BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 541: Finance Friday: I've Got $150K Student Debt at 6.95%, Should I Invest?

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Student loan debt can easily get in the way of financial independence, especially if there’s a high interest rate attached to your loans. But should you pay down this debt at the expense of��investing for the future? There are several factors we’re going to explore in today’s episode! Lauren is a physician assistant with a stable W2 job, a house hack, and a side hustle that provides her with a little “fun” money each month. But as she and her partner work toward their goal of reaching FI in twenty years, they’ve got some money issues to work out—namely, how to tackle the $150,000 in student loans hanging over their heads. Should they pay down this debt, invest in real estate, or both? Should they put their retirement contributions on hold? One day, they hope to travel the world and enjoy their favorite pastime, kitesurfing! But should they fast-track this dream before planning for a family? Lauren is at a crossroads in her journey to FI, and in today’s episode, Scott and Mindy will provide her with an actionable blueprint she can use to achieve her financial goals, career aspirations, and dream lifestyle. Along the way, you’ll learn when to prioritize aggressive debt paydown, how to strike the perfect investment portfolio mix, and important things to consider before starting a family! Support today's show sponsor, BAM Capital, your path to generational wealth with premier real estate investment opportunities!  In This Episode We Cover When to pay down student loan debt rather than invest in real estate Why buying rental property today will leave you with more cash flow in retirement How to financially plan for weddings, honeymoons, children, and other BIG expenses Paying off your primary residence versus buying MORE rental properties How to improve asset allocation with a mix of rentals and retirement accounts 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 Property Manager Finder See Scott and Mindy at BPCON2024 in Cancun! BiggerPockets Money - Episode 35: Hacking Your Life to Live for (Almost) Free with Craig Curelop BiggerPockets Money - Episode 514: How to “Travel Hack” Like a Pro and Get FREE Flights, Hotel Stays, and More! 00:00 Intro 01:25 Financial “Wellness” 07:01 Lauren’s Money Snapshot 15:51 MAJOR Career Decisions 22:15 FI in 20 Years (or Fewer!) 27:53 Paying Off $150K Student Loans 36:07 Weddings, Honeymoons, & Kids 44:55 Kitesurfing & Traveling the World! 57:39 Pay Down the Mortgage? 01:02:54 Enjoy Life AND Build Wealth! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-541 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When combining finances, is debt paydown the most important? Or should investing in real estate take the driver's seat? Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Bigger Pockets has a goal of creating 1 million millionaires. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we believe financial independence is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my dollars and seven.

co-host, Scott Trench. Mindy, thanks for your wonderful intro there. Today we're going to talk with Lauren Heath, a physician's assistant out of Canada who has her first house hack and no student loan debt. But she fears that there might be a glass ceiling in her current career. And today we're going to discuss and get into how she is planning for her future with her partner and address some of the concerns that they have about combining, combining finances. Last, we're going to touch on how they allocate their funds to work for the best wind-filled life that they want in retirement, which involves traveling the world and kite surfing together. Lauren, welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. We are so excited to have you here today. Thank you. I am even more excited to be here

today. What an honor. So thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to go look up what kite surfing is because I've never done that before. Well, I have lots of details to share. Well, when you come visit, you can teach me how to kite surf. Lauren, I would like to know where we're starting from. So can you give us a really quick backstory with regards to your relationship with money? Absolutely. So myself, I grew up in a sort of middle, middle class family, which where we were very traditional in that my dad was in business, mom was a nurse, so very traditional gender roles in that dad looks after finances, mom looks after house. And that is, how things go. And so just through observing their behaviors, I was under the impression my entire

life that money was not something that as a woman I needed to deal with. This is for the man to deal with. I'll find some man eventually who can look after this for me. Don't even worry about it. And so growing up, I was like, sweet, this is awesome. Easy. And then it wasn't until I started working and I'll dive into my career in a little bit, but when I started actually making pretty decent income right out of school, I was sitting there looking at my investments thinking, okay, I know enough to know that this can't just be sitting here, but what in the world should I be doing with this? And so that's what kind of was the igniting thought for me to dive a little bit deeper, learn, learn, learn, and then, um, uh, you know, just, just try and get my financial life

in order. And what year did you graduate and start working? Yeah. So I am a physician assistant. So I went to PA school in, and graduated in 2020, which means that I've been out of school for the last four years. Um, luckily, as I, as Scott had alluded to, because we earn a decent income coming right out of school, I was able to pay off my student debt in the first year of practice. So that really set me up for a good runway for moving forward. But the other thing that I want to mention is that doing sciences all my sort of educational life, never had I ever been exposed to like finance in general in that we I never took any courses on like how to do your taxes how to save for retirement any of these things were like totally um not even in

my like ballpark and especially in the field of medicine I find that money in general is such a taboo topic in that no one talks about it um as compared to something like finance, for instance, where it's like, you know, your water cooler chit-chat involves that. But in medicine, it's so much about the patient. We're doing it for the good of the patient. We want what's best for the patient and less so about ourselves, which, you know, I agree. It is about the good of the patient, but we shouldn't be disregarding our own financial wellness in the process.

And so that is another thing that has kind of ignited my, my, my, my, financial journey and wanted me to set myself up for success in the future. Okay. So you have no student loan debt. That's something we should celebrate. Hooray! But also, let's look at your financial pain points. So you graduated into 2020.

That's right. You graduated from school in 2020. Totally financially illiterate. Because you're located in Canada and they have a different way of doing student loan debt and all those types of things. You have much lower student loan debt and we'll pay it off quickly, but I understand that Canada treats their physician's assistance differently. I'm sorry, I'm going to use that one more time, and then I'll stop with that stupid joke of Canada here. And you feel like there's a glass ceiling in that profession. We want to hear

about that in a little bit here. You, and then you bought a house hack, you have a couple of side hustles, but you've generally been able to accumulate, and it's kind of like what's going to happen, what should I do next, right? I'm in a reasonably strong position, got a good emergency reserve, all those kinds of things that will spell out in the numbers, but how do I now proceed from here and achieve some bigger financial goals? How am I doing? Yeah, yeah, that's totally accurate. Now, one question for you is, I'm not sure how much you want to involve, like, my partner and his kind of income and debt. I guess we talked about that in the intro, but so he is a physician or will be it come

July and he has like much higher earnings, but also a lot of debt. He has $150 of $1,000 of student debt, which, so one of our kind of pain points is like, well, how do we go about like, should we pay that down right away? but then how do I tie in like other investments such as like real estate and like, you know, investing in the stock market and whatnot to to help us achieve our goal of FI, also like mortgage debt as well as another one. All right. We've got a great snapshot of where you're starting and what your concerns are.

