Welcome!

The Beginning of My Story

Good debt? Bad debt? It’s still debt.  As I write this first post, my debt is at $161,000, with a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit), a 401k loan and a mortgage. I have $9,000 in savings, $6,500 in CDs, $8,000 in investments and $75,000 in retirement accounts. My net worth is -$27,978. For the first time in years, I have debt outside of my mortgage. In fact, as I begin my journey to financial freedom, I’m in the most debt I have ever been. And I’m okay with it.

Breaking It Down

Let me explain. $62,000 of that debt, the HELOC and 401k loan to be exact, were generated to kick-start my new path to freedom through real estate. Could I have kept saving until I had enough without loans? Yes. Could I have waited? Yes. But as my business partner and I eagerly await a closing date for our first rental property, I have no regrets. I took on this debt to jump-start a real estate business with the dream of having extra income to buy all of the things I want. I have been calling them the Big Four – but we’ll get to those. Most recently, I want to use rental income, and any other businesses I can generate, as the starting points to my new goal: financial freedom.

Will I be successful? Or will I crash and burn? Follow me on this journey and let’s do it together!

Goals

Financial freedom is a new goal for me. At age 31, my life philosophy has been work hard, play hard. That’s how I was raised and that is how I live. At the moment, my income sources are:

• One full time job
• One part time job
• Plasma donations
• MTurk Tasks 

I work hard, but I also travel, spend time with friends, boyfriend and family. I check out new breweries, attend local events and enjoy dinners out. With my new financial focus, I am going to continue to work hard, so in the future I can be financially free and play even harder.

How I Got Here

Let me explain the path that led me to this awakening. I have been working since I was a child. Don’ worry, my parents owned a business,so no labor laws were broken. I always worked, and I could always afford things. While friends had to pick and choose events based on their allowances, I could attend them all. When I was in high school, I was able to take a class trip to Spain and put a down payment on a car. From there, I just kept working and spending.

I have never enjoyed debt. I don’t like the idea of it, but I have always used it. I use it in a way that Dave Ramsey says not to. I use it to get things now, and then have to pay the debt back. But even though I use this system, I hate it. I would pay all of my loans off as fast as I could.

• Car loan-paid off in two years
• Solar panels loan- one year
• Student loans-gone in three years

 Taking on debt would bring out a desire to get rid of it. That desire was much stronger than the desire to save, so while it is not logical, and it costs me more in the long run, I continue to follow my vicious cycle of taking out a loan and paying it off as fast as possible. It’s the same philosophy that caused me to take out both a HELOC and 401k loan, instead of spending the next few years saving up money for a rental business. But I’m jumping ahead of myself.

My Path

After graduating college, I was working part time and living with my parents. I was 23 when I got my first full-time job. Since I loved my part-time jobI decided to keep it to pay off my student loans and save for a down payment on a house. I had to get a car loan unexpectedly when my car died. Within a couple of years of my first full-time job, I had a newer used car and a cute little house.

After that, working both jobs continued. I paid off my car and put some extra money on my house. I bought solar panels, and then paid off that loan. Along the way, I started to want things. My house is nice, but it’s not what I imagined my forever home to be. I have solar panels, and would love to have an electric car. I enjoy outdoor activities, so that means I should get 30+ acres of land! I love to travel, so why not look for a vacation home?

My journey isn’t going to be like some of the others I have read. I don’t want to be extremely frugal. I don’t want to live on $20,000 a year. I want things. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need a $10 million home with someone to clean it. I want to generate passive income to fund the life I want to live.

Reality Sinking In

In my late 20s, reality began to hit. 

1. I would research my dream homes and realize I needed to save for years to afford one. 
2. With the amount of land I want, I can forget ever affording it. 
3. There is a good chance I will have an electric vehicle one day, but likely not the expensive truck I like. 
4. And if I were to save up and buy one of those three? Forget having a vacation home. 

If I save and save and save, I could stretch to getting two of those things by the time I retire. If I do well, and keep my second job, I could maybe buy a third ticket item in my 60s. But all four? Realistically, I’m probably never going to have more than two of them.

The Big Four

I call these my Big Four. The four big ticket items that I want. As I continued to go over my finances, it became more and more obvious I had to pick just one. I alternated between them weekly, sometimes daily, and in the meantime, I kept saving. I was saving, but I didn’t know what for. I wasn’t sure which I would pick. And then one day it hit me: Why choose?

Despite all of the working and saving, my Big Four seemed so out of reach. I wasn’t pushing myself to save more. I couldn’t decide which I wanted more, so I didn’t have anything to drive me. And then real estate was brought up to me again. Someone mentioned it briefly, and this third time, it clicked. I began to research and learn. I read books, listened to podcasts, and met with family members who owned rentals. I devoured information, decided I was committed, and began planning. I had about $18,000 saved up. I found a business partner. As I learned more and more, I began to think of the impossible. If we could get enough properties, I could generate enough income to buy all four of my Big Four items one day. 

Learning

I listened to over 200 real estate podcasts and read 12 books. I was deep in real estate learning, and I kept hearing about financial freedom. That’s not my goal, I thought; I just want to be able to afford the Big Four. I have a great job with healthcare and a pension. I’d be living the good life.

Then one day, I decided to give a podcast about financial freedom a listen.

And I was HOOKED.

I can have my Big Four and not work? I can spend my time hopping between my vacation home, my land, and cruising back to my forever home in my electric truck and not have to get up at 5:30 a.m.? I can go to yoga at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday? I wouldn’t have to worry about how to get to work when my car is in the shop? I can spend all day with my bunny? What is this life?

Hope for the Future

Financial freedom. The possibilities became overwhelming. How could I achieve this? I found that I’m already doing at least one thing right. Real estate is a major footpath to gaining financial freedom. Investing, frugality, starting successful businesses and real estate are some of the top ways I’ve discovered are successful at building wealth. I’m already on the right path being (hopefully) days away from closing on my (and my partner’s) first rental property. But wealth isn’t built in a day.

And so, this blog has been started. Follow along with me while I learn, make (hopefully) smart financial choices, and stumble through any financial mistakes. Follow along while I build the original Big Four and hit Financial Freedom. Oh, and see pictures of my adorable bunny. 

This journey is not just for me; it’s for all of us. Learn with me, grow with me, and keep pushing with me to see if you, too, can reach your financial goals.

I’ll end my first post with this, my new motto: work smarter, play even harder.