BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 197: 4 Children, a Lower Income, and STILL Hitting Financial Independence

Episode Date: May 17, 2021

There are a lot of excuses we hear from people as to why they can’t reach financial independence. They needed that new car, they needed that nicer apartment, they needed the expensive vacations. Often, this is what we hear from people making a high income, unlike today’s guest, non-profit worker Nate Forbes. Nate knew that he liked working jobs that tended to pay less, and with the support of his wife, he stayed at them. When his wife was ready to be a stay-at-home mom, Nate took a job with more pay but was by no means a high-income position. Even with Nate being the only breadwinner for the family, he and his wife were able to max out their retirement accounts, buy rental properties, and start doing BRRRRs. Since Nate was raised with strong frugality and not much of a consumer mindset, he’s used to living below his means, but his story of wealth accumulation is truly inspiring. From selling vintage clothing to living in a collective household, to hunting down an early 90s Honda Civic to get 50mpg on long commutes, Nate has done almost everything he can to live a life he loves all while reaching “coast” FI! In This Episode We Cover The importance of early financial education for young children Living below your means and striving to invest every year you can Keeping the job you love and finding ways to make more money on the side Maxing out your Roth and other retirement accounts BRRRR investing and doing live-in flips Realizing that life isn’t about math, and leverage may not be necessary for success And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Scott's Instagram Mindy's Twitter Fuel Economy Dave Ramsey Mr. Money Mustache Mad Fientist Check the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/moneyshow197 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, show number 197, where we interview Nate Forbes and talk about saving for retirement with a big family on a low income. I agree mathematically. That's the way to go. But life isn't all about math, you know. And for us, yeah, for us, it's like kind of what I mentioned, like the whole life circumstances are we don't have any energy. We're tapped out, you know. And we're living. and seeing what can happen overnight, made me think about tomorrow. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my legendary co-host, Scott Trench. You're always labeling me, Mindy.

He'll get me. Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe that financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. That's right.

whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big-time investments in assets like real estate, start your own business, or just pay off a small rental property portfolio and buy relatively early. We'll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so that you can launch yourself towards those dreams.

Scott, I am so excited to talk to Nate today. I met Nate in our Facebook group. And if you're not part of our Facebook group, you should be. You can go to facebook.com slash groups slash BPMoney or just search up BPMoney. money on Facebook and join our group and talk with your fellow frugal weirdos about different aspects of your financial education, your financial situation and see what other people who are like-minded can do or would do in your situation. And I met Nate because he posted that he had just paid

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Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.com slash BP money. Nate Forbes. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you today. I can't wait to jump into your story. Well, thanks for having me. I'm a big fan and this is awesome.

Glad to be here. Let's jump right into it. Let's talk about your money journey. Where does your story with money begin? Well, I think it probably just growing up watching your family, watching your parents and how they do things. I think for my for me watching my parents, they started on two incomes, but when I was born, my mom was at home and she just stayed at home with us the whole time growing up. My dad worked for a nonprofit, so we weren't making much money, but they were always, we always had plenty and we always had enough.

I remember them listening to, I think it was Larry Burkett on the radio, and it was always part of our life. So I think just watching my parents and how they dealt with money and how they weren't stingy, even though they didn't have a lot. So I think that was probably the biggest part of my journey starting. It was just seeing how they manage money. And let's talk about your experiences in high school and college. Yeah, high school. Well, on the same lines, you know, I worked in high school.

I have to earn money and save up for college. I knew that was coming. So my parents said, we'll help you as much as we can. But we don't want you to go into debt going into college. you might want to start saving. So I worked as a janitor for a while and then worked at a restaurant and then through college I worked at all sorts of different places. And together, you know, between my parents and me, we were able to get through college without any debt, which is unreal these days. And I think it was a huge start for my future. Yeah, that's enormous.

So what is your college degree in? It's a Bachelor of Science in Theology, which is like a It's like what most pastors would do. I didn't really want to be a pastor, but I was interested in learning about those kind of things. So I really haven't done much with it other than school, but that's kind of how most degrees are anyhow. Yeah, I have a degree in fashion design, and I work for a real estate education, internet startup, and host a podcast about money. So my college degree really got me nothing. You're very fashionable, Mindy. What was your position upon graduating?

You had no debt. Did you have any cash? And what kind of job were you able to get? Yeah, I think I had a, well, I didn't have a car. I had just failed on me. I had a Volkswagen bus and it had just caught fire on a road trip, which was, you know, kind of, I got a nice picture of the van on flames behind us, yeah. But I didn't have a vehicle, but didn't have any debt.

I think I had like maybe $2,000, not really. I wasn't really thinking about money too much, to be honest, because my first job was an internship where I had a place to live at a camp, like a camp that I was helped run running. And I think I made $5,000 that year. So it was basically a volunteer position. All right. Yeah, where does your, where is your kind of money story kind of like, where do you get your kind of first job and you go, I don't even know how to, yeah, $5,000 is, as, did you kick on any debt with this position? No, I had a place to live. And so, you know, it was a camp and they had food.

So I got to eat at, you know, the camp. And I had hired some staff. I was like in charge of the summer staff. And I realized that they were making more money than I did in the, you know, per hour. But yeah, no, it was for me, I wasn't married yet. So I was just kind of doing what I wanted to do. And that's kind of what you get to do when you don't have debt. And you can take care of your needs.

So I was passionate. about being, that's true, you know, doing things that I was passionate about. That's a luxury, that's the advantage of a graduate and debt free. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I didn't have any overhead. Yeah, that's a wonderful. That sounds like a wonderful year or two. What was the next phase? I had been working at these camps for like in high school and college. And at that age, I was just out of college. So I was supposed to hire some college A staff. And so I basically hired all my friends that I had worked with in the past years, one of them being my future wife. So after that year, we got, I started dating her and

then we didn't date long because we'd known each other for several years, got married quickly after that. And I moved near her family so that I could get to know her parents. They, they would know me. And we just, uh, we're working like coffee shop and just like random jobs that were short term because no one wanted to hire me for, uh, for longer than that because I knew that I was only there temporarily. We get married and we didn't have any good job. So I'm like, well, let's just move somewhere. So we decided to move to Pennsylvania where I'd gone to college. Didn't have any jobs or any place to live or anything. So we just headed out road tripping. And my wife had to secure a place on Craigslist. We were house-stitting. So we were house-steading for somebody that didn't even know

us. I don't know if I'd recommend that or not, but we stayed there for a month and just started looking for jobs. I got a job doing carpentry and my wife got a job working at a doctor's office. And we did that for about a year and then got back into camp. So I just love camp. I love being outside. I love being with kids. And we headed back to Oregon, which where we're at now. And I got a job at a nonprofit there, I think started out at like $25,000, which, you know, isn't much for, I mean, it's a living wage, I guess. But, you know, it's not much. to try to save and try to get financially free. I don't know.