After this quick break, we're going to get more into Lawrence Financials. 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 money is going, and more importantly, where your taxed refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting,

accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code Pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. 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 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 counts as a write-off. Change all that with Found. Found is a business banking platform built to take the pain out of managing money. It automatically tracks expenses, organizes invoices, and even preps you for tax season without you doing the heavy lifting. You can set aside money for business goals,

Control spending with virtual cards and find tax write-offs you didn't even know existed. It saves time, money, and probably a few years of life expectancy. Found has over 30,000 five-star reviews from owners who say, found makes everything easier. Expenses, income, profits, taxes, invoices even. So reclaim your time and your sanity. Open a found account for free at found.com. That's fowund.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 Leen or 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 is 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 BP Money. Welcome back. We are here with Lauren, who is taking consideration. control of her finances. As I see it, you bring in about seven grand a month between your job,

your rent, and your coaching program. Your partner generates about $13,000 a month, but that is likely to dramatically increase. It sounds like once residency is finished and he becomes a full-fledged doctor at that point, but earning full pay. Your expenses for you alone are about $4,700 a month, which means that you alone are bringing in a net of about $2,300 per month in cash that is flowing into your life and available for a variety of investment purposes at the highest level. So that's about, what is that, $25,000 a year, give or take. You've amassed about $40,000 in cash across various checking account, your emergency fund, and a fun account, which I love. you have investments in the Canadian versions of your individual, like a brokerage account and a Roth IRA here.

Is that a Roth or a 401K equivalent? Could you remind me? So RRSP is similar to 401K and then TFSA is similar to a Roth IRA. Perfect. So we got about 50 grand in those accounts. Love to hear it. And then we have a property, which is a big part of your portfolio. This property is worth $790.

It has a 30-year fixed rate mortgage of $621,000 on it, financed at 5.7 percent, and you each split this half and half. Yes, but as Vindy looks like she's about to say, it's actually three-year fixed. That's another thing with Canada is that we have shorter terms. So ours are one to five. And so we chose just given what we had anticipated the rates to do, we chose three years. Okay, so that rate is going to hockey stick in a couple years. If we're not careful, we have to plan on this. If we're not careful here.

So that's something to just kind of keep in the back of our minds, that that can go up pretty substantially in the next couple years. That's right. And then the other thing with regards to my partner's income, so he, I think that number that I put is the 13,000 is with his new job in July. So he makes $300,000 or $300,000. And then after taxes like 200,000 divided by 12. Oh, it's a bit higher.

So roughly like 16,000 a month or 17,000. So you guys are in great shape here with a ton of great prospects. But you're still kind of just getting started on this financial journey. So the explosion of accumulation that will go on over the next five to 10 years, now that the full income is being realized by your partner has yet to kind of manifest itself on your balance sheets at this point. And there's some high-stage decisions to make now on which directions you begin to point your financial future at to achieve your goals.

So let's talk about the partner dynamic here and how are you thinking about that today and walk me through your thoughts on the pros and cons of combining or not combining your finances. So absolutely. So right now my partner, he has the potential to earn quite significantly higher than myself. What are you and your partner's goals with money over the next three, five, ten years? So our goals together are to reach FI, which will allow us. to achieve our goals in terms of our personal life goals, our extracurricular goals, and our goals with regards to our careers and how we want to feel fulfilled in our careers. And so we hope to reach FI within the next 20 years.

And so my question to you both is, how do you feel would be the best way to kind of point the needle in the direction to help us to take off to achieve FI in the next 20 years? Awesome. And then, you know, I can respond cheekily with a statement of once this income starts coming in at this higher level here, depending on what your total shared expenses, which it looks like are $57,000 a year, you guys are able to cover that with just your income and generate $16,000 a month after tax, which is a fire hose of cash coming into your life to be invested or deployed in there. And so if we just multiply 160 times 12, we get to roughly $200,000 a year, we multiply that by 20.

We have $4 million in cash accumulated before we even invest. Have you thought about what like that $4 million? dollar portfolio in 20 years might look like, or even if you, you know, let's not get down to $3 million because there's probably lifestyle creep that will come in there at various points and all those types of things. But have you thought about like what a good shape of that might look like to you guys that would enable you to kite surf in Belize and feel great about cash flow in those types of things?

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to just take a step back to you and just say that it's, we're our cumulative of expenses are about 120,000 together. We're at about 60,000 each right now. But to answer your question, so certainly we want to, our sort of ideal portfolio would encompass a significant proportion of stocks

like low-cost ETF, S&P 500, likely maybe half, half or three quarters of our portfolio would be invested in that. And then the rest, I would like, I would love to get into real estate investing. It's something that I've been researching for, for several years now, and I see the benefit and I see the appeal. And I, I recognize the amount of work and effort that is involved. And I feel that that's something that I am willing and able to take on. And so, you know, while my partner is going to be pretty focused on doing his career, I think that would be something that I would be open to kind of managing for the both of us.

Are you talking real estate in Canada or real estate in the U.S.? Ooh, good question. Preferably in Canada, just because of the proximity, I really like the idea of investing in my own local market for ease and simplicity's sake. Now, I haven't discounted investing in the states because I do recognize and appreciate the market there and how it might be a little bit easier to achieve goals through that. But it seems to me as though it would be a couple additional hoops and learning, hoops to jump through and learnings to be had to understand how that would be feasible as a Canadian.

