engagement ring. I find the dream house (thanks to a stellar credit score from paying down massive debt) in the perfect family neighborhood in a great school district. My offer gets accepted. I close on the house. Cue the happy ending music and credits.

I carry my college sweetheart across the threshold for the dream house, crack a waiting bottle of wine, fill two wine glasses, propose a toast to our future lives together …only to find out she has been having an affair for the last year with a coworker who apparently has a black leather jacket, motorcycle and “stacks of cash.” Cue record scratch sound interrupting the harmonious harp music.  She leaves me, she leaves the house, she leaves the white picket fence, she leaves the two kids, even the dog. A week later I find out she has an apartment, a new life with a new man and even a new dog. I have known this girl for a third of my life and I learn everything we had was rather expendable to her. DSS threatens to take away my foster daughter after learning my relationship fell apart even though I am the only dad she has known and she has been with me for over two years at this point.

Ultra-Subterranean Bedrock Bottom 3.0

I am an emotional wreck! My heart has been hand-torn from my chest, spiked like a football onto a bed of nails, ninja chopped into a thousand pieces and left for the crows to fight over. The carpet has been swept from under my feet. It feels like everything I have been working towards came unwound. The one Jenga block that was holding the towner from tumbling down has been yanked from the base. I am having trouble focusing at work. It feels like I have a constant stomach ache. My mind is racing faster than “new man’s” motorcycle. For some sick sadistic reason, I am imagining the things she is doing with her new man.

How I am going to raise two young kids as a single father? How am I going to fight DSS to keep my little girl? How I am going to make due thousands of miles from my family and support network? I quite all my extracurricular activities. I can’t fall asleep with the mental anguish of crushing anxiety. I literally write my top five priorities on my bathroom mirror (which are still there to this day) It takes all my strength to manage my job, kids, and house, and to stop myself from bursting into tears in front of the kids. Oh, and at this point of the story my mega-cap company’s stock price gets cut in half and goes through massive layoffs and I lose my job.

Dejected, alone, abandoned, emotionally crushed, unemployed, a single income house and up to my eyeballs in expenses. (Tip of the day: never design a custom engagement ring! They are nonrefundable if she says no….or say if they are having an affair with a coworker.) and solely responsible for two young kids, a dog and a new house which is way too big with way too much yard. Lucky for me (remember Luck = Preparation + Education + Attitude + Opportunity + Taking Action) my story does not end there.

“A hungry stomach, an empty pocket and a broken heart teach us the best lessons in life.”

I had all three and I had never been more humbled, more meek, or more ready to learn.

“…I delight in weakness, in insult, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

– 2 Corinthians 12:10

Adapt and Overcome

My father was in the Army. He got shot a couple of times in the neck by a machine gun fire over in ‘Nam. Of course, he was far too tough and stubborn to die. After recovery he was no longer fit for duty, so they made him a Drill Sargent where he learned all sorts of fun slogans to later raise his kids with. One of them was “Adapt and overcome.” If you ever face a difficult obstacle or had an excuse why you couldn’t do something the next question was inevitably, “How do you intend to adapt and overcome that obstacle?” Eventually, I stopped going to him with excuses or roadblocks and started to figure out for myself how I could adapt in the face of any obstacle to overcome it. When you have no other alternatives, you find a way to soldier on regardless of how undesirable the one remaining option is. Why not live as though the only remaining option is to pay God, then yourself first?

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, they make them.”

– George Bernard Shaw

“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.”

– Stephen Covey

Complaining about the level of comfort in a one option scenario is like complaining about what color the sky is. It affords you no more power to change your circumstances and only waists time, energy and mental power. Desperation, on the other hand, necessitates creative solutions. The more dire the circumstances the more creative the solutions you are able to find. When you are hiking the AT and you realize you have set up camp on a fire ant mound it is amazing how fast you can come up with an idea to use your boot laces and rain poncho to string up a makeshift hammock between two trees for the night.

“You are either pushed by pain or pulled by possibility.”

– Dr. Victor Frankle

The good news is that you can move with the intensity of having fire ants in your pants through inspiration as well as desperation. This is a far more comfortable mode of travel in the journey of life. But if you have neither you will likely wash off the shore of insignificance into the ocean of mediocrity. Why pay your bills first and live off the crumbs and table scraps as ever more greedy bills gobble up the choice foods of the feast? Did the bills earn that money or did you? Pay yourself before you pay the bills.