But yeah. So what, you know, at this point, when you get this job at the nonprofit, you know, several years have gone by, you've gotten married. You've, you've really kind of just taken whatever jobs are available based on factors that really have nothing to do with money. It doesn't seem like a priority there. But what's the, what's the position that you're in there? Were you able to save anything?

It's, did you have any debt? Well, before I got married, I told my wife, you know, there's there's the vows that you take, you know, in riches and poorer, you know, being poorer. And I'm like, let's focus on that poor one because that's the kind of jobs I like to do are the ones that don't make any money. Are you up for that, you know? And she's like, she's, she's like, no problem. I love that you are passionate about what you're doing and let's do this, you know. And so, yeah, money wasn't the main factor at that point. And that was nice because we didn't have any debt and we weren't accumulating any debt, but we really weren't

gained much traction on on you know income at all or any savings we had maybe like a couple thousand dollars in savings but we didn't have any credit card debt we used you know we used cars the old cars and did everything ourselves it was just kind of like bootstrapping it but it was fun and that's what we were at that first year and then we ran into this uh seminar dave ramsie and i was looking at that I'm like, you know, I think we could, my wife was working too. I'm like, I think we could maybe front end just save as much as we can towards retirement. And then maybe once we have kids and we're making less income, maybe we could just quit retire, you know, putting money towards retirement.

But maybe we could actually retire. You know, before that, I was thinking, I'm just going to work until I die and do stuff I like doing and not even think about retirement, which is kind of looking back wasn't the smartest thought, but that's what I was thinking. But once you saw Dave Ramsey, I'm like, you see the chart of a guy that starts contributing to his retirement earlier than the other person. I'm like, well, we're starting early and we can just max everything out and just live really cheap. We were living in a one-bedroom room.

We were in a house that was like a common house, like a bunch of people lived together. We had a house, a bedroom with a bathroom, but we were living with a bunch of other people. We were sharing meals. So it was really like 300 bucks a month, I think. And then I think $40 a month or $50 a month for groceries. So our costs were super, super low. So at that point, when I was working at that camp. And what year is it that you're, like, this is, how old are you guys?

And what year is this? 2007. I'm not sure how old I was. I'm 40 now. I just turned 40. But yeah, 2007. So that was 14 years ago because my daughter was born in 2007. Okay.

So in 2007, you're sitting there, and that's when you, you know, go to the Dave Ramsey's seminar and begin kind of this new trajectory with your finances. Yeah. Yep. And so we saved everything my wife made and some of mine. We had a company match. I think I put in, I think 3%, and then they would double that. So they would put in like an additional 6%.

So we did that for her job and my job because she was working. The camp was owned by a university. So she worked for the university. I worked for the camp. And there is a nonprofit university and in camp. So we saved all. I think we were maxing out Roths and saving some money for a house. But housing was like in Oregon at that point.

I think the cheapest house is about $300,000. And when you're making $25,000, well, and my wife's income, we were saving hers. But you know, you're not going to be able to buy that kind of house. And then the market crashed and we were able to buy a house because we've been saving up a down payment. Which is cool. We were actually the lowest offer for the house. There's like five offers the first week. and we just put our picture in there and we're like telling our story kind of like you know we

we love the the house basically you know the realtor told us to do it and we did it and it and they went with the lowest offer which is us which is pretty cool but it is a big blessing for sure so so this is one year this is one year after kind of the your your focus on finances with after the dave ramsing seminars you're able to save up enough to pay to be the lowest offer uh but the winning offer on this on this house yeah i think it was actually, let me look here. I think that was 2007 when we started. So I think it was 2009. So it was about two years. We started renting a regular house, but that was like $545. We got a sweet deal on that too. Yeah. And then in 2011 is when we actually purchased our first house. And so yeah, so we're still

working at the nonprofit, still saving money. My wife got pregnant that 2009. And so we both grew up. our parents, you know, one income, even though it was just, you know, that's kind of how we grew up. And it was kind of a nice way for, we enjoyed growing up with our moms at home and it was more peaceful than what we were seeing out in the world where everyone's working tons of jobs and it's just a little stressful. So we decided, even though we're not going to save as much money or whatever, it was more part of our values to have somebody at home with the kids, at least at the beginning. and we've just kept doing that, actually.

My wife's still at home, and we've still been able to save money. So, yeah, at that point, that's when I kind of got a little bit more focused when we had our first kid. I'm like, you know, I was reading every book. I was reading like J.D.'s Roth's blog and Get Rich Slowly and all sorts of other stuff. We were just kind of focused more on that. But then my job got a little bit crazier. They let my boss go and they wanted me to do that job. We had another baby.

And I'm like, I was just looking. I'm like, I don't know if we can do this. So we started looking around and then talking to family and friends. And my father and I was like, well, I've got a position. Do you want to try it for a year? And so I'm like, okay, let's do it. And so I've been doing that for the last, I guess, 10 years now. What are you doing at this job when your first kids were born?

Was that carpentry still? Oh, I did carpentry in Pennsylvania. And then I moved back to Oregon and we started running a camp. So I was like a camp director for day camp. And so I was hiring all the staff, doing all the curriculum and that kind of thing. Got it. And during that time while you're a camp director, that's when you're resetting the position, beginning to max out the retirement accounts, you and your wife are both working.

Then she begins to stay home after your first one is born. And now you're looking for ways to raise the income with baby number two on the way. And that's when you make this shift to work for the father-in-law. Yeah, it's partially income, partially just the situation at work. It was getting a little stressful. I was working about, with nonprofits, you work like 50, 60 hours. And, you know, it's just really hard to do that with a new baby. And, yeah, I was just kind of feeling stretched at all ends.

So, but we were saving the whole time. And a big part of it was just frugality, you know. We were, yeah, use cars. We, we, for our shopping at our, at thrift store, we'd go to this place called the Goodwill by the pound. is like a Goodwill outlet and you'd go in there and you have gloves. I love the Goodwill outlet. Yeah.

Craziest place ever. So we would just like get all our clothes, all our baby clothes, all of our clothes. And I would search for like vintage clothes. And so we'd find all these, I found all these vintage clothes. And then I would take them to the vintage resale shop

and they'd give me money for the vintage clothes I found. And that would pay for our shopping trip and maybe a little bit extra. So that was kind of fun. You know, our vacations, camping out. We would be house sitting, you know, we wouldn't really do any crazy vacations. We'd go visit family, that kind of thing. So we just live the frugal life and we still do.

