BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 521: Full-Time FIRE and Traveling the World…All Thanks to Rentals!

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Could real estate investing help you reach financial freedom much sooner than you thought possible? Today’s guest had his world turned upside down by one tragic incident, but he was able to quit his W2 job, pivot to real estate, and fast-track his journey to FIRE! Today, we’re chatting with technology instructor turned full-time real estate investor Keith Nugent. After a skydiving accident rendered him unable to perform his previous job duties, Keith knew he needed a new path to financial independence. Fortunately, he discovered real estate at the perfect time. Taking advantage of the fallout from the 2008 housing market crash, Keith started loading up on rental properties—often buying them for pennies on the dollar. In just twelve years, he had not only achieved his goal of thirty cash-flowing units by 2020 but also added an additionalten units to his portfolio! Thanks to real estate, Keith now has a career that fully accommodates his disability and will allow him to retire early. In the meantime, he enjoys his newfound financial freedom by traveling the world and spending time with his FIRE-bound friends. In this episode, Keith offers practical tips on how to start investing in real estate—from choosing your market to buying your first rental property and more! In This Episode We Cover How Keith became a full-time real estate investor after a tragic skydiving accident How to replace your W2 income and achieve financial freedom with real estate Why time in the market is MORE important than timing the market How to determine how much cash flow you need to support your retirement Why you NEED an estate plan and how to decide who inherits your assets And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group Network with Other Investors on The Path to FIRE Through the BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Join BiggerPockets for FREE Mindy on BiggerPockets Scott on BiggePockets Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Apply to Be a Guest on The Money Show Podcast Talent Search! Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area Find Investor-Friendly Lenders Money Podcast 330 - The Ultimate Teen Money Hack for Parents Money Podcast 397 - Estate Planning, Wills, & What to Do NOW to Protect Your Heirs Grab Your “Family Emergency Binder” Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-521 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode, a fire Friday of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast, we're talking to someone who was able to flip a bad situation and turn it into an opportunity. Today, we're talking with Keith Nugent, who was forced into disability after a skydiving accident in 2006. After his recovery, Keith realized he could no longer work as a corporate trainer and had to forge a new path in real estate instead. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and I am jumping in solo today. There's a little pun for all of you, people who are missing Scott.

He will be back with me soon. As always, I am here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because I truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. And now let's bring in Keith. Keith Nugent, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I'm so excited to dive right into this interview. Hey, Minnie.

It's good to talk to you. So, Keith, in 2006, you had a skydiving accident that sort of took your life in a different trajectory. On a very high level, can you give us a little bit of background about what happened? Yeah. So I was doing a trick that I had done a couple hundred times already that season, but there was one variable that was changed that I forgot about. And so rather than landing softly, I pounded into the ground. And this happened on a Sunday. I woke up in the hospital on Wednesday with all sorts of broken bones. I had bitten through my tongue and had rattled my brain around. I had a bunch of

brain damage. I've actually lost, I think 27 points, IQ points from before to after the accident. Did your parachute not open? No, my parachute was open. I was flying it. It was just instead of landing, instead of coming out of the turn just above the ground, I came in out of the turn just below the ground or the ground didn't move. You know, it has a habit of not doing that. Gravity is a rough, rough lesson.

Yeah. Wow. So let's go back to the beginning of your money journey and talk about, how your experiences with money as a kid shaped your adult life. Yeah. So growing up, I grew up in a standard middle class, middle income,

blue-collar family. My parents raised my brother and I. We didn't really know what money was other than, you know, they taught us to save. They had a number of shortcomings, like my dad got injured when I was eight, and so he was out of work for a year and a half. My brother and I had no idea how that affected their family financially.

Looking back, now I can see some big changes that happened during those times, but at the time, I was just a happy kid. And my parents really emphasized the idea of saving. So every birthday or whatever celebration, we would get cash gifts. And we were told, okay, you can keep the small percentage of it, but then now we're putting the rest of it into a savings account. And when we got out of grade school, we were told we knew this from fourth or fifth grade grade that after grade school, our parents weren't going to pay for our books and clothes

and stuff. So we had to get a job right out of eighth grade. I was delivering flyers. I was delivering newspapers. A couple just have an odd job, you know, raking, mowing lawns and stuff. And so it was ingrained in me from very early on that, like, if you want something, you have to pay for it. And if you have to pay for it, you have to save up your money.

