BiggerPockets Money Podcast - 552: From Making $40K/Year as a Teacher to Reaching FI in 4 Years by Doing THIS

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

You can take your time to reach financial independence, but why wait? With a combination of hard work, savvy investing, and additional income streams, today’s guest reached FI by the age of twenty-eight. In this episode, she provides the blueprint that teachers and other middle-class workers can use to fast-track their financial goals! Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Money podcast! Today, Brooke Coughlin is a business owner, real estate agent, investor, and author. But, just FOUR years ago, she was a seventh-grade teacher earning a $40,000 salary. The key to her rapid success? Brooke’s workday starts at 5 a.m. and ends well after 10 p.m. This relentless work ethic has helped her build a successful cleaning business, sell over $100 million worth of real estate, and pen her very own book! Now, working from sunup to sundown isn’t for everyone. Perhaps you just want a reasonable nest egg for a comfortable retirement or some money to pass down to your children. Whatever your financial goals, there are all kinds of helpful nuggets to take away from today’s episode. You’ll learn about the first steps of entrepreneurship, how to build a business or side hustle alongside your W2 job, and how to become financially free from any starting point! In This Episode We Cover How Brooke went from a $40,000 salary to financial independence in FOUR years The BEST ways to increase your income while working a nine-to-five job What teachers should do today to build a nest egg for retirement The first steps you must take to become a successful entrepreneur How to build a real estate business that allows you to leave your W2 job 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 Connect with Brooke on Instagram Preorder Brooke’s Book, “She Closes Deals” 00:00 Intro 00:58 Supercharging Her Income 09:49 Juggling a HEAVY Workload 12:00 Brooke’s Real Estate Portfolio 16:03 What’s Brooke’s End Goal? 25:06 Connect with Brooke! 25:50 Start Building Your Nest Egg! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-522 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

Brooke Coughlin thought that she would be a seventh grade teacher making $40,000 a year for her entire career. Instead, she hit five by the age of 28. Today, we're going to find out how that happened. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Scott Trench, and while Mindy is off traveling for the week, I am joined by Kyle Mast. Thanks for joining me today, Kyle. Oh, yeah, it's good to be here, Scott, and we've got a fun one today to chat with Brooke about how she became financially independent. Yes, Bigger Pockets has a goal of creating one million financial independence.

made up that term, really like it. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we truly believe that financial independence is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. Today we're going to hear how Brooke left her W2 in just four years. You heard me four years and how her life changed completely after that. We're going to discuss how to increase your income when it's time to leave your W2, why you should diversify your investments and a lot more. So without further ado, Brooke, welcome to Bigger Pockets Money. Hello, Kyle. Hello, Scott. Thank you so much for having me. today. We're so excited to have you and hear about this awesome story. Can you tell us a little bit

about your financial situation when you decided to start your FI journey? Of course. If you asked me five years ago, 10 years ago, if I'd ever be where I am today, I would tell you absolutely not. I went to school, to college, to be a teacher. I came from a family of educators, and I thought I was going to be a teacher forever, retire at 65 with a pension. I love kids. I love loved the idea of, you know, being out of school, out of work at three o'clock, having summers off, vacations off would be perfect for raising a family. But that idea of life quickly changed when I started dipping into the entrepreneurial world. And when I was going to school to be a teacher, I started a cleaning company. And my friends in college, and I played college basketball and my teammates in

college would make fun of me and say, Brooke, why are you spending your free time cleaning toilets and other people's kitchens and whole nine yards. And I loved the idea of a flexible schedule, making a little bit of wine money on the side and growing a business alongside of going to school to be a teacher. And when I was just about to graduate college, I was like, okay, I'm going to go be a teacher. I'm going to make my $40,000 a year. But what happens to this little business that I started on the side when I was going to school? And the only logical explanation I came up with was I need employees. So I hired my first employee right as I graduated college to run the cleaning business for me when I was teaching. However, fast forward. Ten years later, now I'm 28. I still have that

cleaning company. I have 13 employees. It's over a six-figure business, but that cleaning company is what got me into real estate and allowed me to leave my W-2 job. Okay, so let's go back for a second here. And let's talk about your financial situation exiting college. So you had this cleaning company. It sounds like you played college basketball as well. Were you able to graduate debt-free between those two items? Did basketball help you pay for school to any degree? Give us a little bit of color on that.