And I think that's a big part of our success for sure. I think that's a huge part of your success. I'm hearing you say, you know, well, I didn't make a lot of money, but I didn't have any credit card debt. So we weren't, you're saving for retirement and we weren't, you know, in the beginning, we weren't really doing much to further ourselves. You were doing a lot to further yourself because you weren't collecting credit card debt. You weren't trying to keep up with the Joneses. You weren't trying to be this consumer that a lot of Americans are.

So you were doing a lot for yourself and discovering Dave Ramsey, his baby steps are great. I like the first three. You know, we split paths after the first three, but they're really, really powerful when you get yourself in a position where you are not accumulating debt. because then instead of being able to save anything, you're paying off this debt or just accumulating more and not saving it all anyway. So you are doing really, really well. You have two kids, a stay-at-home mom, and you're still saving for retirement. You mentioned, I know I've said this on the show before, but you mentioned that you saw this thing with Dave Ramsey that one person puts in this much money and starts saving early, whereas another person puts in more and starts saving a little bit later. I read that too when you, like if you start from age 22 to 30, you put in, you know, X number of dollars per week or per month, you will have more money at retirement than the person

who starts at 30 puts in 2x and continues until 65. Like the power of compound interest is so enormous. The earlier you start, the better off you are. And it sounds like you started what in your early 20s, your mid-20s, you started saving for retirement? Yeah, and I think they had a certain percentage with Dave Ramsey, like how much percentage of your income you should do. And I, we just didn't know, are we going to be able to keep doing that? If we're going to work in nonprofits, are we going to be able to keep putting money aside?

So let's just max out even more than the percentage. Let's just do as much as we can front end. And then we won't have to do it in the back end if we don't, if we aren't able to. I love that mindset. We looked at that. So when you, when you are switching your job, At this point, this is like 2011, 2012, is that we're talking about with the job switch? Yeah, yeah.

That was 2011. Does that involve a move? Yeah, well, it didn't at first. So work was about an hour and a half away. So I was doing a big commute. So whenever we have a new thing, we kind of look around and see, well, what's the cheapest way to make this happen? Which wasn't commuting, obviously. But we had just refinanced the house and we were not sure.

sure we were going to keep the job for longer than a year. It was just kind of a trial basis. So there's a website called the fuel economy.gov. And so you can look at all sorts of different cars on there. And so I found this, the 1992 Honda Civic hatchback, you can get like close to 50 miles to the gallon. You know, in 1992, it seems like a, you know, kind of a crazy amount of mileage per gallon. But anyhow, you can kind of search around on that website. And so that's how we got the car for that for the commute but eventually moved to uh to where where i'm working here and about five miles away two miles away something like that but how did that how did that change the game for you was that a better income situation where you you know what was what were the advantages of

the of the job switch yeah no i mean uh it was it was probably close to double what we were what i was getting paid at at the nonprofit so yeah we just started saving more obviously you know we're used to you know staying staying low in our in our expenses and that was really tight and we just kind of kept it tight as long as we could and then you know now we have four kids and expenses are getting up and we are probably loosening it up a little bit when you have more kids and more responsibilities that kind of you do have to kind of open up that a little bit so we have we have eased up some on the the spending front as you are investing what are you or as you're as you're as you're saving money

where are you putting it? So mostly we were doing Roth IRAs, and then I found the Mr. Money Mustache site, and then I found MedFcientist, and then we started doing just regular index funds and like the 401K contributions to and HSA. So we started doing all that for a couple of years, and then I think real estate,

we'd done well on the first house. we had sold that one to move to this new house and we made made some good money just because of the market and because of kind of forced appreciation we were we kind of fixed it up quite a bit bought a foreclosure where we're at now and did the same thing and uh yeah i don't know how we i don't know how we got into eventually i saw some stuff out in michigan where i grew up and i'm like you know that's those are really cheap houses and the rent is like the same as it is out here in Oregon. So we started looking out there. And that's kind of where our, our kind of our investment changed a little bit. During this period, you know, from from 2007, when you kind of begin

changing your trajectory with money and all that, what do you think, what would you kind of say on average you're putting away per month through that period? And can you give us like highlights of the highs and lows there? You know, I don't know the actual dollar amount, to be honest. I know we were maxing out our IRAs, so that would be like $11,500,000, $5,500 each, and then money towards HSA, money towards just saving. So, yeah, we were saving as much as we could, and I don't even know what that was, but we were also living and giving and that kind of thing, too. So I don't really know the numbers more of a general person than a specific.

Well, fair enough, but I want to point out a couple of big levers here. One, it sounds like you're living very frugally the entire time, even with, even with the kids relatively, in a relative sense there. Second, you did a live-in flip, which probably added 50 to 100, maybe plus in a nice add-on to your wealth there. It sounds like you've done that at least twice now with the second home that we're in the middle of discussing with this kind of stuff. You're maxing, you have a pretty good approach with the Roth IRAs. And the point I want to make is that there's no event here in this, in this journey that we've had so far. It's a process that's very gradual and very repeatable. Nothing special, financially speaking, about the story, which I think is really powerful in a lot of ways.

You're just following a very proven process over a so far, five, six year period and amassing what I imagine to be a several hundred, perhaps close to a quarter million dollar net worth at this point, at this point in the story, through this. So I admire it, and I think it's really cool. How simple, if not easy, but how simple the approach is. Hey, we looked at the best car and bought it on the website. What an idea. I love it. But, you know, most people just don't do that. You're doing it for the efficiencies, the efficiency point of view.

Yeah, I think we looked at it as we want to, you know, have one person at home, and that's not normal. And we want to do kind of what our values are. So we, instead of trying to earn more money by having both of us work, let's just be frugal. Well, that's, that's meal plan. Let's, you know, let's do everything that you guys talk about on the podcast. Let's, let's do that. And, you know, we read books. My mic's sitting on one right now.

It's called the complete tight wide gazette by Amy Daxon. That was what I got it from the library just now. Because it reminded me what we used to do. Like, we still do. But we read a, and all the stuff we could about how to be frugal. And we just kind of went down that path. And it's actually really fun. It's kind of a game.

It is a game. Yeah. And when you have kids, it kind of just simplifies your life anyhow. What do you do for entertainment? I mean, how expensive is it to go to the park? You know, to get on a bike. It's not. You just, you know, kids kind of make it simple.

