BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 247: Turning 31 Years of Financial Disaster into Ultimate Freedom w/ Alex Felice

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

There are few people on this earth that can make Mindy laugh as much as Alex Felice. He’s been around the block with BiggerPockets a few times, appearing on episode 301 of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. Alex has a growing rental property portfolio, a flipping business, and is a professional photographer/videographer. But, beneath his success, was thirty-one years of financial struggle. Alex was taught financial skills growing up. The only problem: he didn’t listen to any of the advice he was given. He joined the Army without any skills, and as soon as he got out, he immediately bought a new car with a high monthly payment. He then was hit with a DUI, forcing him to really think what his life would turn out like unless he made a change. He needed cash flow but didn’t want to go out and get another job, so he settled on investing in real estate. It was important for Alex to have a “get rich slowly” type asset, one with stability that could take care of him well into retirement. Now, he’s amassed an impressive portfolio, with some large commercial deals and flips on the side. Alex spends his days investing, working on his skills, traveling, and really doing whatever he wants! In This Episode We Cover Why self-sustainability is more important than a big paycheck  Using “radical responsibility” to mold your perfect life and never falling into the “it will be okay” trap Buying foreclosures and BRRRRing properties to minimize cash needed for investing Having control over your money so you have ultimate financial freedom Why you MUST surround yourself with like-minded, successful individuals  Focusing on your passions (regardless of whether they pay well or not) And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast show number 247, where we interview Alex Felice and talk about past money mistakes and how you don't have to let that define or limit you. So I was like, I lose my job. I have no money in the bank to even get me like through this first hurdle, never mind how I'm going to, you know, get income and all this stuff. And I looked at my life and I was like, this is 100% my fault because I wasn't taking responsibility certainly during the day of. but I wasn't taking responsibility for the last 30 years. I wasn't taking responsibility for my future. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen.

And join me today as guest host is David Perrae from the Military Millionaire Group and podcast. David, thanks for clearing off your schedule to join me in making fun of my best friend, Alex Belief. I met Alex in the Bigger Pockets forums a hundred years ago where he was giving really great advice about real estate investing. So I reached out to less time no and we've been besties ever since. And I met Alex at FinCon.

in 2018. We've been great friends, talk real estate, and he even co-host the podcast with me. So this is going to be a lot of fun. I met you at FinCon in 2018. That was in Orlando, right? Correct. We took a picture. So David and Scott and I took a picture with big Brandon Beards to send to Brandon Turner. Because he no-showed the conference. Oh, you know what? We could put a link to that picture in the show notes. All right. All the blackmail photos on me. Yes, I'm going to have to start getting more blackmail photos for you. Okay, David 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 financial freedom is attainable for everyone,

no matter when or where you're starting. And today's guest is the epitome of making a bunch of financial mistakes and still coming out on top. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, graduate college debt-free or start your own business, we will help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so that you can launch yourself towards your dreams. Okay, like I said before, Alex Belize is joining us today on the show. And Alex is one of my favorite people on the planet. Despite all the ribbing that I give him during the show today, he is incredibly smart.

He has a great outlook at the world in general and American life. in particular, and he has made some pretty big money mistakes in his past, but they didn't define him. He was able to first take ownership of the fact that he was making mistakes and then change the way that his mind felt about money and the way that he focused on money and has changed his financial outlook from, what are we calling this, from financial disaster to financial master? and he is really truly living life the way that he chooses. He spends time doing things he wants. If he doesn't want to do him, he doesn't do him. He no longer has to trade his time for money. Yeah, absolutely.

Alex has completely cracked the nut on financial independence. And it's just really cool to see because he did it in such a simple and replicable way. And it makes it look easy. And now he's able to just enjoy life. Exactly. We don't have lottery winners on the show because that's not repeatable. But Alex's message and message. and method is absolutely repeatable, which is why he's going to join us.

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parenting perspective and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful as its breadth. Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible Originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more, all accessible in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at Audible.com slash B-P. P. Money. Alex Felice, my best friend in the whole world. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I'm so excited that you're on today. I am so excited to be here. It's been, you've been asking me to come on here for

while. So I'm glad we finally made it happen. I really am too. I think you have a fabulous money story. And I think all of our listeners are going to get a lot out of it because you were kind of a financial mess, right? A complete financial disaster for 31 years. Yep. 31 years of financial disaster. This is going to be an awesome show. So where does your financial disaster story begin? Oh, well, I started a disaster. It wasn't like it.

It was a disaster of ignorance, actually, right? Like, you know, my parents taught me kind of the right things, you know, save money, spend less than you earn. But it didn't stick. And so I just spent all my money. I just lived week to week, had no plan, got a good chunk of debt. Is that how we really starting right just like that? You really want to go right to the...

Yes, I'm really starting just like that. Tell me what happened. Like, where were you growing up in high school? Did you have a ton of debt when you graduated high school? When you graduated college? Did you even go to college? I know you were in the military. Tell me all the things.

Okay, okay. I had no money. Pretend that people who are listening have never heard your money story before and they want to. Oh, okay. That's hard. Usually I assume everybody is paying attention to everything I do. Well, they are. I joined the Army basically broke with no skills and no, like, real goal.

It was, I joined out of apathy, which is kind of how a lot of people, especially enlisted join. I had nothing better going on. So this is not a good way to start a career, just to be clear. So you joined the Army, and they kind of turned me around a little bit and taught me some competence and gave me some skills, but, you know, they don't teach you money skills. In fact, they kind of want you to stay in. So they don't have to teach you that stuff. You get out and I was in debt.

I had a car payment, which is what all soldiers do. And I had a little bit of credit card debt. You know, I wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good. But most importantly, I had no plan. And I had this very common, I don't know how, this very common theme in American culture where I just assumed that because I'm awesome, it was going to all work out. This is not a good strategy for success.

in anything. But this is very common. I know it's funny to hear it. It's funny to say, but this is how a lot of people, they just think, oh, well, the next paycheck, I'm going to get promoted, the next job, they'll value me more. You know, my thing will work out. I'll get this inheritance. I'll get this check. Whatever the case, it's just going to work out for some reason, because apparently the universe is just going to work out for you. And so that's what I thought. And I ended up selling cars, which is a tough business, but it's good to learn sales. And so I was making good money, probably 80 grand a year or so, but I was spending more of that than I earned. And I was always like, well, I'll save next paycheck. I'll save next month. I'll save when I get a

promotion. Whatever the case. And then around 2010, around 2010, I made probably the biggest mistake of my life to date. I got a DUI, alleged and alleged DUI, non-convicted alleged DUI. And, you know, I remember getting out and I had just made a good chunk of money that that year. And I remember I didn't have enough money in the bank to pay a lawyer. And the lawyer was like three grand, not big, big money. And I was like, bro, and I lost my job because I was selling cards. You need a license. So your license gets revoked. So I was like, I lose my job. I have no money in the bank to even get me like through this first hurdle,

never mind how I'm going to, you know, get income and all this stuff. And I looked at my life and I was like, this is 100% my fault because I wasn't taking responsibility certainly during the day of, but I wasn't taking responsibility for the last 30 years. I wasn't taking responsibility for my future. And so I had a real Phoenix moment. And everything's changed since then. And I was like, okay, I don't know.

it's going to happen in my future, and this is going to be a tough hurdle to go through, but there's another, you know, 60 years to live. So I got to, this is not a interim thing. This is going to change everything. And forever and ever and ever, this is never, ever going to happen to me again. I will never let my poor decisions make such an impasse because of certainly three grand. I had to call my parents and ask for money. And me and my parents are not on that good of terms. That was a really humbling moment. So since, so after that happened, I just said, whatever, everything else in life becomes second and freedom, financial, more than just financial freedom because I didn't, you know, I didn't really like my job, but I wanted self-sustainability.

