Raising Rich
Join single mother, Jo & daughter, Laine as they discuss love, wealth, bankruptcy and everything in between!
It's a podcast for single mama's out there who need that reassurance that they aren't alone trying to make ends meet, or waiting for their Prince Charming.
Jo shares her rollercoaster life story - all the highs and the low's as her eldest joins her for the ride, weighing in with her two cents.
Raising Rich
Post Pandemic Success
Ever wondered how a small tutoring business can transform into a bustling empire? Join us on the latest episode of the Raising Rich Podcast, where we unveil the secrets behind Jo's post-pandemic boom in the tutoring industry. Discover how shifting from one-on-one sessions to small groups not only enhanced learning but also skyrocketed our business potential. We share our journey of navigating rapid growth, the invaluable insights from business coaches and financial advisors, and Jo's ambitious plans for opening multiple centers.
But that's not all! We switch gears to reveal our exhilarating experience of buying and renovating a 150-year-old historic home. From strategic negotiations to the nitty-gritty of financial logistics and extensive renovations, we take you through every thrilling twist and turn. With the help of a builder brother and a lot of personal effort, transforming a “squatters delight” into a dream home becomes an unforgettable adventure.
Follow our mother daughter journey towards financial freedom!
Hey Mamas, welcome to the Raising Rich Podcast with your favourite mother-daughter duo, Jo and Lane. Join us as we take you on the rollercoaster ride that has been my mum's life with money.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'll be opening up about the taboo topic of money from bankruptcy to a six-figure income and all the heartache in between. So if you're a single mama out there trying to figure it all out, then this podcast is from bankruptcy to a six-figure income and all the heartache in between. So if you're a single mama out there trying to figure it all out, then this podcast is for you. Join us for all the ups and all the downs on Raising Rich.
Speaker 1:Hello, hello and welcome back for episode 15. Woo, woo, woo, mmm, how are you going? I'm good, excellent.
Speaker 2:How are you going? I'm good, excellent. How are you? I'm very good. Whose couch are we on?
Speaker 1:today we're still on my couch, but about three and a half hours away from where the old couch used to be, because I have moved.
Speaker 2:No, we were going to get to that later. Oh, okay, Never mind apparently.
Speaker 1:Guess you'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 2:Don't jump ahead. Oh, so sorry, that's all right. I'm just going to move this a little bit closer because we have realized that I'm not terrific when it comes to talking into the microphone. So I am learning and hopefully the next couple of episodes will be a lot clearer for you.
Speaker 1:So yeah, here's hoping so. In the last episode episode we were chatting about- the pandemic pandemic, the planned, the planned.
Speaker 2:The pandemic, yes not a conspiracy theorist podcast, but moving on so we are now in post pandemic, so we've come out the other side, we've had our four lockdowns in Melbourne and schools are back and everybody is starting to get back on track. However, what parents have noticed is, obviously, because children have essentially missed out on two years of schooling, they are looking for some extra support, they're looking for tutoring and who's in that business me?
Speaker 2:me put my hand up, strike gold with that one. I certainly did so. The beautiful thing was it just became like a money train. Uh, people everywhere like we. We couldn't keep up with the amount of staff, um, with the amount of inquiries, etc.
Speaker 1:We were just literally on fire and well, I just wanted to ask, like, at this point of the business, is it still just you running the whole show and you've got a handful of staff, or what are we looking like?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, so it's still me. I'm running the whole show. I've got um some great staff, but essentially I I started firstly just trying to do one-to-one tutoring. I don't love it because the theory of learning is that you do learn from peers. But parents were asking for one-to-one so I was like, okay, well, you know, I'm going to give them what they want. Of course, I then soon realized well, actually, because the theory of learning is that children do learn from their peers and they do learn from robust discussion between many people, not just the teacher and the child.
Speaker 1:It was my reputation on the line so and on top of that, like I always feel that, with one-on-one tutoring, I remember when I was a kid and the sense of stress yes, panic, absolutely feel like from my teacher, because there is that like power dynamic at play.