Yeah, Scott, do you know if Canadian citizens can get? a mortgage in America? I think they can, but I don't think it's at the same rate that Americans can. I think that I am not very skilled in how foreigners access U.S. real estate markets. So I'm actually not going to be very helpful on that front. I will be able to help you more with the frameworks to invest in, but we should probably bring on an expert in that world because I think it's a big interest category for a lot of folks. I think that's correct. Just from the cost perspective, Canadian real estate is really expensive. And I'm not trying to not

Canadian real estate, but you guys don't have 30-year fixed mortgages. So you're stuck with things fluctuating every one to five years, which gives me the hebi-jibis. I like solid 30-year fixed mortgages for my investing. But you can get a house in Louisville, Kentucky for like, $150,000. And I don't know of any Canadian city that has $150,000 houses. So that's, you know, that's something to explore. I'll give you that as a bit of a homework assignment. I'm wondering, as you're sharing your numbers, I'm wondering if there's any opportunity or any interest in you leaving physician's assistant and becoming a physician. Like, are you halfway there with education or would you have to start from the very beginning as a physician and take all of the

education? I'm really happy you brought that up, Mindy, because that is actually one of the options that I have been considering. So to me, where I see that I can contribute to our like cumulative nest egg would be kind of threefold in that either one would be through increasing my main income. And so that would be through something like that, like you propose, like going the next step to becoming a physician. Number two would be pursuing a side hustle seriously to the point where it would ultimately replace my main income or at least substantially, you know, help to fill that gap or like pursue real estate as a full-time thing. Now that maybe would start as a side hustle and then grow, but that is another option for me as well as the other side hustle

of the coaching business. So I think that to answer your question, that is certainly something that I am considering. Now, with that in mind, it wouldn't be a small feat in that it would require probably eight years of kind of opportunity cost in that I wouldn't be earning in those eight years of schooling and applying and everything. Now with that in mind, coming out the other end, my income would be doubled if not tripled. And so that is, you know, maybe that's somewhere where I could crunch the numbers. but like those eight years of lost income versus the earning potential that would be associated. Okay.

And tell me about this coaching that you're doing. Yeah, absolutely. So maybe you're aware, but the physician assistant programs in Canada, probably same as the U.S., are very competitive. And they have a very specific style of interview called the multi-mini interview. which consists of multiple different stations and it's it's it's a tricky uh kind of application process and so what i do is i coach um applicants in how to excel in their application and how to be successful in achieving admission to the program and so this is something that i'm very passionate about like i i really enjoy working with these applicants uh but it is seasonal in

that it's only two or three months of the year where we're kind of working with these students around the application season. So it's not a steady income year round. Okay. And you enjoy doing that. How much time does that take during your week? So I would say it's a significant amount of work. Let's say I do each, it's a coaching call, which is over camera and each session is an hour. And let's say each evening I might have two to three calls and then plus prep time in between. So I would say like at least, you know, four hours a night for per week kind of thing in addition to my full time job. So it's a pretty heavy workload while it's a underway and then, like I said, nothing for the rest of the year. And I bring in about like roughly

$5,000 a year through that. So, you know, kind of this, this seems like a huge decision that I think is much more art than science in terms of like career potential here. Like, how do you feel about the eight year opportunity cost to become a doctor? Like, do you passionately want to become a doctor? That's a good question. It's tricky because I might go on a ledge and say no. The reason being is that in my role right now, I actually do a lot of the same things. And so from a patient care standpoint, it is quite similar. And so I don't feel that I'm lacking in that where the real differentiator is through the income.

Yeah, I feel like in, you know, the path's becoming a doctor. I mean, like, it's so competitive. You got to be at the top of the class the whole time. It's an eight-year commitment. And yeah, I mean, you can make a lot of money, but I just, I find it interesting how many doctors then, like, want to become fie. I'm like, if you just, like, didn't go to do all that, you could have probably have been five, you know, in 10 years anyways without the pain of med school and the, like, crazy residency hours that are like almost like hazing and like to a certain degree like with the

amount of like lack of sleep in those types of things like it's it's really hard and I think a lot of doctors really struggle with that over time and I feel like it's I feel like that's something that for me I would want to be very passionate about the medical field and that as a career to go down that route and I it would be hard for me to then take it as a path to five because I don't think you know, that's eight years before you earn the full income. And there's debt associated with that as well. That is probably pretty serious as well. So I don't know how other doctors would feel about that, but I think that that's what I've seen in talking to a number of physicians that are looking for the FI path downstream is like, hey, this, I didn't really get in, I didn't really become a

doctor to get to FI. I became a doctor because it was a calling and something I wanted my whole life. We will get into your fire interest and share our thoughts on the allocations based on your numbers after this 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 money is going and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress.

Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. 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. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed.

When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. That means you can stop struggling to get your job notice on other job sites. Indeed's sponsor jobs helps you stand out and hire the right people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking. And it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed, get 45% more applications than non-sponsored posts. The best part? No monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit

to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Just go to you. to Indeed.com slash bigger pockets right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash bigger pockets. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, Indeed is all you need. When you want more, start your business with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free guides, tools, and legal forms to help you launch and protect your business all in one place. Build your complete business identity with Northwest today. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides who are real people

who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest makes life easy for business owners. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And with Northwest, privacy is 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 registered agent.com and start building something amazing.

Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money free. The game begins in three, two, one. Ready or not too, here I come. Only in theaters March 20th. After surviving one deadly game, Grace and her sister faith must now face off against four rival families

in a fresh round of blood in games, filled with more action, scares, laughs, and combustions. Starring Samara Weaving, Catherine Newton, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Elijah Wood. Ready or not too, here I come. Only in theaters March 20th. Get tickets now. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything.

Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Welcome back. We just got into Lauren's financials before the break, and now we want to hear about this path to financial independence. Yeah, I think it's really interesting that it would take

eight years. That, first of all, I have a physician's assistant instead of a physician, and she does everything that a physician would do. So for you to have to essentially go, to start over, to become a physician when you already have the experience and the education, I would personally, if I was in your position, not do that. It just seems like you're trading off eight years of $100,000 salary for a few years of $200,000 salary and then you would retire. I think it would push down FI quite a ways. What about medical adjacent, like medical device or pharmaceutical sales? And I don't know how it works in Canada, but I had a friend who was in pharmaceutical or I'm sorry, medical device sales in America. And he said in some cases, he was making more than the surgeons that were inserting the device in the operating room.

So there's a lot of potential for income in America. I'm wondering how it is in Canada with the different insurance that you have. Yeah. It's a good question. I don't know that I have the answer for sure. but it's definitely something that I have looked into. Those types of roles seem to be more salesy, which is not a good or a bad thing.

I'm just not 100% if that is my personality type, in that I don't take rejection very well. And so, you know, I think that if you were to commit to that, yeah, it would be a different career path. And the one thing I do like about my role right now is being able to help people and being like really, you know, like serving people in a very genuine way I really like. So, I mean, I wouldn't say it's off the table, but if I could reach FI in a way where I still continue to have that patient-facing role and feel that I'm, you know, really contributing

to society in a helpful way, then I think I would prefer that route. And that's what I'm getting from our conversation is that you really enjoy being a physician's assistant. You've already gone through the education. You're actively working in the role for like coming up on four years. I think that's the route you go. And it stinks that you're not making the same amount of money that a physician is when you're doing essentially the same job. But I don't make those rules. So we'll just, we'll call it what it is. But I think that's a great. You know, I think we've walked through a couple of these things. Do you want to be a doctor? Well, maybe, but I have to take off eight years. Okay, then that's an easy no for me if I was in the same situation. I think that that what you want to do really determines what you should then do with your money. Like, if you're going to go down the route of becoming a doctor, then I would say, now is not a great time to get into real estate investment because you're going to be consumed with medical school, residency, those types of things. And then the first few years of being a two-doctor household and managing your duplex on the side might be very difficult to manage from a time perspective. I'm assuming the hours for physician's assistant are a little bit more reasonable and give you this flexibility or you feel that you will have some time to pursue an active role in a real estate investment capacity if things continue as they currently are. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Okay. Now, we, we, if it,

If we stay in that role and things continue exactly as they are, including the coaching side hustle, I'm estimating revised estimate that you will accumulate about $120,000 in cash after tax each year. That's $7,000 from you plus $16,000 from your partner minus $12,000 in expenses. Is that pretty close? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Yep. Okay.

So let's call us around to $100,000 a year. 100 grand a year is going to come in. And we want to deploy that somehow. Well, it sounds like you want a mixed real estate and stock portfolio in the long run. And so to get there, a lot of the benefits of real estate and the freedom that real estate provides over a 20-year time horizon will come from investing now in real estate, letting leverage do its work in the early years. And then having leverage be very light, relatively speaking, on the portfolio in later years to produce more cash flow.

So to me, that says that there's a, if this is the interest, then that now is a perfect time to take those proceeds in the next year or two and invest 100 grand in one, two, three, four, rental properties over the next four to five years. You can still continue, I think, to make baseline contributions to the TFSA and RRSP, the Roth and the 401K up in Canada. But then you could take the majority. of those proceeds and invest in real estate in these early years, amass a couple of properties, and then in the later years, really round out the after-tax stock portfolio. That would seem to me

like a great way to get to that mixed portfolio while getting most of the benefits from the real estate in the early days and most of the benefits of the cash flow in the later years when you approach FI. What's your initial reaction to that as a high-level framing? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's sort of along the lines of where I've been thinking. The one sort of a wrench in the plan is this lingering $150,000 of debt that my partner is taking on. And so as you can tell, he would be a big contributor to our collective investments. And so he's a little bit held up right now dealing with that debt. And so I guess one of our questions is, now I guess I should also say that he, now I guess I should also say that

he could potentially, he has the ability to pay it off in, let's say, one to two years if he really wanted to focus and just kind of get that out of the way. And then we could start investing in real estate and after that. But I wanted to know your guys' opinion on kind of how to tackle that debt in that Should we just sit with it? And I say we because, you know, we're kind of a team, which is working on it together, though he would be paying it down himself. Should we be trying to pay it off and be done with it?

Should we try to invest in real estate and manage the debt? I should say, too, that the interest rate on that is 7, or sorry, 6.9. And so it's relatively high. Is that a fixed rate 6.95 or does that fluctuate? It fluctuate. So it's prime minus 0.25. Let's see. Are you planning on combining finances 100%? Ooh, another good question.

So no. The philosophy that we are taking is we like the idea of having our own account. and having a shared account, which we use for shared expenses. We call it the yours, mine, and ours philosophy, where we'll have a joint account that we each contribute X amount per month, and then we use that account to pay down our grocery bills, our mortgage payments, yada, yada, and then we'll still have our own accounts.

So to answer your question, like, no, not necessarily. Yeah, help me understand more about the how long you've been together, what long-term plans are, those types of things, because are you going to need to each achieve a separate financial independence, or will this financial independence be achieved jointly with equal ownership in the assets long-term? Yeah, so we have been together for many years. We're definitely a long-term couple looking to get married probably within the next year or so. And so our vision together, our vision for FI is that of a shared vision. And so, you know, this is actually something I wanted to get your guys' opinion on, is how to best go about achieving our goals together while kind of maintaining our

separate accounts to some extent, but, you know, still having that cumulative nest egg. We did an episode with Craig Kirlap way back, episode 35, where he shared how he didn't pay down his debt. And instead, he focused on accumulating real estate. He's American. He's accumulating American real estate back in 2018, 2017. So different market that we're in. But he was able to get, I think he had three house hacks by the time he decided to pay off his student loan debt. So he paid the minimum and instead saved up for these down payments and then kind of snowballed his student loan debt once he had all of these house hacks up and running. So that's an option. But again, we're.