I wanted to know that my life and the way I live it is on my terms and it's because I created it, not just because, oh, I just want to hang on the beach or I just want to, you know, tell my boss to screw off. It's like, no, dude, I want to protect myself against the inevitable, you know, flood of life that's going to come and wreak havoc on you unexpectedly. And I want to be prepared, deadly, deadly, deadly, seriously prepared. Good, good. That's the whole thing. That's the whole reason we do this show is so people can be prepared for the curveballs that life throws at them. And one of the best easiest ways to be prepared is to have your financial house in order. So you don't have to always be worrying about money or thinking about money or, you know,

trading the time that you have, the very precious time you have on this earth for money instead of doing what you want. So Alex, do you have a job now? I don't really have a job. I don't have an employer. You don't have an employer. Okay. So you are unemployed. Yeah. When people ask me at parties, what I do, I tell them I'm unemployed. But that's mostly just because it makes people uncomfortable. Yeah. But I do real estate kind of full time. And I'm sort of, I'm sort of a photographer now. That happened. Sort of a photographer. Okay. I'm going to jump in here. As your best friend, I'm going to, does he need any help, David, to toot his own horn? No.

Alex has the most confidence of anybody I've ever met in my whole life. However, Alex is an unbelievable photographer. He is an absolutely stunning photographer. If you went to the Bigger Pockets Conference, you saw him with his camera around his neck. He's got 20,000 pictures that you took of the conference, and they're all absolutely perfect. He is a wonderful photographer. He is also a real estate investor, but there's quite a bit of time that we have jumped ahead to. So we need to go back in time to 2010, the site of your alleged DUI and see what happened between 2010 and the end of 2021, which we are at right now.

Can I jump in for two seconds and just throw out? I think we kind of skimmed over this really important what I view as like the mindset shift here. Right. So Victor Frankel talks about in his book that like a man searched for meaning that the people who passed away in the concentration camp were the optimist, right? The people who just assumed good things were going to happen. What you mentioned at the beginning was you got out of the military and you were like, I'm awesome. Things will be great. And I think a lot of people think and assume like, oh, great things are going to come to me because I'm a decent person or because I whatever. But it's like the catalyst, that painful alleged DUI that change. What I noticed in your in your tonality there was what shifted was the fact that you went from like. like, hey, awesome things are going to happen because I'm a good dude to, holy crap, I need to take ownership or responsibility of this. And I need to put some effort into fix this. And I think that like that shift of realizing like, oh, man, this is on me. I don't know. I see it in a lot of trajectories and a lot of stories. And that seems to be like a pivotal moment. So usually unfortunately after a painful experience, myself included. But I just want to point that out. So maybe someone listening realizes, hey, I should probably look at this more objectively than just.

just assuming good things are going to come your way. I'm glad you brought that up. I did highlight that part when I'm taking notes for the quotes that we're going to use. That's a really great quote. You said, I thought because I was awesome, everything would work out. And like David just said, no, but you're like, you're not the only person who thinks that. I mean, you're the only person who thinks you're awesome, but you're not the only person who thinks that because I'm awesome. Everything's just going to happen.

And, you know, I love that you took ownership of that. money is a mental game 99.9%. It really is. So once my mentality shift from entitlement, which is, oh, it's going to work out because I showed up to more like, hey, life is unbearably hard and unfair. And the best you can do is take radical responsibility for your, like, stop making it worse for yourself. And maybe it'll get better. But yeah, I definitely don't expect the future to be better. I am now more like radically paranoid about the future. And then if it works out good, then that's great. But I don't assume that the future is going to be better.

And then I just have to sit around and wait for it. I assume the future is going to be bad. And that's why I work so hard to prevent and prepare for, you know, chaos. I like it. So once you had this catalyst, what were some of the first steps that you took to correcting that trajectory? I knew that, okay, so I sat down and I said, here's what I, here's what I have to do. I got to pick this money problem.

And I signed up and I went to college. I had the GI Bill. So I said, I'm going to get a degree in finance because I figured if I learned about money, then I'll be able to, I'll be able to manage my money. And that didn't work out exactly right, but kind of in a roundabout way that that worked. Like if you understand and learn about money, you get control of money. And that's the big portion of your money situation is control, more than amount. Right? You can live on a lot of freedom with not that much money, but you can have a lot of money.

You can have a high income and no control and you're, you know, you're screwed. So I sat down and I said, I don't want, I needed cash flow income. I needed something that kicked off cash, not equity. So the stock market wasn't right for me. I needed, I didn't have anything to sell, right? I don't have any skills, talents. And I didn't really want employees. I didn't want to, I didn't want to go to work every day, right? I'm kind of lazy. So I didn't, and I didn't have any money. And so I'm like, well, what works if you put all those together, right?

I'm broke, lazy, wanted cash. And so real estate, rental real estate. Turns out in 2014, we're at the bottom of this foreclosure boom. You can go around the MLS and pick up properties left and right. I didn't have any money. But that idea. sat in my head. But I had no money to my name still, right?

So then I go on the internet and I search. I want to get rich, but I don't want to get rich quick scheme. And what's the first thing that pops up? Get rich slowly. A guy who is now a friend of mine, J.D. Roth. And just that idea that if you follow key principles, like, again, it's a money thing.

It's a value system. It's a value hierarchy. It's a way you live your life. If you followed these rules, you're going to create wealth. It's like almost, you know, it's almost predetermined. It's inevitable. And so it's like, and so I just started saying, okay, I'm not going to, I'm going to play the long game on this and I'm going to get ahead.

And it's real simple stuff that you guys talk about all the time. Pay yourself first. I pay myself first no matter what. I don't care. I don't care who's, who's not getting paid as long as I get paid first. That's first most important. Save 20% of your income. Some people I know save 30, 40, 40,

50, 60 percent. I was like, dude, I'm just trying to get this thing to work in a way that I know that it'll always work. And so I just started employing these never spend money on things that don't make you money. And then, you know, ideas like sacrifice. I sold my car. I bought a beater. I stopped buying clothes. I stopped, you know, I was a drinker, right? Stop doing all that stuff. And so there's nothing special. It was put the future value the future ahead of the present. take radical responsibility and make whatever sacrifice that's needed to attain the higher good. So I saved a little bit of money. And then until it was three years, I went and got my degree. And it wouldn't be for three years, 2014, that I ended up buying a foreclosure that I moved in.

We, I think I put like three grand down. And I paid like $55,000 for that house. You really can't do that anymore. we moved in. It was an FHA loan. And like 18 months later, I went and got to refinance and it was worth like 120. Did you cash out refi? And that's when I was like, and that's when I was like, yo, real estate is easy. I'm going to do this forever as soon as, but it was very interesting because I had been broke for 31 years. And then I tried for three years and I had made more money than I ever made in my life. Now it was just equity. But still, I was like, this is going to, this trajectory is a whole different than the entire first portion. my life had been. So that's when I knew. I was like, radical responsibility. Here are the results. It works. Now let's go run with it. Okay. So you bought the first house. You lived in there for 18 months. You refinanced it for a ridiculous amount of money. Did you pull the money out of the house to go buy another house? I am a very risk-averse investor. I go slow. I don't try to get, I tell you the old time, like I'm not trying to get rich in two years. I'm trying to get rich in 40. So I don't need to,

I don't need, yeah, you like that one. I do like that one. I don't need to take risks that other people are willing to take because they get starry-eyed about some some theoretical profit, right? Because we had just gone through 08, dude. And I had had my negative incident. Like, no matter what you think the world is going to become with rosy-eyed glasses, it can and will fall and you will be hurting. And so I was like, dude, I don't need to put myself in a position to lose again, especially

so soon. So all that said, I think I ended up. When I refinanced, I lowered the rate and I dropped the PMI. So I actually kept my payment the same. And I took out whatever the difference was in the loan, which was about $19,000. So I still left the vast majority of the equity in the deal. Okay. And then what did you do after you bought that first house?

I just lived in it. I had a condo, a little condo that I had bought in 2010 just as a primary. And it was basically breaking even as a rental. And it wouldn't be until 2016 that I would buy another place. I had saved up enough cash. I had like $71,000 in cash over the last five years. You know, if you save $500 a month for five years now, plus tax returns and that $20,000, you get $70,000.