Speaker 2:It was extremely overwhelming and that's exactly what I do try to explain to parents. You know, if your child is sitting there and the teacher asks them a question and they can't answer it, can you imagine what stress goes on in their head? I don't know, I don't know. What do I say? Yeah, so definitely one-to-one tutoring, just if you're considering it right now is not the best choice or the best option.
Speaker 2:So for us, it gave us the opportunity to explain to parents that small group sessions are best and that allowed us also to see more children. The more children we took in, you know, having one teacher, four students, one teacher, six students obviously it was better business sense and it allowed us to make good money. Yeah, okay, so the fact that I had one center going, I thought you know what this is brilliant. You know, I hired a business manager or a business advisor no, what do we call them?
Speaker 2:a business coach okay and we talked about my goals and, yes, I wanted to have five centers within five years and I wanted to be retired by February 3rd 2024 and it's July 2024 and I'm working more than ever before.
Speaker 2:So that's just fantastic. That worked well. Thank you so much. Business coach, I'm 101. So, anyway, I did open another center because my first center was doing so well. It could carry a brand new center for 12 to 24 months Amazing. So I was prepared to do that. I also employed a financial advisor or a business financial advisor, and I spent a ton of money with them who, like they, were amazing, they are amazing, they continue to be amazing and helpful. But I spent a really large sum of money, uh, working out how I could monetize my business and how I could build my business into an empire Right, Okay, because everything was looking fabulous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they say you got to spend money to make money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I had spent quite a bit of time with them over a three month period. We set everything out like what the company structure would look like, how many managers we needed. So we looked at, yeah, how many, what managers we needed, what the company structure would look like, how many managers we needed. So we looked at, yeah, how many, what managers we needed, what the company structure would look like, how many staff and how we could present the offer to potential purchasers, Because obviously I would like to have multiple tutoring centres.
Speaker 1:So would you say it would be like a franchise.
Speaker 2:Similar to a franchise. I don't ever want to be a franchise. It was more like a partnership whereby, you know, I wouldn't sell to someone and say, well off, you go, here's your content. It would because I wanted the partnership. I wanted it to be like I still had responsibility to make sure you did well, yeah, and I still had responsibility to make sure all the students did well, that the curriculum was on par, etc. So I still wanted to have a hand in all of the, the centers to make sure that they were all running very well right on, okay, so, yeah, so I spent quite a bit of time and money on setting all that up. So, you know, three or four years ago I I had these massive dreams and and goals and hopes, because it looks like we were just on the up and up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, nothing wrong with having goals and dreams, absolutely not. So what was happening in real estate at the time for you as well, because you obviously have? You know, that house that we were talking about, that's got the apartment above the garage.
Speaker 2:Yep, what else? What else? So, um, as you mentioned in well, as we talked about in the last episode, I'd helped you and your brother to purchase a property, of which, you know, I've still got my finger in that pie as well, a little bit. But what was actually happening was because people were scared of what had just happened in the pandemic, housing prices had really stagnated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not entirely sure whether they went backwards or not, because I'm not a real estate agent I personally feel like they did, because at that point, uh, my partner and I had been in quite a long-term relationship and we decided that we were going to, you know, save up and buy our own property. So we, we had decided to purchase out regionally, and I don't know whether or not it was just because it was regional that it was affordable, but I think the house that we had purchased, the price that it was beforehand, was around the same, so it hadn't necessarily increased in value for the sellers, which was perfect for us, and now it's worth a blood ton yeah yeah, so well, that's essentially what was happening in real estate.
Speaker 2:It had either stagnated or was you know, it had dropped a little bit. So the good thing for me was that, whilst I had previously lived in the city with your other sibling, I had really enjoyed living in the city, and the next suburb across was on the beach, and it's a beautiful, very affluent area and I had watched this area, just like I had with Glenn Waverley, and I'd always dreamed of being able to afford living there.
Speaker 2:But you know, the the most butt, ugliest house that was falling down was, you know, 1.2 mil. Yeah, um, and I just thought, well, I'm never going to be able to afford that. Um, I didn't want to buy an apartment because I've got a little puppy dog.
Speaker 1:And we'd always talked about the cost of apartments never, really increasing yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not really a good, viable option if you're trying to put money into something that you hope that grows, so that you've got money for retirement, and then, of course, you've got your body corporate on top of that which usually adds another one to two hundred dollars a week on top of your current mortgage. So, anyway, I had been watching this area and a house pops up and I'm thinking wow, you know, could this house really go for the price that they're advertising for? Now?