in a different market. You've got higher interest rate. You don't have fixed rate for 30 years. How do you both feel about the concept of debt? He's got essentially one or 75% of his annual salary in debt. So technically, you could live off of your salary, tighten the belt, pay that all off in one fell swoop, well, in one year, and then just be done with it. Some people really feel the weight of debt on their shoulders and they will do anything they possibly can to get rid of it. And some people are like, I don't care. I'll pay it off when I pay it off. Yeah, I also want to point, I want to just piggyback two more things on what Mindy said here as well. Craig, when he decided not to pay off his debt, lived in the living room, which was cordoned off by a curtain so that he could

Airbnb all the remaining units in his duplex in an up-and-coming neighborhood in Denver, which I know very well because I, too, lived in that place three or four years ahead of him in that general area there. Craig's student loan debt was not 7% interest rate at that point in time, and Craig was not paying his, you know, long-term partner's debt at that point in time. he was deciding not to pay his own debt to make highly leveraged real estate bets on the side. So anyways, just those are some additional considerations there to point some differences. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

So it's a good question. And we had the discussion prior to this podcast. And his, our, both of our thoughts were we are okay with some debt, but in this circumstance, specifically with the student debt, we feel that just getting it off our plate, getting it, getting rid of it, just doing, doing way with it will create more mental sort of runway to be able to move forward and have a, have a free kind of thing. I see the answer. I like this plan a lot.

I like it for many reasons. I think it's the most obvious approach for your guys' situation. Once you're married and moving on this path, I like what I just talked about, right? If you want to back into long-term portfolio, focus on real estate for the first couple of years and then put everything into stocks after that. But for this next year, like, this is a great plan. You guys are not married yet. You haven't made, figured out how and when to combine finances. That will probably become clearer, I would think, post-marriage at that point.

this is a 7% guaranteed return. You just get 7% as you pay down this debt. That's pretty darn good here. This will give you time to evaluate and educate on real estate investment opportunities in the local area or out of country, if you're going to do that. And you can chunk it down in one year. It makes life super simple for... and you can pursue this separately. He, your partner, can chunk down the student loan debt and the line of credit in this next year.

While you continue your investment approach here, and then you combine when you're married, it's a really clean balance sheet and a really great place to, I think, start that journey together in an official or like combined finance capacity. I'm stretching there with a couple of things. Any reactions to that, any piece of that or that overall? I do agree with everything that you're saying. One other sort of, another wrench for you here is just with regards to sinking fund expenses. And so what I mean by that is specifically we were talking about getting married.

So as we know, weddings are god awfully expensive. And unfortunately, we want to pursue one. and as well as, you know, a honeymoon and ultimately saving for kids in the next two to three years. And so with all that in mind, we, as we know, those can be quite expensive. I was calculating it to be almost 100,000 as a somewhat conservative number in terms of like what these things cost to be put towards sinking fund expenses within the next, let's call it, like, you know, even like three to four years. And so I'm just, my, my, my hesitation is how do we fit that in to paying off debt while investing in real estate? If I was in your position with your same parameters, I would look at this as we want our debt gone.

And do you have any specific timeline for getting married? Just in the next like kind of, one to two years is what we had talked about. But if it makes more financial sense to adjust that, that we're open to it. Okay. So I was speaking with Aaron Thomas, who is the pre-up guy, and at the economy conference recently, and he suggested when there is income disparity like there is in this situation, that each of you contribute a percentage of your income. Let's use 50%. So you each each take 50% of your income and put it into the combined account. And now you have 50% of your income to do what you want. And he has 50% of his income to do what he wants. And but you have this, this giant pile. And now you can use that to save for retirement or save for the rental property or

put down on the wedding or however you're planning on allocating that money. So I would look at, a conversation with your partner, what feels fair to throw into this pot. If he's putting 50% of his income into this pot, that's going to help fund the wedding. But then he's also got 50% of his income, so $100,000 to throw at his debt. He's going to be able to still pay that off in, you know, maybe a little bit more than a year. But you're not necessarily postponing what it is that you're looking to do with regards to the real estate and the weddings and all of that. I don't know how weddings were – it's been so long since I've been married. I don't know if you can get a loan for that.

I don't love that idea, but you could – you know, there's a lot of opportunities to, you know, swipe the credit card and get credit card points and that sort of thing. But also a wedding doesn't have to cost $100,000. I think mine costs $5,000. But like I said, it's been 100 years. And it was very small. Just a couple of things here as well. Like, that does not make sense to me for your partner to save at 5% in a savings account for a wedding when he's currently paying interest on 7% student loans.

So to me, it just makes better mathematical sense for him to just chunk that out as much as possible in the next year or two. and then you guys could get married whenever. And that would bump up the line of credit, essentially, by a little bit at that point from the wedding. But at least we've, like, if, like, I think your position, you've got to just zoom out here and say how good it is at the highest level as a couple. Here, there's going to be plenty of income and plenty of spread between that income and expenses. For you, accumulate a lot of cash over the next three to five years.

You can't, like, right now without making a change, pay off all the student loan debt and have a hundred grand left over to pay for all these expenses and buy a rental property. But, like, this is a luxurious set of tradeoffs here. You guys are in good shape here. The only reason there's any debt in your entire combined financial picture is because the student loans and the house hack that you bought. Like, this is not an irresponsible use of debt. This is a great use case for debt in this situation. So I think if you just kind of zoom out in that picture, you guys are totally fine here at the highest level. And if you say, hey, for this, the next 18 months, we want to get married, go on a honeymoon, and chunk down this debt as much as

possible, you're going to get pretty close to cover it all of those things and maybe have like 20 to 30 grand left over there and still be just set up for a wonderful wealth accumulation, lifestyle journey in your 30s here. So I think that's the perspective I'd have at the highest level in all this. Now, on that, if you're going to have a 45K wedding, I assume a lot of people are going to come to that wedding. Is that right? Yes. Awesome. And are these people that are going to to come to the wedding? Are some of them going to be able, going to want to or be able to give a gift that is of some material value? I would hope so. Now, part of that $45,000 in wedding expense is going to go on a credit card, right? Your credit card or your partner's credit card, right? That's right. I see a