So I had $71,000 in my bank account. It was like all the money in my name. And I went off and I bought a foreclosure and I think I put like 68 into it. I was all in. And so then that made me like $900, $9.50 a month. I ended up six months later, I did a burr. I ended up refinancing. It pulled 100% of my money back.

out because it had been worth, I created that 25% equity. And so then I was like, dude, not only, now I know this works. Like I knew, but now I can do it without even living in the houses. So I ended up over the next until 2019, I would buy like six, six more. And what sort of income was that, were those six houses kicking off or eight? There are a couple hundred bucks a month, two, three hundred, it depends. You know, everybody in the internet lies. So when they say 400 bucks a month, I know that that's like on their good month. But I also know that every couple of years, you got to do paint and floor is at five or six grand. That's a years where the, that's a years where the income knocked out.

So I think on tax returns, I'll probably clear $250, $300 a door, but I know that in the real world, it's not enough to get, it's not enough to go get spending, right? So I save all of it. I like the fact that you pointed out, like, I like your trajectory here, right? Because what people see when they look at you or me or like real estate investors in general, right, is they see how many doors you have and they see like how long ago somebody started and they're like, oh my goodness, like this is like it's so easy. And they often seem to miss the fact that like both you and I have very similar trajectories where we bought a house and then it was two years before we bought the next property. And we both have, you know, decent sized portfolios now. But it's because there's

like this, you know, exponential curve where where what a lot of people don't do, it seems, it seems like, it seems like, oh, I'm making $200 a month in cash flow. Let me, now I can spend, you know, whatever. No, you reinvested that money and kept saving to, buy the next one. And then that timeline between houses just gets shorter as your capital grows and your cash flow, cash flow grows. And so it's, it really is like a buy one, buy another one, and then eventually buy two. And then it's, it's a scalable thing. It's not a like an instant, hey, I bought a house. Now I can keep just dumping into properties. So I think it's just important to annotate that because sometimes people see, oh, he's got eight doors in five years. And they're like,

he must have just bought them all real quick. Well, sounds like, the last six were bought and half the time is your first one. Yeah, and I was doing Burr with delayed finance, and I talked about that on episode 301 of the real estate, Bigger Pockets podcast. I did delayed finance and Burr, so I was doing three in a year. And actually, I didn't use any of my original capital. I was able to pull 100% of my funds back. So while I'm adding these properties, I'm not actually spending any liquidity. I'm just, the cash account is still increasing. So the thing that I think people have a problem with rentals is they see the cash flow and like, oh, now I can spend more money.

But the reality is this is an equity play. This is a wealth play. And this is a retirement account kind of this is, I treat it more like a retirement account. So I mean, think about it. Dude, at $200 a door, eight doors at $1,600 bucks a month. That's not any real money. You can't live on that, not really. And if you're wrong and that $200 goes to $100 a door, now you're living on $8 a month a year.

So this is, this is, this is a retirement play. And having that retirement does allow you to think in a more, it does let you take more risk than think in a, act out your life in a way that aligns itself more with the freedoms that you want to kind of have. But it's not that, certainly it's not a cash. I'm not, you know, I'm not making it rain every month. It's a couple hundred bucks. It almost all goes back into the business.

You are definitely going to have stuff. It's like, hey, that tenant tore that place up. You need to paint floors. This happened. You know, stuff happens. You're going to have to, it's a capital intensive business in many ways. I'm really glad you brought this up. And David, I'm really glad you said that, what you said too, you know, because I'm in the

Bigger Pocket's forums. I'm in the Facebook groups. And I see this all the time. Hey, I bought my first house. When can I buy my second one? Well, first, hold on. Let's figure out if you like this. You don't want to jump in and have 57 doors and be like, wow, I really hate being a landlord.

Figure out the first one. And Alex, you said everybody lies on the internet. I thought you couldn't say it on the internet if it wasn't true. So that's shocking to me that you would burst my bubble like that. But you're right. There is a lot of inflating and, oh, I'm only making $200 a door. But when I ran the numbers, it was going to be $500 a door. Why is that?

Well, most likely because you didn't run the numbers properly. You didn't account for vacancy. you didn't account for CAPEX and you didn't account for the things that you need to account for, not every property makes a good rental property. If you haven't yet listened to episode 301 of the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast, Alex does do a really great deep dive into several of these things that he's just been discussing delayed financing. He actually has a really great take on delayed financing that was able to clear it up for a lot of people when they listen to Alex explain it. He also goes into the deep dive with the burr and let me see if I can remember that. buy rehab, rent, refinance, repeat, where you buy a property, you rehab it so people want to live there.

You rent it out to a tenant. Many banks want to see a seasoning period of six to 12 months of rental before they will refinance the property from the time that you purchased it. And let's see, buy rehab rent, refinance, and then repeat means just do it all over again. Take the money out. Take that whole money and or most of that money and put it at the next property and do it again. Is that good? Nailed it. Okay.

Also, we got to figure out a way to, say, suck it up buttercup at some point during this episode, David, because that was his catchphrase on that episode. It was really good. It was really helpful. I got a lot of great feedback from that episode. So if that is something that you haven't listened to yet, you really should, especially if you're interested in investing in real estate itself. But, yeah, like Alex said, not everybody is going to be super honest with their numbers.

And here's the thing that I think a lot of people see is they start comparing themselves to other investors. Oh, Alex has eight properties. I only have two. That doesn't make you a bad person because you only have two. There's a lot of people who only have zero. It's what you are comfortable with. And what I would say to anybody who's considering investing in real estate is invest for you, not for Alex, not for David Perrae, because those guys aren't going to pay your mortgage if your tenant doesn't. So what are you guys saying? Yes, you will pay the mortgage? Oh, no. I would talk smack. But I will point out that the reason Alex was able to use delayed financing, which is a great strategy. And I have never been able to use delayed

financing is because Alex did the save a ton of money while you're learning strategy much better than I did. I bootstrapped and like over leveraged and did things kind of the complicated way in the beginning with like seller financing and low, low down payment loans, whereas Alex was able to, you know, he was a little bit, not even a little bit, a lot more diligent about saving that capital so that he was able to pay cash for properties where I didn't have that kind of capital. And so that's, I mean, that was what allowed him to do the delayed financing, which is phenomenal. And yeah, you should definitely listen to that episode. It's good. I learned a lot about it from it. And then had to pick his brain later and was like, yep, I don't have enough cash

to do this. So sounds cool. Okay. So, Alex. Liquidity, liquidity creates a lot of freedom, a lot of opportunity, a lot of options. I love that. Okay. So you started buying properties. Did you have a job at that time? Yeah. So buying rental real estate is really, a lot easier if you have a W-2. And I was a consistent W-2. So I was working, selling cars, hated it. I learned a lot selling cars, but it's a terrible career choice. So I went into banking.

And my idea was, I had got my degree. I went into banking. And my thought was, hey, look, I want to fix this money problem. I'll go learn about money. Remember? And so I'm like, who knows more about money than the bankers? Right? That actually is not correct.

that's not correct at all. There's a bunch of people probably listen to this podcast that are in retail banking and they're broke and they're trying to fix it. It's a job like any other. People who go into retail banking generally, they do customer service, right? It's a little bit of sales. It's a nice, comfy place. It's a refined, it's a mature industry.

It's a great place to work, but it's not like everybody that works there's rich, right? A lot of more living week to week like everybody else. But again, working at the bank really afforded me a lot of opportunities. a lot of insight because I got to see what people's bank accounts look like. And you know what hit me real hard was like, everybody else is broke just like me. That's why it feels so okay. And I'm serious. That's why the American culture.

That's why people are broke and they're looking at everybody else. And they're like, well, I only make $30,000 a year. But my, my coworker only makes $30 grand a year. But he jobs a BMW. So I can probably afford a BMW. Right? It makes it all seem okay. And it turns out it's the blind leading the blind.