Speaker 2:if any of you know, in real estate, generally not you know they advertise a house is going to go for 600 and it sells for you know, 1.975 million. You know it's like cool. I was well out of the ballpark, I was close, but no cigar, so anyway, I had a look at the house and honestly, it was like Chucky had been living in there, because it was 150 years old, if not more, and in the corner of one of the bedrooms that had been wallpapered 27 times was a rocking chair and a doll from the 1800s, with its eyes rolled back into the back of its head, that's terrifying.
Speaker 1:I would have never purchased that property.
Speaker 2:It was a little bit scary but you know, you and I are a little bit, you know, spiritual and feel a little bit woo-woo sometimes and I never, ever felt woo, woo, woo going into that house that's positive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I did actually ask who the owner was. She was an elderly lady in her 90s, but she had not passed in the house, okay. So I I had a really good feeling about the home. Actually, I never, never felt that funny feeling. So the house is advertised for x amount of dollars and I think you know what I'm. I'm gonna get a building and a pest inspection anyway. So I do all of that because it's going to auction. You can't do that after once. You buy at auction in victoria. That's it. You put your hand up, that's it. You're buying it I.
Speaker 1:it's giving me moira from schitt's Creek vibes when they're trying to buy the mattress that's it Sold Yep.
Speaker 2:So anyway, I go to the auction and I've got a price in mind and you know, the auction starts at a low price and I thought, wow, this is great. But I decide to be very aggressive. So every time somebody puts their hand up, I bounce back and I decide, you know, there is no way I'm going to let anybody take this house. So I'm quite aggressive and every time somebody uh bids, I just jump straight back at them. You know, I'm I'm very, very aggressive and the house doesn't reach my maximum amount that I'm willing to pay, but it gets passed in on me.
Speaker 2:So that's very exciting. That means that nobody else can bid. The owners have to negotiate with me now, and if we can't reach an agreed price then the house just goes back up for private sale. So I win the auction. We go inside to have a chat with the owners and they are still pushing for you know X amount of dollars and I'm like no.
Speaker 1:I was about to ask was that X amount of dollars more than your max bid it?
Speaker 2:wasn't, but it was spot on, right on, spot on, right on. Okay, but I actually wanted to pay for the house, exactly what me and mr b had paid for in the south melbourne house. I just had this juju, I was gonna say like a spiritual finger.
Speaker 1:That I, yeah, I just wanted to go up you, you know, you never thought I could afford this, that's right and look at me.
Speaker 2:I'm in my hot pants and my, my sexy handbag, my, my fur, my fur coat that I rocked up in, thinking I look like all of that and a bit more.
Speaker 2:You should have had pippi in the handbag, my little doggy yes so anyway, I offered them that same price of the house in South Melbourne. They still rejected it and I ended up going a couple thousand dollars more Still not my maximum and they came back and said no. So I was a bit disappointed in that and I just turned around and said I am going to get my lashes done. You have an hour to think about it. If you decide no, you can just put the house up for sale on Monday. I don't care, but I'm going to get my lashes done. I'll talk to you later. And I walked out.
Speaker 1:That sounds like the biggest power move ever. Like sorry, I'm going to go get my lashes done. Don't have time for this right now.
Speaker 2:No, sorry, I don't have time to buy your million dollar house because I've got to get my lashes done. I also wanted it to be a power move. I didn't want to be pushed any further. Yeah, I knew that they wanted that amount of money, but, in all honesty, the extra 10 000 or whatever that they were asking for between the four children, it was going to be a measly 2 500 for them. Yeah, so like, get over yourselves mate right.
Speaker 1:And on top of that, like talking about the property itself, squatters delight like the amount of work that would be required to go into that property is exorbitant.
Speaker 2:Like like, full on like the front four rooms of the house were 150 years old and had never really been touched, they'd just been repainted, recarpeted, relino'd, then recarpeted again, then relino'd, then re-wallpapered over and over and over and over.