So while my classmates had flashy clothes and cars and everything, I bought the reasonable economical clothes because that's what I could afford on the income that I had. And so that continued down through into college, just like always save my money and, you know, you can only afford what you have money for. That is a really great lesson. I'm a little surprised that your parents would cut you off after eighth grade. Did they give you any sort of stipend? Or was that just, hey, you're 13, now you're a man. Go out and make your own way?

Well, I mean, we didn't have to pay for everything. So I had to pay for my any of the books, clothing, or any entertainment. payment. They still fed us three times a day. They still made their roof overhead. They paid for our car insurance, which we started driving all that stuff. It's just that we had to pay for anything. Like if we wanted to buy, if we wanted to wear fashionable clothes, we had to pay for them. If I think there was once or twice that I didn't make enough money on my summer job. And so my mom took me shopping. But it was like, hey, I want this. She's like, no, you're getting this cheaper version. And there was a couple of times that are like, I'd want to go out

with friends and do something. And at first, they would, you know, they would wait until the very last minute of telling me, no, well, you don't have the money for it. You can't do it. And then the very last minute, you know, dad would slip me at 20 and tell me to go out with my friends or whatever. So they weren't monsters or anything. They were just teaching us financial responsibility. So, Keith, I actually really love that concept of teaching your kids financial responsibility before they're actually out on their own. What most people do, so this is actually better. Your parents are, you know, better than most.

Most people will allow their, will pay for everything for their kids until the end of high school and then they go off to college and perhaps even your parents will put money into your account, but you're not used to handling this money. So you just go out and kind of blow it on dumb stuff as teenagers do, as high school kids, college kids do. And your parents actually. gave you a huge gift by giving you the ability to fall, the ability to the gift of understanding what it's like to not have any money and want to do something and have to make that choice,

while also every once in a while I'll slip in you a 20, so you could still do it, which is really generous. We want to hear from Keith about how he was able to set a plan for reaching early retirement despite an accident that led to brain damage and loss of work. But first, we're going at a quick break. 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 exactly where your

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You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code pockets at monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at monarch.com code pockets. I love Matt, said no one ever. Nobody starts a business thinking, you know what would make this more fun? Calculating quarterly estimated taxes. But somehow, every small business owner ends up doing it. Your dreams of creating, selling, and growing, get replaced by late nights chasing receipts, juggling invoices, and wondering if that bad sushi lunch with Scott

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Nd.com. Found is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by lead bank, member FDIC. Don't put this one off. Join thousands of small business owners who have streamlined their finances with Found. Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Liener Stronger for Fitness, The Anxious Generation for 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. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. So before your accident, what was your financial situation and what were you doing work-wise? So before the accident, I had worked through a bunch of different careers leading up to this. But then for the few years before the accident, I was working as a technology instructor.

So I was traveling around the U.S. and Canada turning geeks into nerds, teaching them about Microsoft certifications and networking and security and all that. And I had worked my way up to, I was working for a company where I was the, my title was vice president of operations, which sounds really impressive, but it was a small company. So they,

the sort of thing where they give you a title so they don't have to give you a raise. And so I was a VP of operations. I was managing a field of instructors. and I was making more money than I could spend. And believe me, I was trying to spend it as fast as I could. My 401k, I got the minimum contribution to get a match. And I wasn't saving my money for the future. I just had always had this thought in my head that like, well, I'm going to retire early.

I had no idea how I was going to retire early, but my parents had retired early, and I didn't want to work until I was 65, so I was going to come on some great idea that was going to make me a millionaire and be able to retire early. But I was spending my money as fast as it was coming in. So being able to contribute to your 401K, you were saving for retirement. Were you contributing to any other retirement plans? like a Roth IRA or did you have any after tax brokerage or was the 401K kind of your sole plan? The 401K was the only investment or savings tool. I think I had a savings account with like a few thousand dollars in it. But the 401K was the only thing and that was very meager.

I think when I eventually cash in the 401k for a project later and when I cashed it in, it was like $25,000. So it wasn't very substantial. I mean, I was putting in the minimum amount to the 401k. And even then, I was like, I'm just wasting this money, putting this 401K. Like, I had the wrong attitude about it until all of a sudden I needed to rely on it. Spoiler alert, 401K is not wasting your money. So what did your financial situation look like just right before you were in the accident. I used to live in Chicago, and prices were very high, and I couldn't afford a place up there. So a couple years before my accident, I bought a house down in Illinois, out of Illinois, where I was skydiving.