So that really helped me really. really open my eyes to be like, oh, okay, I have to, you know, attaining financial freedom, I don't consider myself an entrepreneur, even though I've done okay in real estate. I don't consider myself an entrepreneur at all. I just really enjoy my freedom. I'll tell you what, it's a lonelyish road because you really have to go against the social grain to do it. You really do. And so it probably means, you know, a lot of the people in my social circle that were not willing to make the sacrifices that I was willing to make, I now couldn't, you know, go hang out with them as much. I couldn't do things with them because I was like, dude, I have to, I have to solve this. I have to solve this

big problem rather than just indulging into the week, the weekly, you know, pleasure. It's that piece that happens when they haven't had the mindset shift of things happen to me instead of I take action. And then you go to hang out and you're like, you want to play Mr. Fix It. It's like what happens with me and my wife where I try to play Mr. Fix It, and that's not what they want. Yeah. So some people, some people, and this is a tough part, some people you have to abandon because they're not going to come with you and they're going to slow you down. So I had a job.

I went to, I'm working at the bank. I'm learning a lot about, I'm learning a lot about how people treat money. I'm learning a lot about, I'm learning a lot about a real estate. And that helped me get these, these loans. But I was only making like, I don't know, 40. grand a year or something. It wasn't a lot of money. But you don't need that's the thing. You don't need a lot of money. I know plenty of people. I know people that make $350,000 a year and are flat broke. And they are stressed and they lose sleep and they look like hell because they can't

their lives have been misery for a decade while making half a million or $350,000 a year. And it's like, you're, that's, you can play that game if you want to. But if you make $45,000 a year, well, I was single. So that, that's a disclaimer. I'm single, no kids. So if you're a single, If you're a single or if you have no kids and you're making $45,000 a year, you can build immense wealth. You don't need to make more than that. So I, that's it. It's just a time gain after that. I love that.

So, yeah. And I, you know, think about it. When you make $45,000 a year, you're thinking to yourself, wow, I'm not that rich. When Carl and I first started dating, I happened to see a paycheck stub on his kitchen table. And I was like, he makes $40,000. a year? Wow. I didn't know he was so rich. Because I was not making that much. And that's not why I dated him, Alex. I know you're going to say something snarky. But when you're making $350,000 a year, you're thinking to yourself, I'm rich. I'm making a ton of money. I should have rich people have their stuff all figured out, right? Like, you know what you're doing when you make $350,000 a year. So for you to be broke, I would think it would be even more stressful because you're like, well, I've got money, so why isn't it working for me? Why can't I figure this out? At the same time, when you make $350,000 a year, you're like, I don't need the budget.

I make a lot of money. I don't need to look where my money's going. I make a lot of money. I've actually been in that position, not the $350,000 part, but the I'm making a lot of money I don't have to budget. And guess what? All of a sudden, your spending creeps up. I talk about money all day, every day. And my spending was creeping up because it's so easy to be like, it's okay to spend this extra little bit. It's no big deal. And it can be a big deal. And you need to, you know, if you want your money to go in a certain place, but you're not consciously thinking of where your money's going to go, it's going to be really difficult to get it to go there. Money is about mindset and control. Not about it, not about volume. It really isn't. And so you can

have $350,000 a year, but if you don't track your net worth diligently and know where all your funds are going, pay yourself first. Then, and then invest in a in some fashion, right? I'm a very risk-averse investor. I mostly do ETFs in stock market. I mostly do ETFs. And I probably own more gold than a lot of people who are listening to do it. I'm very risk-averse.

But it doesn't matter because it works over time, right? And it causes my, the byproduct of this is excess freedom, not excess stress. Right? So it really is about control, which is understanding and having a plan and having a really good insight into where you're at. And then mindset, which, you know, those are two, really. I mean, money doesn't matter what you make. It matters what you do with it. Throw out real quickly, though, that there's probably someone who's listening to this and like started to tune out the moment you said $45,000 was enough.

And their thought is, I live in Seattle or I live in San Diego or I live in New York or I live in Hawaii. I live in, right? So I get those comments or hear that, hear that excuse all the time. And I'm just going to challenge it and say, like, you can move. I think, so Alex didn't live in the most expensive market in the country, but he definitely didn't live in the most affordable market in the country either, right? He was kind of in the middle ground. And so I just want to throw that out because somebody's probably going to say, oh, 45,000.

Well, hey, look, nobody said that it was you could live like exactly what you want to. to live in life while you were going through this journey. If your cost of living is more expensive, then, yeah, you're either going to need to make a little bit more money or you're going to have to move or look at some other options. So just you can absolutely do it on $45,000 a year. It just depends on how you choose to live your life. Yeah, so I do get that a time. Yeah, I lived in a little town in North Carolina.

It's not expensive to live here. Guess what? I hate it here. I'm actually back here again. I've moved twice since. I hate it here. But that's the sacrifice that I make to create stability. and a foundational future.

And so people that live in San Diego, they're like, well, I can't do that because I don't make that much money. I'm like, yeah, but the weather's great. That's what you're spending all your money on. You're spending all your money on living in a place. That's the trade you make. And so people in this,

they always want to tell you what they can't do, but they never want to tell you what they're willing to sacrifice to get what they actually want. So I tell people, don't tell me what you're willing to do to get ahead. Tell me what you're not willing to do. And then we can move around that list.

Because if that list is long, if all the things you're unwilling to do to get ahead. If that list is long, then I might, maybe I can't help you. Maybe you can't help yourself. So maybe sometimes you're in a high cost living area and you can't move or you're unwilling to move. But again, it's the same thing with, um, there's like, there's no cap on income. Like you can go off and make more money too. I'm just talking about, I'm talking about how to make it by through a method of sacrifice, not, we haven't talked about ambition. What if you actually try to make more money and try to invest aggressively?

and try to be an entrepreneur. Like, those things all have no cap. So the, I don't, the naysayers, like, I got you, but also, I understand that there are expensive places to live and that not everybody, people have a wild variety of life experiences. And they come into this, you come into the world where you, kind of where you figured out wherever you're at at the time, you don't really get to choose. You just like, oh, this is where I started.

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Okay, so let's get back to your story. You lived in which Carolina? North Carolina? I'm not from the Carolinas, so they're always confusing and I never get them right. North, Gagalaki. North. Okay. So you lived in North Carolina and then you decided I don't want to live here anymore.

I moved around a bunch. So I lived in Arizona for a while. I moved back to North Carolina. I hated it. But I had, I was stationed here. So I have a good social, I have a base of social structure here. That helps. Then in 2017, I moved back to, I moved to Las Vegas.

I love Las Vegas so much. I moved to Las Vegas and I bought all my properties long distance. And in 2019, I had. personal stuff going on. I was like, this is not going to work out. I need to move back to North Carolina. temporarily was the plan. And so in late, late, late 2019, I moved back to here. And now I'm hoping that in February, I will live in Charlotte, which is a much nicer city, much bigger city. And still close to where your real estate is, right? Yeah, I gave myself golden handcuffs, right? I mean, everybody that thinks that they're going to buy properties across the country and then just hire one

property manager and then they're going to run it for 30 years without a hiccup and it'll be and you can just set it and forget it. You are out of your mind. They are somewhat passive. If you get somebody really good, they will take the vast majority of your burden away from you. But it is very valuable to be nearby or within a day's driving distance or something like that. Or you can afford to fly a lot. I mean, I don't have to go to my properties a lot. But to be fair, There are some that I've never seen, but I have an exceedingly good property manager, but I don't want to go somewhere where then I can't get here because things change. The world will change.