Speaker 2:The kitchen, the laundry and the bathroom were an add-on in the 1970s. Yeah, because we had all the yellow cupboards with the brown benchtops, the split gas oven and cooktop. Oh nice so, and there was a lot of work like right from the ground up, yeah, so anyway, it was a renovator's delight and I was excited about renovating again After I'd renovated the house in Glen Waverley. I'd loved that I'd made a stash of cash and I actually really wanted to do it again you definitely have an eye for it as well, my decorating yeah, like your interior design skills, I think, are really, really lovely and modern and you have a beautiful bit of taste.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's definitely, you know, not mine, but I'm weird and I like quirky, weird shit.
Speaker 2:So, yes, and I do get a lot of compliments from real estate agents, from people who just visit, et cetera, always saying how absolutely stunning my homes have looked. So you know, it was something that I was really excited about and I had this lovely stash of cash because my businesses were, just like I said before, they were on fire. So I've paid the 10% deposit with the cash, I have paid the Victorian stamp duty, which was $60,000 just to to the government. So thank you very much, and I had money left over to start the basics of the renovation. Yeah, okay, so I had purchased in the august. The settlement wasn't until the december because you and I were going to spain yeah, we were going to go walk the El Camino Trail we did.
Speaker 2:We did walk the Camino, and then we stayed over there for another three or four weeks. So I couldn't do settlement while I was over there because I had settled on a house once before when I was in Vietnam and my conveyancer was not happy with me being overseas so. I promised her this time I was not going to be overseas when I was trying to settle a house.
Speaker 1:I can imagine you on, like I was on the boat. I was on a boat.
Speaker 2:I was on the Mekong river shouting down the phone. Just get the house. And she's like what? I can't hear you and I'm going get the house, like and that's all I could do, because I really wanted the house in Glen Waverley.
Speaker 1:That was.
Speaker 2:You know, we were literally on the Mekong. Hello, my lovely friend who was with me at that time. We only met up for dinner the other night having another chat. We were laughing about it. But yes, I was not going to be in Spain on the Camino yelling down the phone just get the house.
Speaker 1:You did that anyway, but that was in regards to the sydney collingwood.
Speaker 2:Uh, final, the grand final sorry, I'm a mad afl collingwood supporter yelling down the phone trying to find wi-fi in the middle of spain in a field right hello, that was ridiculous, uh, anyway we, we digress we digress. Yeah, so I take over the house. I buy the house in August and I take it over in the December after we come back from Spain.
Speaker 1:We interrupt this podcast episode for a little self-promotion. Mum and I have been working hard on our first ever ebook four ways to to Make Money Online, which includes how to find your niche. So if you're in need of some inspiration on how to get your business into the online space with some digital products, or thinking about a side hustle, or maybe you just want a starting point, this free yes, totally free download is for you. If you head to joannelainecom, you can check it out today. Okay, back to the episode. Just to paint a picture for everyone listening, we're talking about a 150-year-old home in just the outskirts of a very popular city, in a very affluent area. You're going to start doing renovations Mentally. Have you done the cost?
Speaker 2:of this. Oh, yes, yeah. So I had done the cost and I'd had some quotes and because my brother's a builder, he kept saying no, no, no, it's too expensive, don't do it, don't do it, just do it yourself. And I said to him look, could you help me Because you know you're in this industry? He is like a supervisor and he was like yep, yep, yep. But then things changed in his life and he was no longer available. So it still came down to me, but I actually really enjoyed the process. It's like not Jenga, it is like matching pieces of a puzzle and making sure that you have all the pieces of the puzzle ready to go and then you slot them in. That sounds like a nightmare. Well, one person did stuff things up a little bit for me, but I'll explain essentially what happened. So in the December tradies sort of already booked up.
Speaker 1:They go away on holidays Post COVID as well. They're like business is booming for them you can't buy a piece of timber without getting a home loan for oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:So that, yeah, that that that was interesting too. But anyway, it's december, all the tradies are going on holidays, they're not getting back until the first of feb, right? So okay. So I do everything that I possibly can until then. So I get an architect, I get an interior designer, who was just a total waste of money. I could have done better. I was really disappointed. So I got the drawings done by an architect.
