I'm a single dad, and I recently borrowed over $57,000 while spending on a house I love. The comments came fast: what about your kids? You can't risk your credit, risk being homeless — what about them? Here's my honest answer: my kids are completely taken care of, no matter what happens to me.
My kids are secure either way
Their mom has a great career and can easily provide everything they need. I have the kids half the week and I'm contributing my part, even while I'm borrowing to do it. I signed our old house over to her and took about 25% of the net equity in cash, which I've already put to work. So I've set things up such that I can go to zero — or well below zero, hundreds of thousands negative counting business loans — and my kids are still fine. Even if I were sleeping on a couch, they'd be at her house and I could see them there.
Why I can take this risk now
I'm actually in a better position to take risk than when I was married. Back then I took a bigger family-finance risk than this one — I borrowed to build a business, we sold investments — and we made it through, even though a lot of people criticized it. This time it won't reflect on her; she won't have to bail me out. Across multiple big borrowings over the years, I've never had to declare bankruptcy. I always got out of it, and this is just my most ambitious push yet.
The greatest risk is never taking one
I think showing my kids a dad who's comfortable taking risk — being totally transparent that I'm borrowing money and betting on myself — is genuinely valuable for them. So many parents raise kids to be deeply risk-averse. To me, the greatest risk is getting to the end of your life having played it safe in a job you didn't care about and realizing you never really lived. I've consistently gone for what I wanted, and I hope I inspire more people to see the areas of life where they can afford much more risk — because if it doesn't work out it's often not a big deal, and if it does, everything changes. We're meant to work together and stay connected so that, individually, we can each afford to take risks.