The people that you rely on will change. The world's going to change. You have to be prepared for a different paradigm, not just, it's not always going to go the way it is now. Yeah, I have an exceedingly talented property manager as well. And I've had to come to terms lately with the fact that, like, she might be retiring. in the next few years. And so she's amazing and she has a team, whether or not they're amazing when she leaves, you know, who knows? I think that's one of the hardest things about the long distance investing. Yeah, you can live in Seattle and you can live in San Francisco and New York

and invest in North Carolina or Indianapolis or Kansas City. But if your property manager isn't good, you're going to have just a lot of mental space being consumed by the hassles of the real estate, the hassles. They're really hassles when you are just trying to get your tenants to pay their rent. And there's a problem and your property management company isn't taking care of it. Or your property management company is being proactive and spending way more money than they should. Or just not even answering tenant calls. Or if they don't know how to screen tenants, they're not worth.

anything. Oh, I put this person in place. They said that they, you know, they'll have the security deposit next week. No, they won't. You should never, there's a lot of things that you shouldn't do. And for more information about that, go to bigger pockets.com, because we'll teach you everything about real estate investing. But I'm not selling single family long distance real estate right now by any means. I got into real estate single family because we were going through a foreclosure boom from 2012 to 2017. And that's about when it dried up, to be honest. And then since 2017, basically as far as I can tell the vast majority of people are paying retail prices with the hopes that the market's going to continue to go up. And I do not participate in that behavior. I only buy

things that are undervalued. And currently for me, that looks like larger asset classes. But I'm not sitting here trying to tell you real estate's the way to go. I'm telling you is be dynamic because the market changes. And so you need to go where the opportunity is. The world's going to fluctuate and change. I think that's a great point. Okay. So let's get back to your story. You were in North Carolina. and then you move to Las Vegas, and then you move back to North Carolina, and now you're moving to Charlotte. What are you doing for money?

Not, I don't know. I'm winging it. Okay, so. Great. Super helpful. So I had a little bit of money in January of 2020. I said, okay, I have a really good infrastructure of people here in North Carolina. And I wanted to take the time to see if maybe I could get good at videography.

That's been a passion, a building passion of mine for a while. So I said, maybe I can practice doing some video content. I can basically, I had the opportunity to say, I'm going to live on my terms. I'm not going to get a job. I'll take a year and dabble and just live, right? What the heck is the point of reaching all this financial freedom if I can't spend a little of it? And so I said, I'm going to try this videography thing, right? I'm not a hyper entrepreneur guy who's got to make money at all costs.

I want to enjoy my life. And that does mean chasing, always chasing difficult challenges, but not always business challenges. Okay. So I said, I'm going to do some videography. and what am I going to film? Well, I have this real estate infrastructure here, so I'll flip some houses. Turns out it's, I don't much care for it, and I'm not that good at it, and it's hard. But it pays well. So one of the blessings that I've had is that I've always had jobs that pay me like, you know, bank job, pay 50, 60 grand a year. So I only have to make, I only have to flip like two houses a year to make my same income, which is actually kind of easy, given my history.

So last year, I flipped two houses and I'm, I don't know, I made like 80 or 90 grand. I also bought a multifamily. I bought a big, 30, no, I bought a 52 unit multifamily. That was my second one. And so those come with, you know,

paychecks. And then this year I flipped two houses. And I think I made like another 20 grand with my camera, which is pretty fun. Okay. So you're generating income in different ways. So what do you do with your days? What do you do it all day long?

Uh, late. Well, I went six trips last six weeks. travel. I'm going to Belize next week. Oh, nice. I do. What am I? I don't understand. What's the point of this show? Isn't the point of this show to get people to get their money right so they can live on their terms? Yes, but you haven't shared with us what your day to day looks like. It looks different every day. I do whatever I feel like doing. This morning, okay, this morning I sat and I edited photos because my good friend, Jeremy, I flew down to Pensacola and I did some promo videos for him for his good friend, Jeremy. I flew down to Pensacola and I did some promo video for him. And then I'm going to go and do some editing for a shop. I got Flip Hacking Live, a company that, an event that Bill Allen puts on for flippers.

I did photographs to that event, so I'm going to finish editing and deliver those photos today. And then I'm going to start packing because I'm going to Belize in a week. I got some meetings. I mean, I'm going to go check on one of my flips because I still don't want to do any work, right? Remember we talking about it, the rule one. I don't want to do any actual work. So I got to go check on the flip and get the rest of the contractors out there to turn

that baby and get it on the market. I love it. What else? I love that your days are. And you enjoy all of this, right? the whole not working thing, the whole taking pictures all the time, traveling all the time. You know, it's so funny. Like, I spend an immense amount of time.

If you saw me at BPCon, you probably saw me as working my tail off. I was looking two cameras around, two big cameras. I was shooting every room. I was shooting the whole thing. I delivered, I think, five, six hundred photos edited. I took 9,000. Right? Oh, my.

Over three days. Yeah. Scott kept steam. He's like, dude, I see you everywhere. you're working your, you're working your booty off. And I'm like, actually, I haven't worked a day. I haven't worked a lick. I haven't worked for a second. And so I really think that one of the traps that I, one of the quagmires that I got myself into when I started getting good at real estate, I was like, I'm going to lean into this thing. I'm going to make a little real estate business. And then I,

because that's what all my peer group was doing. Right. If you want to be successful at something, just make your social circle all of that thing and you will become it. So all my social circle is real estate people. So then I started doing this real estate thing. And I got, consumed by it. And then I was like, I don't actually find this to be enjoyable. It just makes money. And I can, and I can, I can, I can find my opportunities. But I really enjoy cameras. So, it's not work for me to spend an entire day shooting, lugging around cameras, you know, the stress of trying to get interesting shots. And then my favorite part is delivering photos to people that they love. And they're like, wow, I now, I posted a picture from VPCon of my,

my good friend Shelby meeting Hal Elrod. And, and, And, you know, for Hal, he's just howl. But for Shelby, like, he changed her life. And so now I have that magic moment. I have it. She remembers it, but I have it forever. Right? And I have it.

And I can give it to her. And I can post on the internet and I can share it with her. And like that right there, that's worth, that's a feeling that no amount of, how do I say it? I couldn't have delved so hard into photography if I hadn't created enough freedom through real estate or through financial education. So it's now bringing me a different portion of my life where I get, how do I say, like I'm rewarded for a very different type of action. It's not financial. It's like it's not of value. It's meaningful.

So Alex mentioned earlier in the show that he's not an entrepreneur, right? He's not big into the entrepreneurship thing. And I think the reason for that is that what Alex did was he created this skill for himself. And I will toot his horn, too, that he's amazing at photography and videography. Just phenomenal, right? If you look at my head shots online, they're mostly Alex. And increasingly becoming a higher percentage of Alex. So he's phenomenal.

And it's this skill set that's a passion for him that he loves, which is why he's so good at it because he spent all the time and effort into it, right? But he wouldn't consider himself an entrepreneur with that because he doesn't have to, in my, what I see, what I think is because he doesn't have to. He's not forced into creating some crazy business that he takes time and effort. He's just able to, he has the freedom to say yes, whenever he wants to use this skill. And it does make, I mean, it's a high paying skill set. He makes good money doing it.

I would be willing to bet that he'd be able to make more money this year filming than he would, than he did his last year as a banker, but he only has to do it however much he wants. And so he's built himself this spot where it's like, yep, I'll do that. And you can pay me because I'm really good at it. and I'll make it worth your time, but I don't have to do that. So it'll never become a job for him. It'll always just be a passion project, which means he'll be that much better at it. So, yeah, it's pretty cool to see, but I think you're right.

You would have never done it had you not had the time to devote to it. One of the things I learned really on, early on about one of the best piece of advice, and I think I said this on the other podcast, I say to people all the time. One of the best piece of advice that I got in life, and I don't even remember where it came from was to be a peace in life. you need these three hobbies, one hobby that makes you money, one hobby that keeps you healthy, and one hobby that keeps you creative. And I literally just designed my entire life around that, those three aspects and life and I am at peace. And I don't take jobs. It's so funny about photography, I don't take jobs unless I would do them for free. And so, in fact, when I sat down with Mindy

and Alexandra in Denver in 2020, and she's like, I want you to be the photographer for the event. I'm like, no, you can't afford me. Turns out they can't afford me. But I would have, done it. I would have done it without. I would have done it anyways. And if they, and if it was a job that I didn't want to do, then there's no price that you can afford that's going to buy my freedom. And so I say all that to say, like the people who, you know, are either buying real estate or they're buying equities. And if you're trying to look at passive ways to invest or you, or you look at investing as a as a passive retirement account builder, a wealth builder, then you need something to do so that you don't fiddle with the money.

