Dark to Light, Coast to Coast, Foster Care to Entrepreneurship: Crystal Faragher’s Entrepreneurial Spirit

Last Updated 2/10/2023 • Posted in Marketing, #marketing, #mfcda

Having spent her childhood in the foster care system in Florida, moving from home to home on a seemingly endless train of abuse and labeled a “habitual runaway”, Crystal Faragher became a high school drop-out and struggled to keep a job. At that time, she slept in graveyards and gas station bathrooms with her foot up against the door to prevent unexpected visitors. After meeting her husband, Edwin Faragher, and hearing all about the hometown he held so dear to his heart, Crystal and her husband made the 3-day journey from Florida to Walla Walla, 20 years ago this year.

In her new home, Crystal saw snow and mountains for the very first time; her husband giggled as she struggled for hours trying to build her first snow man. Grandma and Grandpa Faragher, who had retired from Bell South as a Plug-In Operator and the Washington State Penitentiary, respectively, and showed them how to adjust in the Valley. Crystal made sure to have jobs for both of them upon arrival home, and Crystal started her first job at the Subway on South Main Street.

Both Crystal and Ed attained their GEDs with Crystal scoring unusually high in Mathematics. She started at Walla Walla Community College the following Fall Quarter where she won the “Most Persistent Award” for maintaining a 4.0 GPA while parenting her 18-month old daughter and pregnant with her unborn son! Crystal went on to graduate with a Bachelor of Business Administration at Walla Walla University, where she met her “compassionate and genuinely graceful” mentor, Bruce Toews. She worked as an Excel Lab Assistant and did her internship at William D McCool’s Law Office; let it be known that, even 10 years later, McCool still works with Crystal for his internal auditing services! After graduation, she applied at 1040 Tax Consulting and worked there for one year, becoming an IRS Certified Enrolled Agent. While working with Bob Stuart, they started attending the Milton-Freewater Seventh-Day Adventist Church and got baptized there together at the same time; “I’m moving forward. This Valley has helped me grow!” And, in 2015, Crystal took the leap and has since owned and operated her LLC within her home in Milton-Freewater and opened a brick-and-mortar office in Pasco.

Having lived the experience of extreme poverty, Crystal named her business “Affordable Taxes” and stands by her mantra of keeping as much money as possible in the pockets of individuals and businesses. “I will not nickel and dime my Clients; I’m going to take care of them. They are valuable to me and that’s what I’m putting out there.” Crystal specializes in personal, small business, partnership, and corporate Federal and State Tax Returns. She’s not currently offering Quickbooks services but plans to have that service in the next year.

In the last few years, Crystal began a health journey (to accompany all the other life journeys) and is now an award-winning State Champion Record holder in Powerlifting! On this journey, she met her Rebeca Dighero, and they became fast friends. Crystal recently contracted Rebecca as her Marketing and Social Media Manager, who is working on becoming a Certified Personal Trainer. Like Crystal, Math was always Rebeca’s favorite subject in school and, being bilingual, is enabling Affordable Taxes to traverse the language barrier and reach new audiences! “With the training, we have so much on our plates being wives, being moms, keeping a house clean, running a business, building up capital. What can we do, and stay in business, so that our Client’s businesses can grow? That’s my mission.”

While she’s open by appointment-only for now, look for Crystal’s Affordable Taxes brick-and-mortar location coming to Milton-Freewater. “We want to have people be able to come in, ask questions, have someone to talk to, hold accountable, and know that they’re going to be taken care of.”

Get ahold of Crystal by emailing her at crystalsaffordabletaxes@gmail.com