And for the cost that I could have gotten like a one or two-bedroom condo in Chicago, I bought a three-unit rental house and had been running that. So the two upstairs units had been rehabbed and were occupied, and the downstairs unit was gutted, and we were getting rid of rehab that when I had my accident. So I still had the corporate job where I was making close to $100,000 a year. I had a little bit of rental income that was offsetting the mortgage. And I was living down in Ottawa.

I was actually living in a trailer in a campground while I was rehabbing the first floor of the house. So yeah, my financial situation, I was making plenty of money. I had my first rental, which if I hadn't had the accident, that might have been my only rental. but then after the accident, I made some big changes. Yeah, let's talk about those changes. That was a life-altering accident in many ways. What were some of the – well, first of all, how long did it take for you to get out of the hospital? So I was in the hospital, I think, for three or four weeks.

And then I was – they sent me home. My girlfriend at the time was having to drive an hour and a half each way to get to the hospital. And she was a nurse. So she said, you know, let him out of the hospital. I'll take care of him at home. So I went home and I was in the wheelchair for, I think, 18 months in and out of the wheelchair as they were doing corrective surgeries and everything. I was in a neck brace because I had broken my neck.

I think the neck brace was about a year. And so it was probably a year and a half before I was able to go back to work. I was when I first woke up in the hospital, I couldn't talk because I'd been through my tongue and my mouth was swollen and I'd broken some teeth. But I was trying to convince my family that I needed to call my boss because I knew it was Wednesday and he expected me to be to work on Monday and I was terrified that I was going to lose my job for not calling him. They're like, we've talked to him. He understands that you've had an accident. He says, don't worry about, you know, like the work is the leaves of your problems. I didn't believe them. I made them,

let me talk to him on the phone. And he confirmed like, yeah, I know that you've broken a lot of bones. Don't worry about work. But yeah, I was just terrified of not be, of how am I going to pay for my life? How am I going to pay my bills now that I'm laid up in the hospital? Well, since this is America, how did you pay for all of these medical bills? Well, luckily, I had amazing health insurance at the time. I had through a fortunate accident, I had my own health insurance because my employer was out of

Massachusetts and I was living in Illinois. And every time I went to the doctor, the insurance company would deny the claim and I would say, no, I live in Illinois. I'm going to a doctor in Illinois. And they said, okay, yeah. So it was always a hassle. And so I was like, this is garbage. I'm going to go get my own insurance.

So I had top of the line insurance on my own. So that paid for my medical bills other than I think the whole accident cost me like $3,000 or something like that. That's really amazing. Yeah. I think it costs the insurance company somewhere between half a million and a million dollars for all my surgeries and everything. That sounds low. What year was your accident? 2006.

2006. Okay. Yeah. I could be wrong. Maybe it was a few million. But the number I've got seconded my head is just south of a million. And then my employer is, like I said, is out of Massachusetts, and they're required to have disability insurance on all of their employees. And so my disability insurance kicked in right

away and was covering, they're sending me a check so I could pay my mortgage and that sort of stuff. Because this was a skydiving accident, did you receive any compensation from the skydiving company or their insurance policy when it happened? Or is skydiving a, um, participant beware activity. No, it's very much a participants beware activity. When you go to skydive for the first time, and then every year, if you keep skydiving, they've got a multi-page waiver saying that you understand

that you are going to jump out of an airplane, and if you do nothing, you're going to die. And it's not the people who are flying the plane. It's not their responsibility to save your life. and you're the only one in the air there. One of the big life lessons that I've gotten was that first, when I was first learning how to skydive, they said, you are the only person responsible for saving your own life.

So I've taken that as you're responsible for your success, for your health and longevity and everything else. Like you are responsible for you. Nobody else is going to take up. up the responsibility for what you do and what your decisions are. Okay. Well, that's, that's good to know. I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't ask that. And you're like, oh, yeah, and by the way, I got a $50 million settlement. That'll change your financial position just a little bit. So, Keith, you alluded to owning more rentals than just this original three-plex. When did you start buying more rentals? Okay. So my accident was

2006. I went back to work in 2008 in a limited capacity. They were trying to do accommodations for me. And that lasted for about a year. In the end of 2008, my boss told me that, you know, you're not the same person that you used to be. You have memory problems and other mental awareness problems. I had some anger issues that I was dealing with at work in life. And so he said, you know, we've got to put you back on disability because you're not able to do the job. And I argued with him, no, I'll do better. I'll try harder. And he said, no, it's been a year.