I played Division III basketball. I was not getting money to play. Goodness gracious, no. We probably won more games than I could count. of my fingers in my four years. I did not get money to play at college. I could tell you that. I was able to save a little bit throughout college. I did have student loans when I graduated, whole nine yards went on a plan to pay those off over the next X amount of years. They are paid off now. But I was able to save a lot through the cleaning company during those four years of school. So what was that picture?

How much student loans and how much savings did you have come out of college? I would say coming out of college, I probably had about $20,000 stored away. And student loans, I actually, I didn't live at school. I was a home body and I went to school five minutes down the road. So my student loans weren't that crazy. By the time I graduated, because I was paying as I was going to, there was probably only about $25,000 at that time of graduating. So I could have almost paid it off as soon as I was done, but I was like, oh, we'll spread this out over the course of the next few years. Awesome. So we've got a close to break-even situation coming out of college, maybe like $5,000 negative net worth, starting to start your career. What happens next? How do you, how do you, you told us a little bit about transitioning the cleaning business, but let's hear the story of how things went in the next few years as you started your career as a teacher and sounds like figured out some of the things with this cleaning business. So I was a seventh grade teacher. I was going to work from 7 a.m.

What subject? English. I taught English, seventh grade English. Yeah, my wife was a seventh grade English teacher as well out of college for a few years there. Oh, and I loved it. And don't get me right. Kids are fantastic. I loved what I taught, home nine yards, everything like that. But I was also running the cleaning business on the side.

I'm like, this is great, a little bit of both going on. And through my cleaning company, I was actually giving a quote to somebody's house. And little did I know they owned a real estate firm. And I was at their house, taking them around, showing them what we would do, how much things would cost. And they looked at me and said, Brooke, do you have any interest in real estate? And I was like, I like HGTV. I like looking at realtors in Zillow.com. I like getting a coffee and going for a drive and looking at neighborhoods.

But I don't really have interest in selling real estate. And they said, you have a fantastic personality for it. We'd love you to join our team, take the test. And I'm like, sure, why not? add it to my resume. So I was teaching, had the cleaning company, was going through real estate school, whole nine yards to pass the test. Took a little bit longer than expected. But then when I passed the test, I've absolutely fell in love with the industry itself. And I started selling real estate a little bit here and there on the side and teaching and cleaning company all at once. And it wasn't

until about one year into selling that I was like, this is not fair, one, to my students, because I'm not giving them my full attention and teaching them English. And two, this is not fair to my clients because I'm not fully available from the hours of seven to two 30. So something's going to give. And I made an executive decision one September that I was going to leave teaching that Christmas, that Christmas break and never look back. And prior to leaving teaching, my first year in real estate, I sold eight houses, which equated to $2.2 million. Normal. The average agent sells between eight and ten a year, houses a year. The following year, again, I'm still kind of teaching, doing all of this. I sold 16 houses, so I doubled that, which equated to $5 million worth

of real estate. And then I quit, quit teaching. When in full time, that following year, that third year in real estate, I sold 48 houses, which equated to $20 million worth of real estate, which is absolutely bizarre. And then the following year, I almost doubled that again, with 64 houses, $33 million worth of real estate. But if I never took that one jump out of teaching, I never in a million years would have been able to dabble into real estate into where I am today. That's amazing. So one thing I just want to highlight in this story here is the creation of luck. And a lot of times people will hear a story like yours and they'll be like, oh, she just had a cleaning job. And it happened to be this couple that owned a real estate agent business.