combination outcome here, if that's what you want to do, of being able to knock that honeymoon expense down to close to zero between those two observations here. There's a travel hack here. Be smart about that. Educate yourself on that. Figure out where you want to go and which credit cards and travel rewards will get you there and use that in the process of planning for the wedding. And then have a registry that has the things that are most important to you and encourage people to, after those few items are filled, donate to the honeymoon fund. Like, that's an easy button for a wedding attendee. You're like, great. Now I can send some money there, go and have a good time. Easy peasy. That's what they want. Like, I see a way to knock out a good chunk or at

least that component. And then again, like, as long as you don't let lifestyle creep get in the weight, you're going to have the cash and emergency reserves to cover some of these other things around home improvement or future children in there at that time. And then, you're at that time. And, So I don't say that as a now problem to save for. And I think if you think about it that way, that will greatly simplify things because then you can just like say, great, we already have an emergency reserve. We're going to chunk down the student loans. If we decide to have a wedding, we can because you both invested so well in your careers

and your future here that you're going to have the real cash flow. And accumulating a little debt in your situation for that, if that's what you really want, is no big deal to me. It'll just delay your real estate investment by a couple months, essentially. What do you think, Mindy? I think that's really spot on, Scott. I like the way that you explain that too. Yeah, I would, based on everything we have discussed,

I would throw all the money at the student loans and get those taken care of and then start looking at rental properties. I would also look into American rental properties. You don't have to invest locally. You can invest, you know, in a place that's, I mean, you're going to save up $100,000 for a down payment, whereas if you come south of the border, you can pay $100,000 for a whole house. That's pretty crazy to me.

Yeah. And with that $100,000, I believe you can get a mortgage, but your down payment is going to be more than my down payment because I am a U.S. citizen. But it's still not going to be 100% down payment. So there's the opportunity to invest sooner, start making money quicker just by looking in a different location. So I would definitely look into that and see, you know, start looking at the cash flow markets in America.

Those are going to be the ones that are kind of in the middle of the country. So you're Kansas City, Indianapolis. I know Florida was cash flowing for a while, but I'm starting to hear. stories about homeowners insurance is the insurance companies are just leaving Florida. So Florida is not my favorite place to invest right now simply because they have hurricanes, whereas Kansas City does not. One other thing I want to ask about here, because I think it's important to your long-term plan, is like, could you describe what the FI lifestyle looks like to you and your partner?

Like, what is your day-to-day once you're done? Yeah, absolutely. So as I, so I'll talk, I kind of section it in my brain in categories of like career, family, and relationships, and then hobbies and investment too. I would say those are kind of my four pillars of how I frame it in my brain. From a career standpoint, taking the time off to have personally time with my family and raising kids is extremely important to me. and also just probably like healthcare is it is a slippery slope to burn it let's say just because

it's quite exhausting and so I to me the remedy for that is decreasing the number of hours worked so whether it be a part-time thing where you're working 20 hours a week same thing with my partner so so continuing to you know provide care to patients in some regard, but at a much more flexible schedule. And the other kind of big piece to go along with that is just the ability to pursue our hobbies. So we are both avid kite surfers. So kite surfing is a sport where you, um, on the water, you have a board on your feet that looks like, uh, kind of like a wakeboard. And then you have this harness around your waist and then a big, big long ropes with, uh, uh, kind of looks like a pair of.

parachute that you fly around in the sky. And it sounds funny to describe, but it's very, very fun. That's how we met actually was doing this sport. And so one of our ultimate goals would be to travel the world and try and in search of like the ultimate kite surfing destinations. So whether it be like driving across Africa to like find these cool deserted beaches or, you know, going to Brazil to like one of the windiest cities in the world to find. find some of the really expert kite surfers.

That is what our vision of FI consists of, and not all the time, but I would say at least one to two pretty big trips a year to be able to pursue that and, of course, get our family and friends along the way. But having the financial means to do that, but also the time and the flexibility in our schedules to be able to pursue that is what is the most appealing or gets me most excited about FI. Is kite surfing an expensive hobby? Is it ever?

It is crazy expensive in that. So to give you an example, a kite that I, you're going to roll your eyes, but a kite that I am buying, like soon is a. $1,700 kite, which is one piece of equipment. And let me tell you, you need multiple of these pieces of equipment. And so you can see in my expenses listed here that I actually have what's called a fun account. And so that is the income that I take from my coaching business. I put my revenue into that account in which I spend on these expensive pieces of

cutting equipment is from that. But once you own the equipment, the activity is free, right? So you could buy this kite and it could last you 10 years, right? That's right. So once you're set up with equipment you like, I mean, I'm sure like any hobbyist, you just can't stop buying new equipment to keep a thing going. But like it's like this trip around the world that you'd want to do, you would not be able to buy a serial keep buying equipment.

You'd have to pick like one and take it with you to all these locations, right? one get up, as I'll refer to this, the set of things that you need here. One or like three or sometimes five. Will you be able to take five kites and surfs across the world? You would be surprised, but these bags, they look like, picture like a large golf bag or like a body bag almost, where you just shove equipment into it and you haul it all over the world. It definitely can be done.

Okay. So we need a baseline level of equipment. Let's call it 25 grand. Does that sound like a high enough number to easily cover all of the kite surfing equipment you'd each need to do this? Or do you need 50? No, no, no, no, 25 is fair. Okay. So I think that your plan here, like you have to, you have to really think down, sit down and think about with your partner is like that activity that you described is not conducive with young children. Right. So you, will have to do that now or in the next few years and not and then again in 10 years when you may not want to do that the same way at that point in time when your kids are like well old enough to the point where you're going to be comfortable taking them to these remote locations around the world it's like that's something to think about here is like that's not really a phi consideration like you're just not going to be able i think to do that the way that you are envisioning it if you don't do that soon. And so maybe that, in your case, is even a reason to delay. Like, do you really need that

first rental property investment? You know, I think physician and physician assistance jobs will be waiting for you when you get back from this trip. So something there that's like probably opposite of what you expect to be to say on Bigger Pockets money. But just something to consider in your situation if you really, if that trip is really like the driving force there. I don't know if you have a reaction to that bad financial advice, Mindy, from your seat. think that you can travel with children, but it is exponentially more difficult. So I would, in your same position, look at when you want to start having kids and when you want to start traveling to do these kite trips. And I can't imagine kite surfing with a baby. I don't even know

what kite surfing is. But it's on the water, right? So you can't, like, you're not going to strap your baby to you. So you'd have to have somebody, or maybe you will. Hey, Virginia, will you hold Katie for an hour or three while I'm on the lake? I am always shocked when I see somebody on the ski slopes with a baby on their back as they're trying to teach their other kid how to ski. I'm like, oh, no, don't do that.