So I like that about having kids and a lot of joy and just a lot of fun. The kids are the entertainment. Exactly. Yep. They're hilarious. They come up with like some of the craziest things. They don't have these, you know, societal. norms, they just say whatever comes out of their mouth. And you're like, oh, my goodness, that was

hilarious. Write them all down too, because they all of a sudden, you forget all the cute things that they say, but they're hilarious. I have had friends who, you know, oh, my kids in this and this, and this and this and, you know, gymnastics and soccer and all these things. I'm like, that sounds like such a difficult life as an adult. Like, you have to manage all this stuff. Just take them to the park. They love it. They run around. They play on the swings. Oh, my goodness, I can have pushed my daughter for 30 hours on the swing and she would still say more. So exactly, how much does that cost? It's nothing. You just walk down there or drive if it's, you know, really far away. But yeah, it doesn't have to be expensive. And I think that that frugality sometimes

gets, it gets a bad rap. Like, oh, I have to give up everything. You seem like a really happy person. You seem like you have all the things that you want. I want to be outdoors. Well, being outdoors doesn't pay so much. Okay, so then I just won't buy so much stuff. Or I'll figure out a way to pay for it so I can still have it. Like, I want to have clothes and I found these super cool vintage clothes, so I'm going to sell them and get enough money to pay for all the things that I bought. It's a net. It's a net. It's a wash, I guess. It's not a net anything. It's just a wash. So it's a net win because now you don't have to pay for your clothes. And your housing, you lived with roommates. And some people are like, oh, I can never do that. Well, what is the saying?

Scott, if you live like no other now so you can live like no other later or something like that? I think he's, I think Nate probably does the Dave, the Dave Ramsey quote for that better than us. Yeah. You got it. That's right. If you can live like no one else, then you later on, you can live like no one else, I think is something like that. Yep. So I'm hearing this story of this guy who's making $25,000 a year and his wife is making a little bit too.

And then now you said that you doubled your income. So now you're at 50,000. And a lot of people listening are like, well, I'm not. more than that and I still can't save any money because, you know, I have to buy all these things. You really don't have to buy all these things. You choose to buy all these things. So Nate is figuring out ways to have it without paying for it and also not stealing it, right? Right. Well, so overnight in just six short years, you have constructed a several hundred thousand dollar net worth, I presume, at this point with this and you're in a middle of, you're just made a move to be

closer to your new job, an hour and a half away from where you were living previously. Is that where we were on the story? Yep. Yep. So for a while, I tried riding my bike and I realized that wasn't for me. It started raining in. And I'm like, okay, I can't cut that out. But for most of our life, we had just one car.

But then with kids and everything, we just ended up doing two cars. But we never paid more than $4,000 for a car. You know, we don't have the Toyota Corolla like everyone's supposed to, you know, but we got the Avalon. So we're a little bit more, you know, fancy. Ooh, boozy. Right. So no, yeah, just kind of cheap cars and they run well.

And if they break, it's cheaper than a payment. So we kind of just go that way. And yeah, eventually we had a friend that was doing real estate and I was seeing stuff in Michigan. And we were thinking about doing another living flip with this house that we're in now. But it's perfect for us. And you're in Oregon at this point, right? Yep, yep. It's got a, yeah, has a great yard and we're in Oregon. Yeah, loving it. Close to the park. There's like a pool like right across the street. I mean, it's really a great place for our family. So we didn't really want to flip it. We want it like, where are we going to go? Like this is kind of perfect for us. And we're homeschooling the kids and stuff. So like, you need the yard, you know, you need, you need what we have here. So we're kind of like really at a struggle, what to do with it. So we ended up refinancing the house and able to have enough cash to go. get our first burr in Michigan.

And that started our real estate adventure. And that was probably, when was that, got that written down here. That was in 2017. So between then and between where we just were in the story and 2017, four years have gone by in this new job, is that right? Yeah. And all that time, you're just continuing to save money and the savings rate is increasing as you're closer to work and contributing the Roth,

anything. Yeah, we were on kind of the Mr. Money mustache path, just index funds. And that's a blog. We found that blog and we just say, oh, this is, I can really, you know, I wasn't sure how long I'd do this job. I'm like, maybe we'll get back to nonprofits and let's just focus on, you know, saving now and we don't have to work about it later. And then once we realized, oh, you don't have to put any more money towards retirement.

If we stopped right now, it's kind of like that Coast Five, which I hadn't heard about until recently. But, yeah, you look at that and you're like, yeah, we could just stop putting that towards traditional retirement. When was that moment for you? I think that was like 2014, 15, something like that. So did you stop contributing or did you continue? Oh, we kept contributing and then, yeah, that's all we did.

That's what we did, kept contributing. And then we put some just in regular index funds, not in the traditional retirement accounts at that point. Well, I know you're skipping ahead to the real estate stuff, which we want to get to for sure. But what I want to point out here is like, okay, we started in 2007 and in 2014, you reach CoastFi. And it doesn't sound like you brought home like a huge income here over 100 grand at any point during this. Is that right?

Right. And you're just slogging it out with, we call it the grind with the, you're just grinding it out over the period of years. But you're living your life. It seems like you're happy with everything that's going on with that. And you're stockpiling tens of thousands per year, it seems like, in wealth in this, that's compounding in a pretty meaningful way over this. And this is the not exciting part of the financial journey,

which is why you're trying to get to the burr on this. But this is the important stuff. Like all the, like this is you, you are getting rich in a really unexciting, highly repeatable fashion here over this period of seven years that we just discussed. And it's because you're incredibly strong fundamentals that you're then able to begin slowly amassing an incredibly, a financial fortress that makes you feel ready to take the next step with the real estate. Is this, am I going too far with any of that?

Or is that generally the picture? Yeah, no. It really didn't feel like a slog, though. You know, it just felt like life. And we were having fun. And yeah, I think a big part of it was just how I grew up, you know, we didn't have a ton. But we didn't need a ton. Our life was very full.

And I think a big part of it growing up that I try to emulate now is that my parents were just completely open and giving. And so they had a lot of community. You know, they were, they're part of the community. They're giving to the community. Didn't feel like we were missing anything. And that's how we still feel now. That's kind of how we live now and just don't feel like we're missing anything.

And I honestly don't think our life will change. We're just living our life, you know? But it's, but with a future. I think it's fantastic. And frankly, I'm, I am a little envious there because, I've always liked my job here at Baker Pockets, of course, with that. But like the way I viewed it at first, and I think a lot of people view it is they don't really like their job and they're looking forward to the day they can quit and become financially independent with that. And so it is a grind or a slog for those couple of years.

