How a Financial Pro Lost His House
ONE night a few years ago, when the value of our home had collapsed, our debt was out of control and my financial planning business was shaky, I went to take out the trash. He wrote a book based in part on lessons learned by losing his Las Vegas home in the housing crisis. There was this enormous window that looked right in on the kitchen table, and through it I could see my wife, Cori, and our four children eating dinner. It was dark outside, so they couldn’t see me, and I just stood there looking at them. After a while, I pulled up a bucket and I sat on it, just watching my children eat. I found myself wishing that I could get back there, connected to the simple ordinary stuff of my family’s life. And as I sat and watched, filled with longing and guilt, two questions kept arising: How did I get here? And how am I going to get out of this? There are many stories these days of people who lost their financial bearings during the housing boom and the crisis that fol...