Yeah, this kind of puts some different parameters in there. I mean, if you do have a baby and then you go on this trip, somebody's going to have to watch those kids while you are kite surfing. And I don't even know what age you can start kite surfing. Do they have baby kite surfers? I hope mine are, but I don't know. Again, I just keep on back to like this trip sounds like once you have the equipment, it's not going to cost you more than like 25 grand to do this for like a while because you're

basically be camping at remote lakes around the world and taking this out on there and drinking you know local beers and eating you know local campfire food so like it seems to me like that's not really like you don't need a lot of money to do that relative to your overall position you might want to not like have this debt looming over your heads and those types of things but like is that like the honeymoon there, you know, is that something that can be combined there? Like, hey, we're going to do like a three month trip and just like live this dream here. And then, you know, chunk out things a little bit more because like I don't, that's my, that's my big worry about your five plan here. If that's the dream, you may chase it for the next two decades and then not

be able to live it, which would be super unfortunate. Which is so funny that you say that, Scott, because I, to agree, I agree with you 100%. And as I kind of want to do this, right now because it's, you know, it's our dream. But I can't help this naggy feeling of being like, well, is this really the smartest financial decision to be doing right now? Like, would my investment grow exponentially if it were to be invested in real estate? Is it an opportunity cost kind of thing? But I think you also have a really good point that the opportunity cost is also in our

physical ability and willingness at our young. and free lifestyle that we have right now. So it's a good point. Yeah. Like my hobby was rugby, right? That was, it's very different to play rugby at 26 than 33.

I don't know how kite surfing probably ages a little better than that one. But, you know, it's a little different. So just something to consider there. I think that it would be irresponsible to go on a trip for three to six months right now with $140,000 in student loan debt, hanging over and some of these other things,

not figured out, but you might regret it if you try to amass $2 million in capital over a decade or two instead of taking this trip at some point earlier in that journey. And like with a 20-year time horizon, you're going to delay your Phi date by a year, you know, six months to a year. If you just make this a part of your, like an earlier part of your travel plans, like you just, the investment you made was in your incomes. and these jobs, physician assistant, and doctor, aren't going to be going away in five, six, seven years, I think, or at least that's a bet I'd be willing to make. You can always lose them those.

But, like, that's not, like, I wouldn't be that scared there. So anyways, that's something to consider. Maybe that changes my thoughts here of, like, can you use that honeymoon and that, like, all the things are coming up to take that trip to the lifetime now and then get back to work for a year or two, take another one. get back to work for a year or two, take another one, and then life will hit. And at that point, you'll be in the grind, moving towards the FI, and that'll be just fine, and you'll love it then too. Yeah, I wonder what sort of opportunities there are for sabbaticals at your hospital or doctor's office or wherever you're employed. Because if you could take a one-month sabbatical, then you go out and you discover, hey, I thought I liked kitesurfing, but I like it on the weekends. I don't

like it, 30 days in a row. Or you discover that you do, in fact, love kiteserving so much. You want to sell your house and just go and kite surf all the time and, like, hop around and come back and do a quick stint to generate some income and then go back out and kite surf again. I think it's a great test of, you know, a long-term trip is a great test of your, like, desire to actually do it. I love snowboarding, but I don't want to do it, you know, every single day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. those are all very valid points and I really like your advice but from both of you about almost like seizing the day or seizing the moment now because that's when you have the

like energy and freedom and and ability to do so and I'm not sure Mindy about like sabbaticals but I'm sure you could kind of negotiate something or figure something out and get that exposure. So yeah, thank you for those suggestions. are really great. Yeah. Those options are all yours right now because your expenses have stayed flat relative to this enormous jump in income from your partner. So as long as that is true, then you will have these options. When that starts getting closer, like if you have kids and you decide, hey, I'm going to stop working there, which you said was something that you wanted to consider, that would then be let those things would be less true at that point. But because

you spend less than half of what you bring in after taxes right now as a combined household here, you have so much optionality with all of these things and you can really rely on that. But again, factor in whether those gold posts are going to move for the lifestyle expenses because that then changes the math and what's responsible and what's responsible and what's not for your position. I have one final question to get your guys's take on if that's all right. Just like with regards to our current primary residence, as we said, it is the interest rate on this is nothing. It's 5.69 with the three-year fixed term. And so my question to you both is like how would you approach paying down this mortgage? Would you be in a rush to pay it down?

or would you be trying to leverage by investing in other properties rather than trying to pay this down? How would you go about tackling this kind of primary residence? So in the next three years, I would pay $0 towards the interest rate. And if I was looking to pay down debt, I would focus on the student loans instead. after three years, we don't know what it's going to jump up to. I'm going to guess 7 or 8 percent. At that time, I would be more willing to put additional money towards this mortgage. With the understanding that I was going to be living there for a long time, I'm going to be living there until I pay off the mortgage.