But what you just went through with that because they're just stockpiling money and you have to do that for a period of years until you get past the hurdle, the coast fire, lean fire, whatever it is that you're looking for as your end target there. But you're like, no, this was automatic. We did exactly what we wanted to do and got pretty rich at the same time by just doing a lot of the basics right. So I love that. But I just wanted to point out that there were four years that went by prior to your real estate investment of you applying great fundamentals and enjoying your life. And that, I think, is an important thing to just point out before we get to the real estate journey. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole. thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see

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series. Now streaming on Disney Plus. A superhero remake. Not exactly what we'd expect from an Oscar winning director. Action! Simon Williams. Audition for Wonder Man. I'm going to need you to sign this. Assuming you don't have superpowers. I'll never work again if anyone found out. My lips are sealed. Marvel Television's Wonder Man. All eight episodes now streaming, only on Disney Plus. Well, I want to define Coast FI for people who are listening who may not have heard this topic. Nate, what does Coast FI mean to you? I think it's where you have enough saved up that you don't have to worry about retirement. I mean, some people have a certain date before 65 or something, but I think for us, we're looking at if we quit contributing, we can still live in our current income at age 65 and take out 4% and be able to survive on what we're living on.

which was, you know, which isn't a lot. So it wasn't really, I think that's part of it. The less you live on, the less you have to save up for your retirement. So you can't quit your job to sustain your lifestyle right now, but you can stop contributing anything to retirement and you'd be set at retirement. So you can take a lot less income to live your life today because you don't have to contribute to retirement anymore. Right.

And that's kind of what we were looking at with the whole, when I saw that day of Ramsey chart, comparing the two. we're trying to reach that place so that if we did have you know we're still open to whatever life's going to throw at us and where we want to head what kind of jobs we want to do right now it's great and work with my father-in-law and I'm seeing a big value in that being able to work with family just so this is my dad this year has made me think more about that so to be able to work with my father-in-law is pretty amazing opportunity just to have that relationship so yeah but yeah you're right. I got sidetrack there a little bit. I want to put a link to that Dave Ramsey picture

that you're talking about, the Dave Ramsey graphs in the show notes for this episode, which can be found at biggerpockets.com slash money show 197. Because I want people to see just how powerful the compound interest is. It's like I know what graph you're talking about and it is, well, it was mind-blowing to me. I don't know, maybe other people. One minor nitpicked there. I love that. that chart knows exactly what we're referring to where, hey, if you contribute for 10 years in your 20s at whatever, a thousand bucks a month or 100 bucks a month or something, 200, I forget the number, then you'll have more wealth than the person who contributed the exact same amount over the next 30 years at the end of retirement. Just note that that assumes, I think,

I generally believe high percentage. Yeah, he assumes a 12% return on your money. And that's not true. That same phenomenon is not true with those numbers if the return is seven. percent versus 12 percent, for example. So know that there's some nuance to look at, but in general, that's, I think it's a very, very powerful concept to think about. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, that percentage is pretty high. Yeah, it's awesome.

Yeah. So you look to Michigan. You have, you said you did your first burr, and for people who are not familiar with that term, that stands, that's an acronym that stands for, let me get it right, buy, rehab, rent, refinance, repeat. So basically you're buying a house that is in disrepair or outdated. You rehab it, you fix it up, you rent it out, you go to a bank and refinance essentially pulling out most or all of the money that you have into the property. And then you repeat, meaning you go find another property that's not so great and fix it up and do the same thing again. Yep. Yeah. So you have your

first burr and you say first as though there's more than one. Yeah, no, it was good and it was actually pretty cosmetic. I mean, we probably spent, we spent some money and it changed all the flooring out, painting, a lot of cleaning, new toilets, new vanities, that kind of stuff. And it's not the best rental. It's a big, big house, but we were still able to pull out our money and we moved on and bought a duplex that was our second burr. And so we were kind of going to go down that pathway, just get, I think we were going to get, I think we were going to. try to just do 10, 10 properties because as you noticed, we're not really driven by money, really.

We don't want to, like, have our life consumed by money. So 10 properties would be plenty for us, and then we could live. So I think we want five paid four and five that are leveraged, and that was kind of our goal. So we were going to head towards 10 burs and then pay off five and then see what's next. But we didn't get there. Life changed. So, yeah. So, yeah, so we did the first property, got retinents in it.

They're still in there. And then we got the second property as a duplex. And that place was just a mess. Can you give us like a very quick overview of the numbers behind the first property? We don't have to go into each one, but it could be helpful to be like, hey, how much cash did you need to bring to the table and technically the deal? Yeah. Yeah. So we refinanced our house here and we bought it super low and the market had gone quite a bit.

So we were able to use that money. to cash out the house. So we didn't have to find a bank or anything to get the seed money to start on the... And as a reminder, the reason you're able to refinance the house is both because of appreciation and because you fixed up your house that you're living in. You basically lived and flipped it to burn it. Yep. This was a foreclosure, the worst house in the best neighborhood kind of idea.

So, yeah, you're right. So let's see. I've got... Yeah, we bought that house for $11,000, and we put $18,000 into it. and then we refinanced it and I think we got 124 out so it wasn't quite a burr. I think we had 5K still in it. And then we bought it. Oh, you lose.

Yeah, I lost. So you essentially have $5,000 in your first rental house and it rents for how much? Today it's like $2,100. Oh, okay. So two and a half months worth of rent and you've made all your money back. that you have stuck in it. What's the cash flow for the property? I don't have that right in front of me, but as of today, that one, that one's the last one

we're working on trying to pay off. So I think it's, the cash flow might be $700 or something like that. I don't, I mean, you have different people look at it. That's fantastic. People look at it differently. You got your mortgage, you got all the search, all the other stuff, CapEx. It's 140% cash and cash return. if you put five grand in at the end of the day and get 77,000 some odd, I guess, 8,400 a month, a year in cash flow.

Yeah, that's not bad. Let's go to your duplex. So then we got this duplex for 67,500 and put 40K into it. I need to go buy in Michigan. Not anymore, but yeah, back in the day, just a couple of years ago. And we refinanced and got, we only got 80, well, yeah, so we got 85 out on that. And so we left 22,000 in there. I love it.

I think that that's a big point key here is that most burrs, I believe, you did not get to pull out all of your money that you put in. Doesn't mean you're losing. You're still just, you know, you're into that property for 20,000 instead of 40,000 or whatever it would be, which is still very advantageable. and because the way you're doing it, it sounds like you're adding value and and upping the value and running the numbers pretty accurately, you're still not taking that much risk relative to other forms of investing. Yeah. And it also is a blessing in it was that we got to be where my family was, like where I grew up,

my parents and my sister. And now, like I mentioned earlier, not that my dad's passed, like I have all these great memories of working on the houses together. So I'd spend like two or three weeks, maybe four weeks, some, some, sometimes, some of years out there in Michigan with my family. And they were helping too. That's a big part of it. They're a big part of our success for sure.

But yeah, just all the extra time that we got with my family was awesome. So you bought this property in 2017. And over what period of time did you amass the next couple? What was the activity set here that resulted in your overall portfolio? Yeah, so that was 2017. The first one and then the next one was 28. and then we bought two other houses in 2019. And then the pandemic hit.