You need something or spend the money. What happens is I see a lot of people that they actually in real life, what they really want to do is they don't want to make money. They want to spend it. And that's a problem because when you start investing and making a little bit of money, especially right now where this portion of the market cycle and everybody's kind of win in easily, it's easy to get lifestyle inflation like you'll lead it to earlier, Mindy, or get spendy.

And you need something, in my opinion, you need a hobby that is not a moneymaker, specifically a moneymaker and is not expensive that you can really invest yourself into like something creative so that you can get a meaningful reward out of it without having to affect your retirement building or the stress that comes along with building a business. And so that photography allowed me to like,

for five years, I just did it for funsies. Never took any money. I just love it. And then now because I, like David said, because I think I had that paradigm with it, now people like, hey, I want you to come shoot this. And I only say yes if I actually feel like it. And I'm probably, I super undervalue my, from an economic standpoint, I super undervalue my,

my talent, but I don't care. Well, you should care. You should provide value. You should value yourself at market rate. But I hear what you're saying. I, we, so I've seen a lot of photographers who aren't as good. And the passion, like when you show off photography, you took what, what did you say, 9,000 pictures at BPCon?

I, of course, did not see you there because I was homesick. But you took 9,000 pictures. Not all 9,000 pictures are good. You go through and you pull the ones that you love. And it's not, I'm not being mean. I'm being like, like, like serious. I've seen photographers where they take a thousand pictures at the, the three-day event. And here you go, all thousand pictures. And you're like, wow, seven are great.

And then the rest of them are mediocre or terrible. And you have, because you're so in love with photography, because you're so proud of the job that you're doing, you take 9,000 photos and give us, what did you give us? 500 photos, did you say? Something like that, yeah. Yeah. But they're 500, really fabulous photos because you went through all 9,000 and you're like, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, yes. Because it's the passion that comes through, and that makes people want to hire you as well. They can't afford me.

They can't afford you. Yes, if you need Alex's contact information, contact me. It's $10,000 an hour. And then Alex, I'll pay you $1,000 an hour. Works out great. Lifeinlens.commedia. Hey, this isn't a self-promotion show. You guys are talking about my...

What are you talking about, man? We're not here just to promote you. But no, I really like your story. I love that, like, the thing that you said right at the beginning, I thought I was awesome. So everything would just work out. And it didn't. And that's like such a powerful thing to share because I know a lot of people are in that same position. Wow, why isn't everything working out?

Well, you have to put effort into it. And here, Alex has put effort into it. And he's finally a good person. Well, thank goodness. So I want to throw this out there, though, real quick. Alex said for 31 years, he was terrible with finances, right? Now, I'm not going to date Alex, but I will say that if you were to know and do the math, it's in less than a decade, Alex has changed from, well, I screwed that up to literally

like, I only have to work if I want to and I'm not going to work on something that I don't believe in, which is a pretty powerful spot to be in life. And obviously Alex isn't rolling around in like $2 million baguadis saying like, woohoo, buy my course. But what he's done is he's created a spot where he can do exactly. He can work on what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, and never have to work on anything that he doesn't in less than a decade. So if you put that in perspective, and he did it through simple things,

a little bit of sacrifice. He didn't do the crazy leverage, get rich quick. He did the boring, tried and true, save something. money, make a good investment, use your capital wisely, don't buy crap you don't need. Like the typical fire method of investing, only he chose real estate over index funds. And he was smart and frugal and did all the right things. And in a matter of a couple of years, I mean, if you count when you left your job, I mean, I'd say like a half a decade completely changed, like turn that around.

I mean, it's amazing. So if you put that in perspective, right, if you're 22, 23, 25, I mean, early, early retirement is is totally doable if you just play your cards right. Sacrifice a little up front and enjoy the long term game. It's so easy. Or not even early retirement. I saw somebody today posting in the Facebook groups, oh, I don't know that I'm doing all that well. Here's what I've got. And don't compare yourself.

I love this quote so much. Don't compare your beginning to Alex's end or David's middle or my end. Compare your beginning to where you were last week. You're doing better just because you're thinking about it. But something that we have seen over and over in these shows, these money stories that release on Mondays, is that about 10 years, you can go from nothing to financially free or real close to it just by being cognizant of where your money's going. saving aggressively, not even saving aggressively, saving at all.

We frequently say there are four levers to pull when you are working towards financial independence. Spend less than you earn. As soon as Alex stopped spending more than he earned, he was able to save. Earn more income. That's not really something that Alex apparently has ever pulled that lever, but that's okay. Start a business. Alex, you don't think you're an entrepreneur, but if you are investing in

real estate. Real estate is a business. You are a real estate entrepreneur. You have a photography business, whether you like it or not. That is an entrepreneurial endeavor. So you are an entrepreneur. And also invest intelligently. So you're investing in cash flowing assets or equity plays. You are forcing appreciation. You are investing in low cost markets where you are getting more than one percent, right, on your rent. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, So, and you're investing in ETS. You're investing in the stock market, probably investing a lot in hair products. But you're investing intelligently in.

Yeah, the hawk is looking good right now. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay. Alex is very proud of his hair. But you're making all of these intelligent decisions. And you went from financial disaster to financial master in 10-ish. years. That's that the reason that we share these stories is so people see you can turn it around. Your finances and your financial mistakes don't have to define you. Yes, they happened.

Acknowledge it and move on. Accept the fact that you need to change your finances and then make steps to change your finances. And you're kind of the epitome of financial disaster to financial hero. Any idiot can achieve financial freedom in a few years if they pay attention. I'm proof. I'll say any person, not any idiot. We like to be nice and uplifting on this show, Alex. Any person? Okay.

The irony is that you labeled my BP Money podcast, the guy who did everything wrong and still figured it out. So between Alex and I, I think it's an American. Simple steps. You got this. I think financial irresponsibility is deep. deeply, deeply ingrained into American culture. So the fact that you and I have the same story is actually, it's probably that the vast majority of people who turn the financial situation around.

I mean, it's everybody. It's not you and me. It's everybody. The only difference is most people never, it's a humbling, it's a humbling endeavor to say, I'm messing this up. I'm doing it because I'm too, you know, weak-willed to stop buying stuff or something. stop spending money on frivolous pleasantries and do the hard but responsible thing for my future. It's just easier to be entitled.

And, you know, we live in a culture that the highest value is consumerism. And they have spent decades really understanding how to ping people's dopamine and really get them to feed into this consumerist addiction. So it's not, it's very common and it's not super easy mentally to break out. But on a spreadsheet, like how to make wealth, it's incredibly mundane easy. It is so easy. It's just getting your, it's the mindset. It's mindset and control. If you're sitting at home right now thinking, man, I can't do this or this isn't me or

whatever that that reason is that you can't do this. And you're listening to this on a brand new iPhone 13. Well, he's talking to you. A lot of it is just a lot of it, I'll add some other insight. A lot of it is who you spend time with. If you spend time around, like broke people can't teach you how to make money. It's not that they don't want to. They don't know how.

You know, my parents actually did a better job. I messed up good advice, right? They used to tell me like, dude, my parents are conservative, right? Like, I don't mean politically. I mean, like, you know, in behavior. Like, they don't, they don't, they don't. they don't spend frivolously. They buy old cars.

They don't have debt, right? They're like, look, Alex, just save money. Invest, you know, they didn't teach me to invest. They're like, just save it. Just save money and spend less in your own and don't buy stuff you can't afford and you don't buy in debt. And then I went to the army and I got my, you know, the American, the entitlement machine got in my brain.