We've keep trying to make these combinations and it's not working. And so I was crushed because I identified with my job was my identity. Like I am a computer trader. I am an executive or a manager or whatever. And so being told that I couldn't work. that I wasn't able to do the work anymore, felt like being told that I didn't exist, told me that I was worthless as an individual. And so I spent a few months kind of panicking and getting over that.

And then I thought, okay, well, I need to take care of myself. I need to figure out how I'm going to get by here. Like, I didn't trust that disability was going to last. I've heard all sorts of horror stories of people being on workman's comp or disability and the insurance company sends them to, you know, their doctor and their doctor says that they're fine and cuts off their payments. So I thought, this is not going to, this is not a lifelong solution. I need to figure out how to support myself. And so I had sort of a two-prongued attack.

I was going to go back to college and learn how to, um, You know, kind of retrain for something else that could accommodate my disability. And then I wanted to make sure that I never had to rely on work on physical labor for my income. And growing up, my dad had said that he always wished he would have been a property when he was young, so we were going to retire on it. And he was old. And so I sat down literally with a napkin at lunch one day and figured out, okay, how many properties do I need? to have income from, to replace the income that I had before the accident. And I did some math, and I figured out that I needed 30 units.

So then I figured, all right, well, I need to have 30 units, but I need to have the mortgages paid off by the time I am ready to retire at 65. So that means I have to have them by 2020 so that I can pay off the mortgage, a 15-year mortgage on the last property that I buy so that everything's paid off by 2035. So I set a goal, a 10-year goal to get 30 units by 2020 and bought the first unit in, or the first property in 2010. Now, I already had the three-unit building before that. So I guess the fourth unit I bought in 2010 with the goal of getting to 30 by 2020.

So this is interesting that you're buying in 2010. the housing crash happened in 2008. Did you have any trepidation about buying a rental property back then? Well, luckily, I am the lucky person that you'll ever made in that I started buying property in 2010. It didn't occur to me that properties, like that buying property was a hard decision back then or maybe it was a bad decision. I was just like, well, I need to get to 30 properties, so I need to start buying them now. And I was just fortunate that I made that decision as the market had just bottomed out and

was climbing back up. And so I bought properties for pennies on the dollar in some cases just because of my fortunate timing. It wasn't a grand plan of mine. It wasn't anything intelligent other than I need properties. So I'm going to start buying them now. and I just was lucky that I bought them, started buying them in 2010. When did you buy your final property?

The last property I bought, I bought in 2022, and that brought me up to 40 units. So I reached the goal of 30 units in 2019 just before my 10-year goal. And then momentum just kept carrying me forward because when you're buying a lot of properties in a small town, everybody knows that you buy properties. and so whenever anybody has anything to sell, they call you up and say, hey, I've got this property. Do you want it? And I'm like, oh, well, you know, I'll take the look, see if the numbers work.

And then I kept buying. So the last one was 2022. And in 2010, how much did you pay for that property? The first property I bought in 2010, I believe was $25,000. No, it's $22,000. He was asking $25,000, and I negotiated down to $22. I love these numbers. I hate these numbers because I can't touch.

these at all, but also I'm not buying in 2010. So $22,000, what did that property rent for? I think that property rented for $650,000 or $700 when I bought the property, it needed some work. So we went in and did some rehab work on it. Probably sunk another $10,000 into the rehab. and then rented it out for, I think it was $700 a month back then. $32,000 divided by $700 is $45.71 and a bunch of other numbers. 45 months, so that's just under four years. This house is completely paid off and then just because, well, not completely paid off, but could be completely paid off.

And then it's just pumping out cash flow. Did you get a loan for that $22,000? No, what I did is I took a home equity line of credit on the three unit that I already had and used that for the to buy the house. And then I borrowed some money from my parents for the rehab costs. So I had the cost of the house plus some of the rehab costs, and then my parents lent me a few thousand dollars to finish up the rehab. and then I paid them back, I think, inside of a year. And then the home equity line was, I think it was at 9% or something like that. I was really not smart with borrowing that money.

