Original Orient Adventures

Hey everyone — today I want to share how I managed to buy a house at just 26 years old. I didn’t come from money, didn’t have a trust fund, and definitely made a lot of mistakes early on. But with patience, a better mindset, and one simple phrase in mind — “Keep it simple, stupid” (K.I.S.S.) — I turned things around.

Back in 2008, after I graduated high school, I moved to Sacramento for a technical school. I used credit cards, student loans, and grant money to survive — food, bills, rent, tuition. At the time, I was working at a fast food restaurant as a cook. Even when I became a night shift manager, it wasn’t enough to keep up.

By the time I was 19, I was flunking out of school and already a few hundred dollars in debt. Add in a relationship that didn’t help my financial decisions, and it all spiraled quickly.

A New Job, A Better Mindset

Eventually, I got a better job — one with more stability and better pay — and started dating someone who helped me stay focused. That combination gave me the clarity I needed to start taking control of my money.

Here’s the part they don’t teach you in school: To build credit, you need debt. And not just any debt — managed, responsible debt.

But schools don’t show you how to budget, how to read a credit report, or how to recover from mistakes. I had to learn the hard way.

So I adopted a mindset that helped me get through it:

“Keep it simple, stupid.”

No shame, no insults — just a reminder to myself not to overthink or make things harder than they need to be. Because when you overcomplicate things, you make dumb mistakes.