Dusting Off

“Only fools need a college education.”

As a cocky 19-year old, I used to say the above sentence all the time. As I mentioned in my previous post, before being arrested and almost shipped out of the country, I felt on top of the world. I was a “big time” restaurant manager, a small business entrepreneur with a cleaning company that was netting me about $6,000 a year, and I was making money from daytrading. My total earnings of $60,000 felt like a big deal for a 21-year old. Yet, I was spending that money quicker than I was making it, and when the money faucet ran dry during my deportation proceedings, I was flat broke and did not have a source of income for three whole years. It was a tough, humbling awakening. 

It was 2009 when I finally resolved my immigration issues, and was able to legally return to work. A full three years had crawled by. By that time, my restaurant career was over, my cleaning company had been sold off, my trading account had been liquidated, and I was flat broke. Keeping in mind that I wanted a job that more closely resembled my then girlfriend’s career, I did not return to the restaurant business and instead became a real estate agent. What a mistake! As everyone might recall, 2009’s real estate market was still in a deep decline due to the mortgage crisis and the meltdown in the financial markets. Because of this, I focused primarily on leasing apartments to college students in Boston. I would make 50% commission on whatever the monthly rent was, and I was absolutely awful at it. 

I did real estate for 2 years, topping out at $30,000 on my best year, which was half of my old salary as a restaurant manager. Worse yet, I was working about 80 hours a week, which was more than my hours at the restaurant would have been. I felt deeply lost during this time. After 3 years of not being able to work due to immigration issues, I was certain that I would come back and be more successful than I had been before. I had never failed at something, and here I was falling flat on my face.

After I realized that success in real estate sales was not in the cards for me, I started looking for other jobs that were 9-5. It was during this time that I started noticing how not having a college degree was holding me back. You see, early on in my teens I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, and it inspired my early career successes. However, the book’s many examples of the “educated dad” being the poor dad led me to misinterpret the message about college. I thought that Robert Kiyosaki was trying to say that college was wasted time and money. Because of this, I came to say in more than one occasion that “only fools need a college education.” Boy, would I come to swallow those words.

My search for a 9-5 job would change my mind about college. I had three different opportunities in which I got pretty far in the interview process, only to later be rejected because the other candidates had degrees and I didn’t. The third time this happened, I left the interview and went straight to my local community college. This was in January, 2011. By the fall of 2012, I had completed my associates in business/finance and was starting at UMass Boston to finish a four-year degree, which I finished in May of 2014. I continued on, and got my MBA in 2017. 

College may not be for everyone, but it has been the best decision I have ever made. I worked full time while pursuing my degrees, and was able to get many scholarships. I finished my undergrad career with only about $6,000 in student loans, and would accrue another $34,000 in debt for my MBA. Still, while my first job out of undergraduate school in 2014 only paid me $40,000, I would soon triple that number. College did not only open doors and opportunities for me, it allowed me to achieve new heights and to dream of creating generational wealth.

In my next post, I will go into detail about my financial journey, and where I wish to go from where I currently stand. Spoiler alert: we’re searching for our first investment property!