I kind of got loaned shark there. So I paid that off in a few years as well. Good for you. All right. And then 2019, your last property that you purchased, or 22, your last property that you purchased. What did you pay for that? That one was a five unit and I bought it for $148,000, which was on closing, I had $200,000 of equity because the guy that I bought it from was just horrible at managing and owning property and he just

wanted to get rid of it. So I offered him such a low ball number and he accepted it. So I used to live in the Chicago area. I'm familiar with Ottawa, Illinois as being kind of the gateway to Starved Rock. Is Starved Rock National Park or? State Park. State Park, which is a super cool place to go and, you know, hike around or whatever. But there's not a ton going on in Ottawa. Is there? It's not like a vacation destination. Yeah, they're building up as a vacation destination for people from Chicago. They've been developing a, it more and more over the last 10 or 15 years. But yeah, no, it's just a sleepy little farm town with, I joke that I own half the town now, which is nowhere near accurate. But it's just, you know, it's a small town. They've got a lot of little industries going on.

There's no, you hear a lot of towns have like the one big employer that if they go out of business, it ruins everybody. And Ottawa doesn't have that. We've got a bunch of factories and warehouses and technology companies and a wide variety of different industries and small companies that are the employers in town. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of appreciation going on in Ottawa, Illinois, but there is a lot of cash flow. Would you characterize that? Yeah, that's absolutely true. Yeah, when the housing market comes.

crash in 2008, Ottawa saw a slight decline where, you know, in Chicago, people were losing half the value in Ottawa, people would lose like 10% of the value. And then as things, you know, climbed up over the last 15 years or whatever, where I've heard people saying that like their value doubled and tripled. And in Ottawa, my values went up maybe 30%, maybe more than maybe 50%, but yeah, it's not, it's a very dampered version of the national market. Well, that sounds more stable than the national market. It went down a little bit. It goes up a little bit.

But the cash flow seems like it's really the reason that you're investing in these properties. What sort of cash flow does your 40 units kick off every month? I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but when I was buying my properties, I made sure that H1 would cash full at least $100 a month per door when I was buying them in my, and that's what it showed in the calculator. And they've all done that or better. I still have the mortgages on them. I still have, you know, all the typical expenses, and they're throwing off enough cash flow for me to support myself pretty well. Do you consider yourself to be financially independent, Keith?

Yes. Yeah. I've been, I realized one day, I remember driving in my car and coming to the, like I had to pull over the car because I was like, I can't mess this up. Like I have enough income coming off of my properties and I have a management company doing the daily, you know, day-to-day stuff with it. that I have enough income from that to support myself for the rest of my life. And that's what you need.

You just need enough income to support yourself for the rest of your life. You can get that by working a job. You can get that by buying 40 rental properties starting in 2010 and renting them out in, I'm going to call it unsexy ways. You buy a property that needs some work. You fix it up. You get a tenant in there. And then they pay their mortgage.

They pay your mortgage. They pay your mortgage plus. So now you can live off of this in part. And then you buy another one. And then you buy another one. We're going to take a quick break. When we're back, we'll talk about what life after early retirement looks like. 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.

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automatic. They never sell your data and all services are handled in-house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free. Welcome back to the show. Keith, something that people say when I bring up the concept of financial independence is, oh, I love my job. I would never want to quit. I would be bored in retirement. Now that you are retired, you've got 40 rental properties, but a management company to handle the day to day. What on earth do you do with your time? Well, for the past year, for my whole life, I've always wanted to go travel the world. And for the past year, I've been

meeting that goal. I spent last summer traveling all around the United States, hitting national parks and visiting friends, going to different events that people were holding. And then in September of last year, I flew over to Southeast Asia for the Phi Freedom Retreat in Bali and stayed over there for another four months. I saw more of Bali, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. And then since I've been back, I got back in January and went to. on a cruise and went snowboarding and went to some other FI events. And now I'm back in my house in Florida for a couple days.

And on Wednesday, I fly to Spain with some friends to go spend two weeks in Spain and Portugal. Whenever anybody asks me where my favorite place I've been, my answer is just with friends. I've been so lucky for the past year to spend so much time with friends. FI is better with friends. Keith, let's talk about your estate plan. I think this is really fascinating that you, like most people don't want to think about their, the end of life and, and all of this.

But you have 40 rental properties that are 40 units that you need to do something with. What are you doing with those? So one side effect of the brain damage from 2000. is that I'm likely to have dementia and memory problems and thinking problems as I get older. And so because of that, I want to make sure that before I, while I'm still of sound state of mind, that I lay out my plans for what I'm going to do. And so I sat down and wrote out a financial power of attorney, medical power of attorney, I think there's a third part of attorney that I created.

