All I needed was lendability.
I made it to 40 without having much money saved ever. (Probably never more than 1k)
Tried for a pension in the marines. But they downsized after desert storm.
Tried again for a pension in law enforcement. But was laid off in 2008 because of the recession.
So, I decided to make my own pension and never made more than 50k a year until the last couple.
I got a job at a CDL school making $17 an hour.
Single dad with three kids.
Found out about 89k in bad debt I didn’t know about until the divorce.
Financial independence took 8 years.
And I retired last year at 52 after 12 years of investing.
Here is the cliff notes version of reaching Fi.
1) moved from my house into an apartment and rented out the house.
This allowed me to get rental income on two years tax returns to get around the bad dti issue. And to get two years income in the new field. Allowing me to get more mortgages.
2) at two years I purchased a duplex. Moved into one side and rented out the other. This lowered my housing costs by $1200 a month. Increasing my saving rate.
3) two years later another duplex. (Not owner occupied) then 1.5 years later another.
After 5-6 years the trick was not increasing my spending and focusing the additional cash flow into more rentals.
Here is what the portfolio looked like when I retired last year:
– 7 properties.
– 16 units.
– 17k profit each month after all expenses and setting aside for future expenses.
I recently closed on another duplex but don’t really plan on acquiring more. But the money keeps piling up so I’ll probably buy one every couple years.
Now my kids will inherit millions instead of a dad they have to take care of when I’m too old to work.
It takes me a little less than two hours a month to manage the rentals. Which is a lot better than the 50-60 hours a week at the CDL school.
It does help that I developed the binder strategy. This strategy gets my tenants to ask me to raise the rents. Which made finding cash flowing deals from the mls a lot easier.
There are many paths to Fi. What matters is you pick a path that excites you. We are more likely to stick to a plan we are emotionally invested in.
