Once Upon a Time...

A bit of background. Marty Sunshine and I married in 1998 after four years of dating. So, I knew him well enough to know what I was getting into. Same for him.

Marty is extraordinarily ambitious. He is brilliant, disciplined and driven. He is the visionary. I am the worker bee.

We both came from very meager means growing up. Neither of our families knew how know to manage money. Hence, when we got married, we didn't know how to manage money either.

Right after my daughter was born, I cut back on my client list (I was doing free lance writing and public relations) but we still needed money. At one point, we bartered some of our wedding present for babysitting so I could work. There were days we scraped together enough money for diapers. It was lean times. We didn't know what we were doing right or wrong. We just were focused on surviving.

Marty, who did not want to live like this, started reading about wealth building. He was trying to get me interested in the same. I had no interest. I was overwhelmed with an infant, sleep deprived and juggling my freelance and public relations clients.

Marty Sunshine's desire for investing caused a bone of contention between us. He wanted to move our lives past just surviving. I couldn't see past my fantasy of one good night's sleep.

In a memorable argument, he asked what it would take to get me on the path to wealth building. I flippantly said, “real estate.” I figured it would never happen.