My parents in the town that they live in, there was a breach of three dams downriver. And then the dam about two blocks from their house also failed. 40,000 people were evacuated. It flooded their house. It flooded their rental house next door. And yeah, my mom broke her arm, but right before that and a pandemic.

And then my uncle died. cancer, my mom got cancer, my dad died of cancer all in one year. So all that happened. Jeez. Yeah, in 2020. And so, yeah, we just, that reset everything. Like, you know, you think about life a lot differently. And I think that's kind of why our shift happened from going into getting more properties.

We wanted to focus on helping my parents get out of the damage, the flood damage. and then with the cancer and all that stuff that just took over. And so now we're kind of just, we had all this sitting because we were just going to go all in. And so I actually, we pulled out all of our, maybe not recommended, but we pulled out all of our contributions, our Roth contributions, because those are tax-free to pull out. So we pulled all that out because we saw the return was so good in Michigan that we were just going to focus on that. And then we could always dump more money into retirement, traditional retirement, if we needed to. At that point, we're like, the return is so good. Let's just go.

Let's just go in all in there. So we had this money sitting here ready to do more burrs, more property. And then all this happened. And we just tightened it up. We're like, let's just, we're not doing anything. Let's just pay off the debt. So that's what we've been focused on lately is paying off these properties. So that post on Facebook that got us talking was that we finally had reached a point where our passive income was paying for.

our lifestyle, which is, I, because I wasn't planning on that because there's going to be a while because we were just doing burs. But when he paid everything down, that was pretty neat, a moment to see. And a big part of paying it down, I think, was that we were just tapped out emotionally. And the other part was, I'd see my dad pass. You know, he was healthy. And, like, he found out in the summer and he's gone in the fall. So it's like, we don't have today, tomorrow.

We have today. And so I have, you know, I have an insurance policy on me, but my wife's at home. She's homeschooling. We want that to keep happening because it's great. You know, the kids love it. She loves it. But if I were to go, life insurance be kind of there, but it wouldn't be enough to her ever keep doing that. So I figured if we pay off all the debt, then she can just keep doing it, you know.

We don't have to worry about that. And so that, that was also a big factor as kind of a life insurance of sorts too. Not that as we saw with the flood, not anything is guaranteed. So even though we paying these things off, disaster can strike, but we're doing our best to make it so we have more options for the family, for sure. So I think it's a really powerful why and a big shift with that with that. And thank you for sharing all of that. And that's very personal and got to be a really tough year with this.

How many houses are we talking about here? I counted four properties at rental properties, one of which was at least was a duplex. Yeah. So we have the other three single families and the duplex. Okay. And then are they all paid off at this point? Everything but that first house that we bird. So, yeah, like the two single families and one duplex.

When do you expect to have the last one paid off? I think we're hoping like 12 to 18. months. That's a goal. 12 to 18 months? Yeah. I can hear people right now yelling at the radio. No, don't pay it off.

Leverage because money's so cheap. And Scott and I even are on camp. Don't pay off your mortgage. But we're not living with you. So, you know, what do you say to people who are like, oh, you should always just leverage all the time? I mean, I agree. Mathematically, that's the way to go.

But life isn't all about math. you know and for for us yeah for us it's uh like kind of what i mentioned like the whole life circumstances are we don't have any energy we're tapped out you know and we're living and seeing what can happen overnight maybe think about tomorrow so paying off the debt right now is probably the quickest way for us to have stability um in our family if i were if i were to go tomorrow, which, you know, we're not planning on that, but you don't know. So I think you're right. You know, mathematically it isn't the best, but sometimes you just do what's best for your situation and that I think that for us, seeing how our life is, that's the best way. I love that.

I love that. Yeah, you do what's best for you. So, Nate, let's talk about an emergency fund. I hear you saying that you, you have these all paid off. Do you also have an emergency fund for emergencies. What a whole other way to phrase that. Sorry. No, that's okay. Yeah, we have that one still we're paying off. So, but everything else is,

is paid for it. But we do have an emergency fund 25, 30, right now, 30,000, just for emergencies and then, you know, life emergencies or it's combined. It's not separate where you have your personal emergency fund and your house emergency reserves. We usually have more than that,

but since we're paying down that last debt, we're a little bit more aggressive on that. And since the other ones are paid off, the cash flow is pretty good. So we'd be able to just swing it, I think. You have four rental properties, one duplex in there, so five rental units. And then you also have your primary residence. Did you pay off your primary residence as part of this? No.

Okay. Yeah, the primary is. Not really, not yet. Maybe it's maybe someday. But, yeah, it's not our immediate plan. I think we'll see what happens with life and how we're feeling, you know, once these things are paid off, what direction we're going to want to go. But before, our goal is to have 10 properties, rental properties, five of them paid for. So we're kind of doing it backwards, getting them paid for the five, four or five paid for first and then moving on to the leveraged ones.

But yeah. I think that's very interesting about that, that decision to pay off the rental properties, but not the primary residence. with that kind of stuff. Do you have a reason for, is there a strategy behind that? Or is that, what, what's the focus is there? Mostly it's just the percentages, the debt. Oh, the higher interest rate on the interest. Higher interest rate.

Yeah. That makes sense, actually. Okay. And then do you have any plans to buy more rental properties after you've got these four paid off? I think so. I think we just shifted for a short while. But yeah, we were just trying to feel out the water. with life and how we're feeling emotionally and physically and with our kids and everything.

So I think the goal is to keep going. One question I have about the portfolio is you mentioned you flew out to Michigan and spent time with your family improving the properties. How do you think the scenarios and would it have been worthwhile if you had completely hired it out and done it remote out of state in Michigan? and would that have changed the profile of the returns and how well this has worked out for you? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure it would have changed it. I don't know how. It could have been better. It could have been worse. I'm glad I did it, though, because that was precious time with my dad.

Absolutely. I'm just wondering, if I'm listening and I'm saying, wow, look at these returns, my belief is that a good part of those returns have to do with all the other things, qualitative factors. that went into those properties as well, as well as the math that you clearly had mastered but going into those things. And I just wonder if it would have been very expensive, for example, to contract out all of the labor that went into repairing those properties for someone who's listening and trying to repeat this. This may not be repeatable in the same sense without some of those advantages, or it may be.

And I, you know, I'm not sure. Yeah. No, I think you're right. I mean, a lot of it was family and friends helping out and how, you know, you can't ask for that, you know, and we felt a little bad having, having that happened, but they wanted to invest in our future, too. And it's something that my parents could do and my sister and brother-in-law as well and some other friends.