Speaker 2:And lesson learned if you're female, get a female architect, because a male architect just doesn't see the finer details like looking at yeah, like setting up a kitchen, how to make it a workable kitchen, how to set up a laundry and making it a workable laundry, but you're only making sandwiches in the kitchen, aren't you?
Speaker 2:so drawings by the architect. Those drawings have to go to council. Because the house is a Victorian home, we have to get permission to do certain things. So you pay for that to happen. Then you get the drawings approved, they come back to you and you can start some minor renovations. You then also in the meantime have to get the architect who did the original drawings, to do the final drawing. So that includes all your electrical and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, what the all the rest that, like, once the council's approved everything, yep, we can go ahead. Make sure you know you've got the right size windows and that they're still heritage, etc. So that's all done. And then we get the demolition guy in. Then we also have to get the restumping of the floor done. The entire house has to be rewired and has to be re-plumbed, because that's your foundation, right, right. So before, like, you haven't even moved in. Yeah, you have not done anything. And you know I've already spent. I think it was about 70 odd thousand.
Speaker 1:Holy dooly Again, my worst nightmare honestly. Anything to do with, like the council and council paperwork Ugh. Well, hard pass. I'll live in the quarters to light.
Speaker 2:Well, I will get onto that too, because, yeah, that's just become an even more of a nightmare. This is February. We're getting all the basics, all the foundation done. The house that I'm renting at the time in another suburb not too far away is just an absolute balls up nightmare. The heater breaks down, oh the, the sliding door, the glass sliding door just falls out one day and the owners take six weeks to replace that door because they shopped around like that. Just an absolute nightmare. So. And it had wood lice, so the wood lice. It was a triple story house. They hadn't used treated pine, so the wood lice was dropping into everything. Wood lice is my butchy boys.
Speaker 1:I think everybody calls them or slater bugs, it just makes me. It makes my head itchy, just talking about lice.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. So essentially we had two months two months to organize the insulation, the plastering, the flooring, the painting, the carpeting, the kitchen cupboard doors because we were just doing a little bit of a zhuzhi up you know like what do you call it and make the whole house livable so that we can at least get in there. And all the tradies are saying there is absolutely no way, and I'm like I've got the money, come on, you can do it. And, like I said, I've got them all set up like a puzzle or dominoes. I can. So imagine you with, like the building site, with your megaphone and just like we can do it.
Speaker 2:We can do it everyone. Come on, I went every morning with my coffees. You're all good at something, yay, that's my teacher team and you get a participation award. And you get a participation award, gold stars all round. So I gave them all coffees every morning. I had a lovely plasterer he was just divine. Fantastic painter, great demolition guy just the carpenter, he was a nutter anyway. Learnt my lesson. So the house is lovely, we get to move in and then all the bills start coming in and I'm thinking, okay, where's the money from the tutoring? You know, I've had this miraculous year where I've taken in nearly seven figures right, that's, that's how, on fire, the tutoring center was nearly seven figures like.
Speaker 1:But it's like april and we've been open, you know, two and a half months and I'm like this ain't looking too fresh no, and I'd gotten to the point where I'd hired a manager to take my place in the center yeah, so because also at this point you don't just have that second store that you were talking about earlier, you've, you've now got three uh, yes, actually, yes, we had opened another one as well, so we had three and we had semi-opened a fourth one, um, in the west melbourne studios.
Speaker 2:We were going to trial that in that area. We weren't sure how it was going to go. But yeah, essentially we had the three centres. So I was overlooking all three centres and had managers in each one.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, on your way to having your almost five.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I've got a manager in each centre and I start looking at the books because obviously I've got to pay all these tradies and there's no money left over. What? Hmm, that's what I was saying.
Speaker 1:What Find out in the next episode.
Speaker 2:Sorry to leave you hanging but it's part of the next goody-goody Goody-goody episode. Sorry to leave you hanging, but it's part of the next goodie goodie. Thanks for listening to this episode of Raising Rich. If any of today's episode has resonated with you, we'd love for you to share it with another mama. It really helps us to connect with the right women.
Speaker 1:And if you would like to share your story, you can connect with us on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok Just search for richrippleeffect.
Speaker 2:Is it time for a wine yet? Oh mum, oh what.