And then a trust and will. And the will is just to dump everything into the trust that's not already there. And the idea is that when I die, I have a corporate trustee that's going to take care of my property. And I've already got property management in place for everything. And so the day-to-day is already handled now. But then there's a corporate trustee that will make decisions for the management company if they need to sell a property or if they need to do large capital expenditures. And then the cash flow that I'm getting now will go to some people that have designated

to receive that cash flow. And then on their death, everything will be liquidated and donated to charity. Keith, what I hear you saying is that you have put a lot of thought into your succession. plan and that yes, there is this potential for an adverse effect from the accident, the accident that keeps on giving, apparently. There's a potential for an adverse effect. And instead of putting your head in the sand, you're proactively preparing for this. I don't know who needs to hear this.

I am sorry if this is going to come as a shock, but you, my dear listeners, are going to eventually cease to exist. and that is a statement of fact. You are not going to be able to, I hope it doesn't happen tomorrow, but you're not going to be able to live forever. So with that said, you need to make plans for when that happens.

Otherwise, the state's going to do it for you, and I promise you it's not going to be something you like. So I really like that you have thought ahead. You have decided not only what you want to do with the properties, what you want your heirs to, get from the properties and then move on after they have passed, this is what's going to happen with the properties. What charities are you donating to? So I've actually set up a number of donor advised funds that I haven't created yet, but are in the estate plan that if I die

before I get them set up, it'll create these. And I've got things like there's a fund that's going to provide scholarships to students at the community college that I went to. There is a fund for helping out the teachers in the local community to pay for supplies for school supplies for kids. It's unfortunate that teachers often have to buy the school supplies, but this kind of helps them out. And then I've got a fund that is my favorite. It's a It's called the Stay Amazing Fund that is going to go around and beautify Ottawa, Illinois. But everything that they do to beautify the town has to have the words, stay amazing, stamped in it somewhere or on a placard or embedded or something. Because that's something that I'm always telling people to stay amazing.

It's not become amazing. It's your already amazing. Keep being amazing. I love this so much. That's such a good idea. And again, thoughtfulness. You're not just, first of all, I love that you're staying local with your charity giving. Ottawa is a beautiful little city.

There's never enough money in a small town to do all the things that the town wants to do. So having this fund available for them to make this stay amazing fund, I'm just so excited. All right, Keith, I am super excited to have spent this time with you today. do you have any parting words for our listeners who may be on the fence about succession plans or maybe on the fence about getting started on their path to financial independence, even just getting started investing in real estate? I think that a approach to life is similar to what they say in the stock market, that time in the market is more important than timing the market.

And the same thing with real estate or succession plan is get something out there and then gradually improve upon it. So you don't have to have the perfect will and trust and multiple documents establish. You can write on a piece of paper what your wishes are and then say, okay, well, now I need to go and get a more formal, make sure that it's legally recognized in my state, and then say, okay, well, I've got that. now I want to add a trust to that. You can add on pieces as you're going along.

Similarly, look at a, if you're thinking about getting into investing in real estate or if you think about adding to it, go look at properties. If you look at 100 properties, then a few of them are probably going to make sense and you run the numbers and maybe it's not a grand slam. Maybe it's just a base hit. But if you buy a property and it at least brings it. breaks even at first, then in five or ten years, it's going to be, you're going to be wealthier than if you hadn't bought it because your tenants are paying down the mortgage

costs, so you're gaining equity that way. The value of the property is likely to increase. We don't count on that. The appreciation is always just icing on the cake. But in 10 years, as long as when you buy it, it's breaking even. And of course, we aim for something's cash flowing. But in 10 years, it's going to be cash flowing better or you're going to have built up some equity. And I think that applies to everything in life. Just take action. Don't wait for perfection.

Just do what needs to be done. They say that perfection is the enemy of good. Keith, I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time today. This was a lot of fun. Yeah, I really enjoy talking to you.

All right, that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Keith Nugent and I am Mindy Jensen saying, stay sweet, parakeet. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you're looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at YouTube.com slash BiggerPockets Money. Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kaelan Bennett, editing by Exodus Media. Copywriting by Nate Weintraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the Bigger Pockets team for making this show possible.