I was like, what my parents know? Knuckleheads? They don't know anything. I'm so smart. Debt. You know, bought a Honda Civic on 18 percent. Like every freaking. entitled like every enlisted troop that has ever, you know, come before brag.

I'm just saying. I mean, that's a very common story. Yeah. These are mistakes that I've made. I'm okay with them. I'm at peace of them. And so when you say, oh, I can't do Alex this is done. I'm like, dude, I bet you I've done things that are dumber than a lot of people.

You know, I bet you I'm above average on dumb in my previous. Is that how that works? Is that above average or what the people are all about the extremes, right? Okay, I'm really glad you said that, Alex. It is all about the people that you surround yourself with. And if you are in a group of friends where everybody has a brand new car, you start to think about, well, why don't I have a brand new car? Maybe I should go out and get a brand new car. And everybody has the latest iPhone.

Oh, I'm stuck on this garbage iPhone for whatever. Maybe I should go and get the latest iPhone. You, like, your friends, if you, if they all have iPhone, what is it, 13? If they all have iPhone 13s and you've got your little bitty one, they're going to be making fun of you. And so what? Who cares? But it's so easy to fall into that American consumer is trap where spending more money

than you make is totally the norm. You just put it on a credit card and make the minimum payment and eventually you'll pay it off. No, eventually you will not pay it off because you'll just keep adding to it. So if you find yourself sucked into these. Friendships, it sucked in isn't the right word, but like getting sucked into purchases because all your friends are making these same purchases, maybe you should start spending time with different people. There's, I live in Longmont, Colorado.

It's kind of this five bubble. And I have to keep reminding myself over and over again, not everybody has the same support system that I have. And there are people out there who want to help you, want to encourage you, and they don't even know you. but they know the power of having your finances in order will what that can get you in your life. So they want to encourage you. A great place to start is the Bigger Pockets Facebook groups, bigger pockets money, Facebook.com slash group slash BP money.

We're all sitting around talking about money and questions about finances. And it's a very welcoming group. It's my groups. If somebody gives you a snotty answer, tag me or report it and I will kick them out because I make this group a place. to ask questions, a safe place to have a conversation. You guys are both laughing at me, but you know what? I just kicked out some people the other day for being awful. I'm laughing because I feel that pain. I've known Mindy for a long time and everybody, you know, you guys think she's real nice, but I'll tell you what, underneath, she's a tyrant.

She is a iron-fisted tyrant. Yes. She's down inside. This is why we hit it, we just hit the nail on the head for why high-income earners struggle so much. It's because people like, or doctors or in these in these professions they get their social circle is the exact same thing and so they get they feel like they get sucked into you know hosting a party so they have to have a nice house or or driving a nice car because doctors don't drive you know a geometro or or whatever um if you've ever played the cash flow board game right the if you if you ever mess around with that game the hardest characters to get out of the rat race with are the ones who make the most money

because they have the most liability, debt, whatever, and the debt and expenses is harder to overcome than the income. It's easier to make more money than it is to slash. Like, I hate to say this because somebody's going to be upset. But if you have three kids by the time you're like 12 or 17 or 18 or whatever, right, like whether you plan, whether you plan the age, right? So like Alex mentioned it earlier. He didn't have kids.

He was single. So $45,000. Like, that would have been a lot harder if you had kids. Like, I didn't have kids when I was. young, which made things easier for me. And not to say that having kids is bad by any means, but like, you know, planning those decisions out or, you know, or having expensive cars or going into bankruptcy or houses you can't get out from under, like any of those recurring expenses can set you back a lot

farther than not having a massive income will set you forward. Well, David, you are walking quite the tightrope there, by the way. I love that. Yeah. But the problem of culture and the problem of social circles is, deeply, deeply and subtly ingrained into the American way of life. So finding people that really do align with what you want your life to be like and having a little bit of rebellion to say, look, there's probably,

I'm probably not going to agree with the vast majority of people and how they live. And I have to go and go against the grain. It's a, it's definitely something you can do and the internet makes it, the internet may help tremendously with the internet's a double-sided source. because you're going to go on Instagram and you're going to see people flexing all sorts of nonsense all the time. And they lie. Ooh, let me tell you something. Instagram.

You're a liar. People's lives are, you know, they only show you the highlights. And then in real estate, it's always closing deals. And the funnel into FOMO is very strong. You don't want to avoid all that stuff. And you want to find people that share the same values as you. And generally, like money is not a value system. In fact, if money is a value system, it leads to consumerism.

money is a tool, a resource, and it should fund your freedom. It should not be like a mechanism to buy every gratifying pleasure that you can think of. So, you know, there are most things in the world that you can are really cheap. Most really amazing things in the planet have been going on for, you know, 12,000 years. And you don't need to go, it wasn't, it's not in Las Vegas. And it's not a tourist attraction. It's like, dude, you can travel cheap. and free to most places in the world. Relationships are going to be worth a lot more than,

and you can't, and you can't buy them. Um, you know, I've, I find a lot of pleasure in books. Books are like the thing that gives me the most value in the world and they're dirt cheap, which I think is astounding actually because they're the highest return on investment. But point is, um, money, my relationship with money is one where, uh, it, it works for me. I don't use, like, it's not something like, hey, I want all these things in the world. And I need to make money to go get them. It's more like, uh, it's more like, it's more like, Like all the things that I want in the world are actually pretty cheap. I'm just trying to find a way to do it responsibly in the amount of time.

I can't just pick up all my life and go travel permanently. I could afford to. But I have things that I have social responsibilities and people that I want to help and take care of and do things and houses. But who you hang out with and the values that you set up are going to dictate, are going to absolve you from a lot of the mistakes that you make. with money. If you don't have values in a good social circle, then you're going to result to blatant consumerism. He says social responsibilities like people want him around. They don't like me around, but it's always something exciting happening. Boy, that is true.

It is always a party with Alex around. Oh, man. Okay, Alex, this has been a lot of fun, and I really am glad that you were able to share your story with our listeners because I know that you're not special. There are lots of people who are listening to this show who are like, yep, that's me, that's me, that's me. And your story isn't unique, which is why it makes it so important to share. But we're not done with you yet. We still have our famous more questions, which we ask of all of our guests. Alex, are you ready? Probably not.

Okay, great. That'll be awesome. That'll be just like the rest of the show. Okay, Alex, what is your favorite finance book? Did he just say he reads books all the time and it's the best investment? in the world? I read I read I did read

I read Nietzsche philosophy yeah he's he's a German but yeah pretty much yeah I read rich dad poor dad when I was in 2005 it didn't stick right it didn't I didn't do anything

with it for another six years but it implanted something in my head that I didn't realize how important it would be like it planted a seed and so when I started wanting to get my money right it had that one little basis, which was, you want passive income, not active income. And that really set me off foundationally. Ooh, no, scratch all that.

Scratch all that. Now we're going to keep it in. Continue. The richest man in Babylon. Oh, I love that book. Those two books. I look back now, because I'm much smarter now after six years of books. But I look back now, I'm like, that's a rudimentary book.

But that book actually, because it's so rudimentary is what hit me so hard. It said things that they now seem obvious. But, you know, sometimes when you understand something, It's just knowledge, but when you can combine it with experience, it becomes like wisdom. And they say things like spend less than you earn, which is very, it was like it hit me like a ton of breaks. I'm like, oh, who would have thought of that? You know, always pay yourself first. These are very simple, simple.

Do not invest in things that you don't know or would get you outsized returns. I don't know what's going to happen to Bitcoin, but I know people are really excited about it. And I don't know enough about it. And so I just, you know what? I'm going to take a big pass on the bulk of Bitcoin. Same. I just don't know it. And I don't have to know it in order to.

And I know that. So those rules in richest man of Babylon, like, dude, I read a lot of books, but I don't read a lot of finance or business books. The rules for finance are really simple. You don't need to spend a lifetime learning them. You just need to spend a lifetime employing them. Richest man in Babylon. is my favorite book because it was written 100 years ago.