Emotional Recovery: Turning a Nightmare into the American Dream

From studying peoples’ lives’ that I wish I had in my mini-retirement summer, I found that those that take extreme accountability often experience extreme success in life. “Easy choices hard life, hard choices easy life.” I can accept that I am the common denominator in all of my circumstances. Our trials do not define us but rather, our reaction to those trials define the person we become.

All that I had lost developed the necessary character to take me through the next financial challenge on the horizon of life. Sometimes you have to lose everything to understand what you want to gain. If I never held a dead-end job I would have never figured out how to eliminate my income taxes. If I had not lost my job I would not have committed to the side hustles. If I had not gone so deep in debt I would not have learned to live on a fraction of my income. If I would not have lost the girl I did, I would not have the time to focus on my side hustles and minimize expenses.

All these circumstances serendipitously equipped me with exactly the skills, knowledge and discipline I would need to concur the next of life’s financial challenges to walk on FIRE. Our past prepares us for what is to come. Our past does not define us it refines us.  Our character is purified by the crucible of decision, tried by fire, quenched by sacrifice, tested by the circumstances of life.

See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

– Isaiah 48:10

A refiner’s fire does not destroy indiscriminately like a forest fire. A refiner’s fire does not consume completely like the fire of an incinerator. A refiner’s fire refines. It purifies. It melts down the bar of silver or gold, separates out the impurities that ruin its value, burns them up, and leaves the pure and valuable silver and gold intact. 

In all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

– 1 Peter 1:6–7

I was bent not broken, burned not consumed. I was tested not destroyed. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You can cut me down but I will return stronger and more determined than ever before.  You can slow me down and set me back but you cannot stop me. Disaster in life does not have to devastate your life.

Newton’s First Law states that an object will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force. I find that all change comes from either being externally required or internally inspired. People only choose to change under two circumstances, desperation and inspiration. Unfortunately, the latter is being consumed by the plague of the former.” Create intentional periods of radical inspiration in life so you don’t have to rely on desperation to learn and grow.

Remember that detours do not cancel out our destination they can only slow us down and show us things we otherwise would have missed on the journey. Your past can influence you but not define you.  Your mistakes do not define you, they refine you.

Does not coal require pressure and heat to be transformed into diamond? Trials by FIRE today create precious diamonds deep within your future self. Today they may remain unseen, covered by layers of ash from burned up hope but the day is coming when that will wash away to reveal the unbreakable gems that will shine brightly and pave the way to future successes.

Mr. Refine’s third law (that’s right, I actually used the third person when talking about the third law) states that for every problem life offers up there is an equal and opposite solution to resolve it. Or for those that believe you could say it like this; Do you think you can create a problem so big that God can’t clean it up and turn it into a blessing? Our current excuses do not excuse us from our calling. Simply examine your circumstances, adapt and overcome.

Be honest with yourself. Admit that I am personally responsible for my personal finances. Indecision is a decision not to act. No one cares about my money more than I do and no one is coming to save me from my problems. Your past determines who you where the present determines who you will be. Success might be on the other side of that obstacle you sit there staring at. The good news is the marginal daily gains compound into extraordinary lifetime achievements.

Lessons from the BBQ Pit

I have friends that I try to educate and encourage financially because I see how much they are struggling and not getting ahead in life. Every time we get together around the BBQ grill in the back yard sippin’ Coronas on a hot summer afternoon they say things like;

“I will start saving once I get the car paid off.” – things I wish I could say: um have you thought to get rid of the car tomorrow and buy one you have the cash for. You can always upgrade later when you actually have the money.

“When I have money I will look into that.” – things I wish I could say: you don’t have money, because you don’t look into it. Money does not magically appear in your pocket.

“I can’t even pay off my credit card, how can I invest.” – things I wish I could say: well uh don’t buy what you can’t afford?

“If I get a raise I will.” – things I wish I could say: naw, no you won’t.

“If I had your income I would. – things I wish I could say: Bigger money, bigger problems. More money would not change your attitude to consume all that comes your way. Remember, I used to have your income. The biggest reason it has grown is because I invested a large percent of it in cash producing assets.

