Hi there! Jason and I met in Colorado in 2001.  We were friends for along time before dating, and eventually moved across the country together, away from the mountains and back to the beach, in Montauk, NY, where I grew up.  After years of working for a big corporate resort, despite promotions and upward mobility, we didn’t have much to show for all of our work.  Montauk was experiencing a new surge in interest from the jetset crowd and we saw tons of opportunity there.

With barely enough spare cash to move across country, we set up shop in my hometown and started working at our family business, Marshall & Sons It’s nothing glamorous, fuel delivery, plumbing, heating, a gas station, vehicle repair shop, but it helps people with what they need, and has been in business for over 75 years.  We thought we had lined up a perfect rental, on the street I grew up on, and down the road from my best friend.  The house had been for sale for 8 years and had not sold.  It had been rented long term that whole time.  We had spoken to the owner and he agreed to rent to us if it didn’t sell.  Just after arriving home, we had a family trip planned for my grandma’s 90th bday.  Everything was all set when we left.  When we got home 2 weeks later, the house had sold.  So we emptied our moving truck into my best friend’s basement and started searching for a different rental.

The one major surprise was the housing market and how it had changed since I left.  In 2009, Montauk was probably harder than average to find a year-round house to rent, but in 2013, change that status to impossible!  With the success of airbnb and VRBO, everyone wanted to rent their homes out short term instead of year round, and we could not find a place to live.  I picked up a second job waitressing at The Harvest, where I had worked for over 10 years before moving to Colorado, we moved into a short term rental, and we tried to save up.  We had until June 1st to find a solution.

Saving money to buy a house in Montauk on a normal salary would take anyone a lifetime.  So, we did what a lot of people do in an impossible situation, turned to our family for help.  Not wanting to actually move in with either of my parents, we opted to borrow money from them for an investment.  We bought a place in the local trailer park (conveniently located right on the ocean).  It needed loads of work, but structurally was sound.  But we couldn’t move in until July.  So we moved into a friend’s place for one month, and then made the move to the park.  We completely gutted the trailer, redid the entire thing, and then sold it for a pretty penny in 2016.  See our trailer kitchen before & after here.  We were able to completely pay my parents back and have enough left over for a down payment on what we had taken to calling a “real house.”

Nobody I grew up with can afford to buy a house in this town without renting it out for the summer on VRBO or airbnb.  Check out my list of 4 Fabulous Summer Rentals in Montauk, NY here.  By the time we sold our trailer, we were positive this was the path we would take as well.  Seven or eight friends of mine were already doing it.  I had helped my sister do it the year before, and my father decided to rent out this little cottage he has on his property the year before that, so I had experience in handling the rental management side of things.

We searched and searched, and finally chose a house.  We were super excited, and were just waiting on a mold inspection when we got a phone call that they sold it to a family member out from under us!  Needless to say, I was devastated.  I had imagined our future there, I knew exactly how I planned to renovate it, and it was IN BUDGET!  So we re-grouped and came up with an alternative, and bought this little farmhouse.  It was over budget, it didn’t have everything we wanted, but there was room to expand, and it was in the most perfect location.  Right around the corner from my mom, sister & best friend.  Who can actually walk to three of their favorite people’s houses on a daily basis?  So we felt lucky despite all the setbacks.  We really wanted a nice big 2 car garage with space to do our renovation work when the weather wasn’t perfect.  So we went through hell trying to qualify for a 90% mortgage to leave us a healthy budget for an addition after purchasing, but low and behold, the mortgage gods were not smiling on us.  It took MONTHS and after all that, we were stuck with the standard 80% mortgage.  We kissed our dreams of adding on the garage goodbye.  And meanwhile, we had wasted 2 months of time we could have been fixing the new place up.

But once again, we all banded together and got this place almost totally redone in 2 months.  Just in time for rental season.  We were under the gun, listing it May 1st with photos that were less than perfect, but we managed to rent out the whole summer, and we got excellent tenants who were super respectful of our neighbors and treated our house very well.  Most importantly, we made the extra $20,000 we needed to make our first year of mortgage payments, and covered the $10,000 we went over budget with on the renovations. The plan had succeeded, and here we are, living in Montauk, homeowners, of a REAL HOUSE! (And, it’s beautiful).  (And, it makes us money).  What could be better?!

I’ll tell you what, a nice, big garage with a master suite on top, and a two story breezeway connecting it to the rest of the house, the perfect place for a nice spacious mud room.  I’m not one to settle, and I’m a hustler, as our blog name suggests.  Between renting, moving, renovating a trailer from the ground up, working a full time job and one on the side, helping to manage my sister’s and father’s rental websites, there was a TON of work done over these past 4 years.  And I’m ready for some more.  The restaurant is closed for a couple months over the winter and I am missing my waitressing income.  I’ve been doing a lot of online searches on Pinterest planning out new and exciting projects for our house.  And that’s when I discovered that blogging isn’t just about sharing stories, but also can be a great side hustle.  Welcome to my first blog.  Happy reading :-)!