And it still holds true. It's like money isn't. I was going to say, which for Alex means that's almost a new book. That is true. But it was written 100 years ago. It still holds true. Spend less than you earn. Don't invest in things you don't understand.

Don't invest with people who don't know what they're doing. Take the money that you're the difference. between what you're spending and what you're earning and invest it wisely. And it's so good and it's so true to this day. I love that. And it represents people's continuous failure in the money mindset problem, which is they go to Arcad, right? And they're like, hey, you make what I make?

But we're always broke and you're building wealth. What's the problem? And that's really the problem of most, I don't want to say most humans, but most Americans, right? Where they're like, I'm making enough money in theory, but I don't have enough. What the heck's the problem? So, sad to say, but you're the problem.

Most likely. I just reread that book like three months ago. If you make $31,000 a year, you are in the top 1% global richest earners. You ain't got money problems, bro. You got entitlement problems. On that note, Alex, what was your biggest money mistake? I didn't know. I don't know how to word it.

I guess apathy. I didn't do anything with money. know that I didn't believe in my, my abilities enough or, how do I say it? I didn't believe that I could do anything with money until I made more. And so I did nothing with money. And then it actually caused me to make less. Once I figured out money, like, I haven't made that many mistakes. Everything I, everything I make returns a healthy profit. Okay. I like that. I like that answer a lot. Apathy. Apathy. That's not something that we have. had anybody actually say on the show. But that is, like again, like I said before, you're not

special. That is something that has happened with a lot of people. You just got to keep telling him he's not special. It's not ever going to sink in, though. I believe it deeply. You hear my feelings. I mean, it's the only one with this shirt, though. With up. Alex has the only pink Bigger Pockets podcast, Bigger Pockets T-shirt in the world. You're so great, Alex. What is your best? piece of advice for people who are just starting out. I have so much good advice. There's the Alex we know and love.

Take radical responsibility and make any sacrifice that you need to attain the highest good. I like it. I like that too. Not much else to add. All right. Well, then I'm going to move on to the really hard question. Alex, what's your favorite joke to tell at parties? I don't tell jokes.

I'm not a jokester. You are the joke. Yeah. Yeah, right. Okay. I've got one. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a, I don't, I usually make fun of people.

If I had somebody there, like, look at David's mustache. We don't need jokes. I can't stop laughing. He's got a beard, too. The beard is coming in. I had to have a, I had to have a, me and the boys had to have a, yeah, see, he's embarrassed. We had to have an intervention about that mustache at, at, at, at, uh, I had to have a, I had to have a, Footpacking alive.

Like, dude, you're out of the military. It's time to shave it. There's no more excuses. We got to grow the beard out and shave the stuff. This isn't about David. It definitely didn't start because I said I was growing a beard now that I was out. That's definitely not how this conversation started. Definitely not.

What was the answer to when we asked you about the mustache on your episode 179? I'm bringing sexy back. Okay. So that's not the focus of this. We're getting the joke. All the people who listen to this show really love the jokes. except me. But I don't have any jokes.

I've got some for you. Alex, I just said that if you would just stop talking, then I could share the joke. Not my strong suit. I saw two men walk into a photography shop yesterday. You would have think at least one of them would have spotted it. Did Scott write these? I didn't. No ownership.

Yeah, these are Scott. They're terrible. They're terrible. Ruining a photo is the easiest thing. I can do it with my eyes closed. I know they're awful. Oh, a squid with a camera is called a squid GoPro. Okay, I'm done with those.

Oh, how does this show survive? This is terrible. People drop off before this. Okay, Alex, now is the time for you to promote the heck out of yourself. Where can people find out more about you? Your photography, your real estateing, all the things. Hit us. I don't sell anything.

In 2017 or 18, I'm so sorry, I don't sell anything. In 2017, I started a blog to document my financial journey. It's called Broke is a choice. I don't have any click funnels. I don't sell you anything. Everything that I've ever done in finance and real estate is there if you want to see it. But it doesn't, I don't benefit from it anyway other than I get to hopefully help some people along the way. There's no financial incentive for me.

But that's it. Or you can follow my Instagram and you can see pictures. What is your Instagram? That's my name, Alex Scott Phelief. Alex Scott, Felice. You say that like people just know

how to spell Felice. Okay, we will include links to all of these things, both of those things, uh, in our show notes. Everybody just follows me already. I don't,

how much, they don't. So, uh, we will include these links in our show notes, which can be found at biggerpockets. com slash money show two, four, seven. And despite all of my ribbing of you,

Alex, I am really very delighted that you joined us today. Because I think that your story has a lot of people, I think your story has a lot to teach people, and I think that there are a lot of people who are where you were just a few years ago. I think that that's probably true. I think that, like I said, a few times I show, the situation in American culture is financially, is dire, and people just need to take that red pill, wake up a little bit, take control of it, and they can fix it pretty easy. Okay, awesome. Well, Alex, I really appreciate your time today, and we'll talk to you soon.

Okay, that was Alex Belize. David, what did you think of Alex's story? You know, I've known Alex for a long time, but I don't know that I've ever heard his story in one setting before from the mistakes through. And he gets raw, right? He even talks about a mistake that he made that, I mean, the DUI, that, you know, a lot of people don't even want to bring that up publicly. And yet it was a catalyst for him changing his life.

And I think Alex has a very good story, a very relatable story, but certainly not a unique one in the fact that it's it's something that a lot of us go through similar stories. And it's just taking, he took ownership of his situation and he fixed it. He did so very quickly. And I think that there's a lot of great advice in here. I love, I love messing with Alex and talking to Alex. It's always a good time. Yeah, I completely agree with you.

The DUI, yet nobody's proud of having a DUI, but it happened in his past. And taking ownership of that, not blaming somebody else for his problems. hey, I was a mess. I did a wrong thing. I couldn't even pay that bill. And I lost my job, so I super couldn't pay that bill. I knew I had to figure this out. It was humbling to have to call my parents.

It was embarrassing to me that I didn't have my stuff together. So now I'm going to make sure that I'm never in this situation again. And you can't, you know, when life throws you a curveball, you can take the hit and be like, huh, I guess that just happened. Or you can say, oh, I should learn how to duck. let me figure out how I can position myself so I'm never in this position again. And sorry for using the word position twice in a sentence. That doesn't sound good.

But it is what it is. Longtime listeners of this show know that sometimes I just word vomit. Okay. But what I really liked about Alex is towards the end of the story, he kind of epitomizes the quote, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. He did this log. He started investing. He made intelligent decisions.

and now he chooses, he gets to choose how he's going to spend his day. And if he decides that he doesn't want to do something, he doesn't have to do it. And I love that. That's kind of the whole catalyst for this show in general, is that once you get your money out of the way, you can choose to spend your life how you choose, how you want, how you, you get to live the life that you want to live because now you're no longer worried about the money. And he said that money is a tool. And I just love that.

It's not a value system. It's a tool. That's a really great quote. Yeah. And when he says, you heard him in the podcast say, you can't afford me. And people take that,

I think at face value of like, I'm so valuable, I'm so expensive. But I think what he means in the back end is genuinely like, it's not a price tag that's going to convince me to do this. It's whether or not I actually enjoy doing it. And he's, yeah,

he's in a good spot. It's awesome to watch. Yeah, I really do enjoy Alex and my conversations with him are always fun. So thank you for joining us today. Again, Alex was talking about surrounding yourself with people who are like-minded. If you need a place to go to talk about money in a safe place, go to our Facebook group, Facebook.com slash groups slash BP money. And we will welcome you with open arms and have all the money conversations you want. Encouragement abounds.

David, should we get out of here? Absolutely. From episode 247 of the bigger pockets of podcast. He is David Paray from the military millionaire group. Where is your group located? Facebook.com slash group slash military millionaire. Oh, fantastic. That's easy to remember. I am Indy Jensen saying so long. See you later. Goodbye.