If your plans changed, like, does this house work if you have one kid but not two? Does it work if you have 27 kids and it doesn't matter? It's your dream house. It's your forever house. Then once the rate goes higher than the 5%, I would focus on paying it down. However, you've got what, two, three, like three years of salary in this mortgage. So it's not going to take you a long time to pay it down. I would look at, again, the lower cost markets to see if there's any way to generate other income through investing in those lower cost markets rather than a Canadian market just because it's so expensive. I mean, I can't, I'm trying to think when the last time I heard of a Canadian house that was less than like $750,000, whereas you can buy a rental

property in Kansas City for, you know, 150,000. Yeah. Look, I think for someone in your shoes with a relatively long-term outlook on their finances. You're not in like a hurry to become a millionaire in three years and willing to just totally upend everything to do that. You have more kind of, I think, maybe realistic, more, more, you know, reasonable approach on there. Like, I would say for you, less than 5%, don't pay it off. Five to 8% it's dealer's choice. And over 8%, then it becomes a priority. Right. It's hard to get a better than 8% guarantee. guaranteed return in this market. And so because that 6.95% is there for the student loans, like, I think that makes life

very easy for that decision. Just crush that. That's a great guaranteed rate of return. Don't stop contributing to the, you know, the individual, the retirement accounts here, especially if there's a match or anything. But after, you know, reasonable contributions are made there, chunk that down. That mortgage is a joint expense. And so that's a good one to like leave relatively untouched for now and to really kind of figure out how you want to handle that once you're married.

I think that would complicate things. If for example, he's paying the student loans and you're starting to chunk out the mortgage, I think that would that would kind of complicate your situation just a little bit in the next couple of months. So good one to kind of leave off until that point for a variety of reasons. But that's how I'd think about it. And then in three years, if that rate jumps, then it goes past, you know, up or, you know, mid, mid, upper sevens or into the eights, God forbid. Great. Then that's your primary investment from there.

I sure hope not. But that would be scary if so. But yeah, that's a very valid point for sure. Thank you. All right. Lauren, this was a really interesting conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you both so much for all your valuable insights and your honesty, both of you,

about just, you know, taking life by the reins and pursuing your passions now all you can. I appreciate both of your insights. Thank you so much. And send us pictures from your trip on the kite surfing. Absolutely. We'll do. So, Lauren, I know that they do it different in Canada, but you may want to check out episode 514, Travel Hacking 101, How to Travel for free with these credit cards. We interviewed Eli Fisenda and really kind of got some wow information from him. So again, it might be different where you live, but something you'll look into and see if the

similar opportunities do exist to help fund this trip of a lifetime or the honeymoon to a different location, if that's what you choose to do. Cool. Thank you. I will certainly check those out. Thank you so much. Awesome. Lauren.

Thank you again for your time and we will talk to you soon. Thanks. All right, Scott, that was Lauren and that was a lot of fun. What did you think of the show? Mindy, I thought it was really interesting here because, you know, when I was hearing that, And I think this has come up with a lot of doctors. I bet you this is a problem that a lot of doctors face. They start their career and they're like, I'm broke.

I'm negative net worth because, and I'm like late 20s, early 30s, and I'm a doctor. And, you know, but it's like, hey, man, like, let's zoom out here and remember the strategy here. Like, you're among the best and the brightest in your country to become a doctor. You have great income potential downstream. You will have the opportunity to build lots of wealth and achieve lots of financial outcomes. in your life, but like probably trying to pursue fire in three years is not congruent with the approach of becoming a doctor. Like, let's go and enjoy and reap some of the benefits of that and live a great life and build lots of wealth over the next 10, 15, 20 years for the most part. Of course,

if you want to do it and you want to sacrifice and cut costs and go do it, you can achieve a multimillion dollar net worth early in life. But remember what the goal is. If the goal is to go kite surfing or traveling the world backpacking around foreign countries in the very third. And the very third, with very physically strenuous activities, you might want to do that on a break in your early 30s or mid-30s and not in your 50s or 60s. Some things are more important than early financial independence. You have to decide an individual basis what those are for you. Scott, I love that you brought up goals. It's not just about the money. And if your goal is to retire so that you can just travel the world and see the seven wonders of the world or whatever, that is something you can do

when you're, you know, 40 or 50 years old. But kite surfing, I mean, I can't even imagine kite surfing now at slightly older than our guest, Lauren. It just is a physical activity that I am not going to be able to do right now. So I love that that was your advice to them, to her, to focus on what she can do now to accomplish this kite surfing goal. And again, I cannot imagine trying to go on a kite surfing adventure with small children, which is what it sounds like would have been the goal. So I really like that you reframe that.

And they've got such great income potential. Yeah, check out the sabbatical. Check out a longer vacation just to see if you can do this. If you want to do this, if this is really the goal that you think it is, or the dream that you think it is. It's totally okay to not know what you want to do when you achieve fire and just aggressively pursue it because you want that freedom. up. Like, I can totally emphasize, empathize with that. I did not have a dream of kite surfing or anything like that. In fact, I buy a lot of real estate so I can sleep inside, not outside, um, on a regular basis. And so, you know, it's totally okay to have those and just pursue fire with a will and really make the sacrifices and changes to do that because it does bring a lot of

options that you can then see from the other side. Um, but if you know exactly what you want your life to look like after fire and it involves taxing your body to the limit and doing these things that require balance, speed, coordination, strength, all those types of things, you got to really weigh that in the context of your overall financial position. That may not be congruent with fire unless you're going to really crank it and get it done in three to five, seven years and really incorporate into huge punks of your life. So I thought it was a really good lesson and a good, I think we learned a lot from Lauren. Hopefully we helped her with some of the decision making in terms of how she's going to prioritize cash flow. Yes. And what I like so much

about Finance Fridays is all of the specific scenarios we talked about were Lawrence, but a lot of our listeners are going to identify with different aspects of her story. So that's why we do Finance Friday. And if you have an interesting story or an interesting problem, we would love to talk to you. Please reach out to Mindy at BiggerPockets.com or Scott at BiggerPockets.com. Or if you would like to apply to be on our show, go to BiggerPockets.com. com slash finance review. All right, Scott, this was a super fun show, but it's time to hit the road. Oh, it's time to hit the wind. Are you ready to get out of here? I sure am, Annie. All right, that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.

He is Scott Trench, and I am Mindy Jensen saying, go fly a kite. But I'm saying it in a nice way. Bigger Pockets Money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench. This episode was produced by Eric Knutson, copywriting by Calico content. Post production by Exodus Media and Chris McKin Thanks for listening.