So, yeah, I think you can't repeat that unless you have a bunch of family and friends that want to help you out, for sure. Yeah. Well, and your work, you know, or your situation in general allowed you to spend several weeks at a time working on these properties at least a few times, on a few occasions as well. Yeah. And I would spend, I would work probably 80, 85 hours at least during those weeks that I was there too. I was just pushing it as hard as I could.

I was learning there for a short time. So I was really focused on getting it done. So yeah. That did affect it for sure. I don't want to, I don't want to paint a rosy picture of brewer here for folks because of that. Not that it can't be done, just that, you know, you didn't get all your money out. You went to a place that was very distant from where you live. but you had connections, family, and you're willing to do 85 hours a week of work to prepare

the properties as quickly as possible and upgrade them, adding value, increasing rents, and all that kind of stuff. That's how Burr can be so powerful. But you're not going to get that same profile that you just described anywhere in the country by just dumping money in from Denver while trying to be completely passive with that project. That's all I'm trying to point out for folks. No, we definitely forced it with our own sweat equity and our families. Kindness.

Scott, I'm glad you pointed that out because there is this, frankly, I think it's kind of a misconception that Burr is the best strategy for someone who's just starting out. And it can be a good strategy, but you're combining all the elements of flipping a house with all of the elements of renting out a house. So you're actually learning two different strategies at the same time. So if you're listening to this and thinking, wow, that sounds like a lot. lot of work. It is a lot of work. Flipping a house is a lot of work. Rehabing a house, just even, I mean, even if it's just cosmetic, but especially if there's other things, if you're trying to do

this yourself, that's a lot of work. Know that going in. Even if you're not trying to do it yourself, you're still trying to find a contractor. How easy is it to find a contractor, Scott? I've been doing this forever, and it's hard to find a contractor. If you know any good ones, call me. Yeah. I have a line on an electrician, Scott, so if you need one. But yeah, It can be a big, big, big task. So I'm glad that you pointed that out because I'm getting ready to write an article. It's like, Burr might not be the best strategy for you if you're just starting out. Well, it's a great strategy for you if it's your first investment.

After you've spent seven years practicing excellent financial fundamentals with that, have a high savings rate and really studied the market, know your math, and are willing to go out there and bust it for several weeks alongside friends, family, or even just by yourself with some hired help there, then it's a great strategy and can, you know, make an enormous difference in your life in just three or four years, right? So which is what happened with that? Yes, I take it back. Burr is an excellent way for beginners to become overnight successes in just three to four short years by leveraging all those things.

That's right. Oh, yeah, so the other end story's different and it's not always repeatable, but you can always grab a little bit from everybody's story, I think. Absolutely. So for the next 12 to 18 months, you're going to be paying off this debt and then you're going to start looking at the market again. Yeah. I'm really curious to see what happens because the market is increased so much. You know, that duplex that we've, it's probably like $215,000 now.

That house, that first house is probably $250. The other house we just paid cash for because we were going to burr it. We paid $75,000 for it. It's probably worth $150 now. And we just painted it. I mean, you know what I mean? Like the whole market, I can't do this anymore in that market. So we'll see.

And that's another part of it. We couldn't find anything. It all just got switched overnight. So yeah, we'll see what happens in a year or a year and a half. But yeah, that's our goal to find a market or the same market or I don't know. Our story changes as you noticed and I think everyone does. We were on an index path fund and now we're moving to real estate. And my wife always like, you keep changing.

I'm like, well, new opportunities come up, you know, so it's hard to know. I like that. Be fluid. When you, what is the phrase life is what happens when you make other plans or when you're busy making other plans? You plan for this. And then life's like, nope. I thought it was man plans.

God laughs. Yeah. There you. And you look at my parents. story and that's very true right you know they've everything came to him and just hit him so hard but i wish you guys knew my mom she she she's uh so joyful still and uh hasn't i mean it's amazing the testimony to her faith for sure but yeah she's an amazing lady well i uh i i i think you're going to be very successful with your stuff your fundamentals are great you're

going to, I think I have no doubt you're going to pay off that property, probably a little sooner than you think, and then, or hopefully, and I wish you the best of luck and finding that next market and continuing the story. When you find it after you complete the flip and, you know, the market's changed, then you can tell everybody about the secret market that you found. That's great for burying next with that. Yeah. It's hard to find any right now, for sure. Thank you. Well, should we move on to the famous four here? Yeah. I think it's time.

Nate, are you ready? I think so. Okay. Nate, what is your favorite finance book? It's hard to narrow it down. It really is. So I was looking around. Okay.

I mean, that Tightwag Gazette thing I mentioned was pretty great. Rich Dad, Poor Dad. This book here, Coach Carson talks about it. One house at a time. Yeah. Chad Carson has had that guy on his podcast. podcast and yeah it kind of simple a simple way to do kind of do one house at a time pay them off in 15 years and it's a really basic book but it was a good one for us all the stuff you guys have put out i love i've read all those books they're wonderful so yeah a lot of resources it's amazing well we'll just link to all those books uh and the show notes so and of course we're always happy to plug our our bigger pockets books uh there as well what what was your biggest money mistake My wife keeps me from making too many of those, but probably, I mean, it could be taken out the retirement.

We'll see about that in the future. It could be that or it could be maybe selling our house to get this one. I mean, if I would have known what I knew now, I probably would have kept that first house we bought and rented it out. As a rental. Yeah. I love that. Those are opportunity cost mistakes. and that says that, hey, you really didn't, you really haven't had a big blunder with money in your past.

Like a lot of people have bought a car that really cost them or lost tons of money on a house. You're saying, did I make the right resource allocation decision? Time will only tell. But you made the highest probability bet that you could with the information you have at the time with that. And I want to be clear, you did not take money out of the, you did not liquidate a retirement account and realize a taxable income like you would if you liquidated a fore 401k. You did not pay penalties on that. You just withdrew the contributions to Roth IRAs, which is a non-taxable event and is something that you have the option to do in contributing to Roth IRAs. Is that right? That's mostly right. We also, I got laid off for like two weeks. So I did take

advantage of the, we have a work plan that's not very good. It has a high management fee. So I took that out and we're paying that taxes on that for the next three years, but we're not getting the penalty for that. So I did do that as well. Okay. So you took some money out of a tax deferred account and we'll pay taxes on it, but not penalties. Yeah, because of the law, the new rules from the, if you're affected by coronavirus with layoffs or anything like that.

Since I was, I decided to do that. And that time we'll tell on that too. Nope. Well, make sense. but I think that if you're going to make money mistakes, those are the type to make is, is, is like, here's a, here's like, I think this is the better bet. I've done a lot of research. I'm going to go forward and see how it plays out. To me, I completely respect. I have a lot of respect for mistakes, quote unquote, like that. I think that's great. Well, and if you find some windfall, you can repay that back. You don't have to take all of it out and then just pay taxes on it. If you pay it back before three years are up, You have the opportunity to, it's like a loan more than, more than withdraw. With how, I'm trying to say withdrawalment, but that's not a right. Withdrawal.