Making $4,768.68 While on the Toilet

My friends try to blame external sources for their current financial circumstances. Sound familiar? The reality is that they are the only one responsible for where they currently are and where they are going. They pretend their circumstances are special and so they can’t change. They pretend the situation they are in can’t be solve as easy as mine. Can I get a record scratch? Look at the circumstances above. If you are better off than that, this will be easier for you than it was for me. So stop using that as an excuse to get started. It gets easier as you go. Yesterday, I made $4,768.68 in the stock market, just for clicking a couple of buttons on my phone to trade a couple of stocks while I was on the toilet. Not hard! I made more working on my toilet than most people make a day in their 8 hour+ day job. Heck, that is more than some people made in their last paycheck. It did not give me mental fatigue I don’t have sore muscles from hard physical work. Don’t get me wrong the initial decision to create investable capital seem hard but only until you make choice then once the choice is made the new way of life is just …normal and an ordinary part of your routine. Start small start with baby steps.

The Rich Get Richer, The Poor Get Poorer

Most people get an annual raise between 3 and 5%. That is slightly behind the rate of inflation. In other words, while the amount on the paycheck goes marginally up their purchasing power with that sum of dollars goes down. In other words, they are falling behind in life. The rich get richer and the poor and middle class get poorer. My first trade was $300 and I lost money, but I got started, and I learned, and it hurt when those dollars left that was a lot of money to me then. Because of the hurt, I learned a lot more and that education has produced thousands of replacement dollars since. And if you want to invest without learning how to trade that is an option too. Just get a financial advisor and outsource it to him or read JL Collins Simple Path to Wealth and outsource it to self-directed automation.

Do you know the penny that doubles everyday exercise? You know, would you rather have a $100 today or a penny a day that doubles every day for a month? i.e. Day 1 = 1 cent, day 2 = 2 cents, day 3 = 3 4 cents, etc. well if you continue that compound effect out for 30 days the total is $10,737,418.23 dollars. It starts small, but it finishes big. This is because of the compounding of the money, investments work the same way.

Dull Dan

5 year ago when I had that first money conversation around the BBQ grill in my back yard sippin’ on Coronas, one of my friend Dull Dan (I changed his name for anonymity.) would not put aside even a penny. 5 years later he is still paying off that SUV payment only it is two payments now that he bought his wife a newer SUV because she envied his.

Clever Cliff

The one friend Clever Cliff did act on the information that day and ever since has grown his couple hundred dollars into six-figure wealth in those same five years. One choice, made and acted on in one day, five years ago, to set it and forget it, to save a two-digit portion of earned income, has changed his financial reality form paying down car debt to six-figures banked for retirement and 6 rental homes generating passive income.

You

Now it is your choice. I challenge you to put aside $10 dollars into investments this month and add $10 more dollars every month. (ex. month 1: add $10, month 2: add $20 dollars, month 3: add $30 dollars, etc.) in this way, you are not compounding your addition but the market will compound your total.

Stay tuned as I unpack how I turned the nightmare into the American Dream. How I was refined by FIRE, how I found FI, my mini-retirement – the summer of introspective self-reflection, completely changing everything I believe, getting mindset right, How I found my why – internal inspiration, how I hacked all my debt paying a dime on the dollar, side hustles gone live, grieving losing a loved one and emotional recovery, single parent hacks including eliminating childcare costs, how to pay off student and medical debt with one-tenth of the money owed, cutting expenses to survive and all the tactics, tip and tricks to FI hack your way back on track. Not only on track but how I tripled my investable net worth in my first five months of true FI! And the best is yet to come.

I lost almost everything in my life, save integrity and faith. It turns out, that is all a man needs to succeed.

Action Take Away Summary

1. You are a special snowflake but your circumstances are not. Stop pitying yourself and take action. The night is shining armor is not coming. Stop hoping to win the lottery. You are the one controlling your financial success. Get started.
2. Take the $10 a month challenge. Recruit an accountability partner or tell the universe you are doing it.
3. Signup for the email list if you want to get more content as it is released.
4. Comment below. If anyone has had it worse, I would like to hear your story and buy you a stiff glass of bourbon. So far, I have only ever paid for one two glasses.
   
   

Keep the FIRE burning my friends.

If my story has impacted you in any way or you can relate to some part, please leave a comment. I genuinely would love to hear how. It would give purpose to my pain.

Sincerely,

Mr. Refined