My journey to home ownership began quite some time ago.  Rewind 10 years and you’d find a broke, naive college graduate struggling to figure out the “real” world, student loan repayment, and a mountain of consumer debt ($14,000 to be exact).

While it has always been my goal to be a fiscally responsible, home-owning citizen, I found myself off track and quite discouraged.  Who was I?  Who did I want to be?  How should I live my life?  How could I clear my debt and live my life with financial freedom?  With so many large questions looming, I quickly found myself burnt out, discouraged, and apathetic.

Fast-forward 3 years and I ended up in one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. for a graduate education at one of the most expensive Ivy League schools around.  How could I pay the ridiculous rent let alone my tuition bills and day-to-day living expenses?

Enter the era of the part-time-job-that-provides-all-living-expenses.  Sounds great!  Little did I know that working these jobs for the next five years would slowly, literally suck the life out of me between managing multiple jobs, graduate studies, and hoping to maintain some semblance of a normal social life.  However, in the end, the credit card debt disappeared, the retirement accounts materialized (and grew!), the savings increased, and living paycheck-to-paycheck became a thing of the past.

After 5 years of holding a part-time job that provided my living (rent, utilities, even food), I had amassed a sizable nest egg that eventually provided the down payment for my first foray into the land of home ownership.  A self-proclaimed winner of the “foreclosure lottery,” I managed to purchase a 2-bedroom, 2-bath condo in Boston with nothing more than my own hard work.

While the walls required a hefty dose of TLC and the original first-floor neighbor left much to be desired, “happy” doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling I still have when turning the key each day to return home after a long day at work.  While the path to this nirvana was not smooth, consistent, nor straightforward, every day is a constant reminder that hard work does indeed pay off.

As always, questions, comments, and concerns are welcome.

Photo credit: Marco Bellucci