Withdrawal. Withdraw. That doesn't sound right either. Okay. Moving along, Nate, what is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out? Get out of debt. You know, if you have debt, if you don't, just, I mean, and if you do, either way, look at your bank statements and just see what, where your money is going. You know, read your money or your life and, and follow their direction.

Map out what you, what you're, you've always made, you know, just go through that book and then look at your expenses and see where your money is going and, and start on the worst defenders and try to get, try to hack that. try to hack each one. You know, like the house hacks great. Any of that, just keep going down the list. And we still do that every year. And we look at our expenses and see if there's a better way.

Like, we just got a new phone plan with Comcast. It's like, if you don't have data, it is so cheap. I don't know if you guys have Exfinity Comcast. If your Xfinity Comcast subscriber for internet, you can use,

you can do their phone plan and it's super cheap. Like me, my wife, our daughter, and my mom, $22 a month, total. But that gives you a limitation on data that you have to be smart about, is that right? Yeah, you have one gig of data shared, but we just turn the data off and we're in internet most of our lives. And do you really need to be looking at your phone your whole life? I mean, when you're out and about, like, and Xfinity has so many hot spots in town. I found, I mean, like, you're at the mall or you're wherever.

They're everywhere. You don't need it. And if you do, you just turn it on for a second. You really don't need data, in my opinion. I mean, unless you're like, that's your job. But we probably should be less connected probably than we are. And that's a different topic. Yeah, I agree with you.

But yeah, you can keep looking at different parts of your budget like that. So instead of paying $100 a month, you're paying $22 and you're paying, you know, it's everybody's phone. I don't know. So, yeah, you just look at all the options. of your different personal finance and try to bring it down as low as you can. What is your favorite joke to tell at parties? Well, I try to think of jokes that have never been told before.

And so this is one you probably never heard, I'm sure. Is your refrigerator running? Yes, I think so. Well, you better go catch it. Okay, that one's been done a lot. I couldn't think of any good ones. I thought, let's just think of the joke that's been told the most. And that's probably the one.

Yeah, I don't know. I love it. I think it's fantastic. My daughter said, I should do this one. It's what do you call pencil with two erasers? I don't know. No, don't worry about it. It's pointless.

Pointless and dull pencil joke. That's fantastic. Okay, Nate, where can people find out? more about you? I don't have too many places. I guess I'm on bigger pockets, like the real estate place. And you can give my email if they want to email me. It's just my name, my full name, Nathan Forbes at gmail.com.

And that's probably the best of two places to find me. I would say Facebook, but I probably would just message you, but I wouldn't really friend you because I've got all my kids stuff on there. Oh, okay, good point, good point. Okay, well, fantastic. Nate, this was awesome. I love your point of view. I love the whole frugality thing as not a punishment, but just as a way of life.

I think a lot of people look at frugality and they're like, oh, well, I could never do that. And look at Nate. Nate made $5,000 a year and still didn't have any debt. Nate wins. Nate is doing awesome. And I'm so thankful that you came on our show today to share your story. Yeah, thank you. This is a wonderful story and really effective approach. Love it. Thanks for having me. And I just have to say it's not, it's a community.

You know, it's you guys. It's family, friends. There's a lot of blessings that have helped us get to this point. So yeah, thank you guys for what you do. It's awesome. It really helps. It's probably more than you know, I'm sure, the ripple effect. Well, thank you. Yeah, the community is so important. last week we spoke with Brenda almost and she said, you know, one of the biggest things is to surround myself with people who don't care what kind of car I drive and don't care about, you know, what kind of

clothes I wear and whatever. And that's super powerful. And that's, you know, what we're trying to create here is just here's a community of people who think like you do. Frugal weirdos. Yeah. And when you strip all that other stuff away, they see who you actually are instead of your your stuff. So I think it's, it's better in many ways. Yeah. So thank you guys. Well, I agree, but it is mine. So of course I would agree. Okay. Well, thank you, Nate. We will talk to you soon. Have a good day. All right. Talk to you guys later. Thank you. Okay. That was Nate Forbes. Scott, what did you think of Nate's story? I thought it was great. I think it was, um, look, it's been a 13, 14 year journey to FI since discovering Dave

Ramsey and beginning to kind of move some of his financial position forward. And I think what's I think it's just a highly repeatable approach here. There was not there was no flashy event, no exciting turn of events, no, no, there were some challenges and hardships, especially in the last year, which is, which I'm sure have been incredibly tough for him. But what I think is so great about it is, hey, here's a guy with four kids and one income household who is able to just do the fundamental. right over a sustained period of time, get to coast buy, and then pay off a rental property

portfolio relatively quickly. I mean, that's remarkable and I think it's really impressive, and I hope that it inspires a lot of people to rethink a lot of aspects of their lives and see if they can't achieve a similar result, even if they do have large families. Scott, this story kind of reminds me of the episode with Jordan Clint. Jordan Clint, for those who are wondering, is the guy with the enormous beard. Of course, if you listened to it, you wouldn't have seen the beard. But he had a great, a great beard.

Yes. That was episode 63. Episode 63. Wow, Scott's faster than I am today. Ooh. I googled them. I normally have them at my fingertips, but I was slow today. But yeah, his story reminds me of Jordan.

Jordan has five kids, but he's still investing in real estate. He has a job, but his wife is a stay-at-home mom. The bottom line is you can absolutely. reach financial independence with kids without a computer programmer salary, you just have to be intentional with your spending. Consciously, don't spend every dime that you make. Invest it wisely. Be prepared to make different choices than other people who aren't on the financial independence path, and you will be able to make it. You're not going to make it if you spend every dime you make, you don't invest anything in the future, you know, buy all the latest and greatest everything

there is and try to keep up with the Joneses. That's just not the recipe for financial independence. And, you know, here's yet another story of I did it and I didn't do it in a flashy, exciting way, but I did it. And I mean, he's, he's in his, he's 40 now. He's coast five with four kids and a low income. That's awesome. Absolutely. And he had a few advantages that he took advantage of and worked on. And they made his life and his finances better and that kind of stuff. And I think that's that's the creativity you're going to have to bring to the table with a large family on those types of things. But I think it was really fun and really exciting. And go Nate. Yep, go Nate. Okay, Scott, did we get out of here? Let's do it. Okay, from episode 197 of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, he is Scott Trench.

I am Mindy Jensen saying, got to go, Buffalo.