You know, like, and then she got into it and they just kind of guided her along. No, Brooke started in college. She was not out partying when her, when her teammates were partying. She was cleaning toilets. kept with it. She was good enough at her cleaning company to get recognized by someone who is having her clean their house. And I mean, that right there in itself, you know, if you're putting, stacking things together in the things that you're doing in your life, people that have been successful before are going to see you and they're going to recognize it pretty quick because they know what they did and they know what people around them who are also successful to do. So I'm sure that's what they saw when they're talking to you as a clean company, not just your personality. My guess is they're responsible.

probably more to it that they figured out in that moment. And then stacking all these things together. So I just want to make sure, you know, sometimes people don't give yourself an excuse when you hear a story like this that I never get any breaks or anything. Well, you're not getting any breaks because you're not, you have that kind of attitude. So like if you can kind of keep putting yourself forward, putting yourself out there like Brooke did, stuff like this will start to show up. But then like Brooke had to, you have to make a hard decision at some point between, you know,

something you love and something else that you love. love and where you're headed down the road. But that's a cool story. Thanks for sharing the details of that. You're welcome. I do remember being a teacher and one of my favorite little stories from this was I was making $1,400 every two weeks. And when I was going back and forth in my head, whether I was going to leave or not, I'm like, this $1,400 every two weeks that pays my mortgage, that pays my gas, my groceries, my car bill. And it's a little scary to give up that money that's coming in every two weeks, that you know it's reoccurring. It's coming. It's coming. versus a commission lifestyle with real estate.

But now, fast forward leaving, I close deals where I make more in one deal than I would an entire year of teaching. But if I didn't take that leap of faith, make that jump, I would never be where I am today with it. All right, we've now heard that Brooke supercharged your income. We're going to learn all about how when we come back. Tax season is one of the only times all year

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All right. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Let's just jump right in. So I would love to dive a little bit more deeply into the early stage here while you're working, you're working as a teacher, and it sounds like you have a cleaning company and you're getting your real estate license at that point. Tell us about your life then what the workload looked like and how things were going. I would love to hear more about the early snowball. The early snowball was a lot. I'd wake up extremely early like 5 a.m. trying to balance everything, juggle all of that. I'd go to work. I'd go teach seventh graders and in between classes would be texting back clients, checking in on my cleaners and their schedules. And then the minute I'd leave school, I would go to showings. I would go to listing appointments. And my day, my day wouldn't end until like 10, 1030. And I'm like, this is not necessarily sustainable for the next 30 years of my life. I've got to go down an avenue. And when I did choose the real estate avenue at self so many different branches opened up in the real estate industry than just buying and selling

as well. So this first year, how long do you clean before you meet this couple that teaches you about real estate? So I was probably in the cleaning world two years prior to meeting the people who got me into the real estate industry. Okay. So in what year did you graduate college? I graduated in 2018. So we are about 2020 at this point. COVID. Awesome. So 2020 is when you get your license and that begins the snowball that we just heard about leading to $100 million in cumulative real estate sold. Does the cleaning business continue to operate during this period while you're getting your license? It absolutely does. And I learned the power of leveraging. I learned the power of a great team behind you and expanding. And you can

only do so much yourself. So with my cleaning company, yes, sure, I handle all of, um, the scheduling. I handle all of the new clients, everything like that. But it's my employees, my cleaners every day who are going out and doing the hard work, keeping the clients happy, keeping the income coming in. I would love to hear about the first investment property that you purchased here. So can you walk us through where in the timeline that happened and how that came about? Yes. So this was actually my first year selling real estate. I decided I wanted to become an investor as well. I'm helping investors. I might as well know the process from being a buyer. So at this time, I actually already bought my first property. I was living in a condo. If I could do it all over again, I'd buy an

investment first. But I was living in a condo and I wanted to start my investment journey. And if anybody's familiar with Massachusetts, I bought out west in a town called Springfield, which does not have the best reputation. And it was a two family. And I remember being so scared, so nervous, to spend $212,000 on a two-family property in Springfield, Massachusetts to start my journey. I purchased it at $212. There were two tenants in there. They're actually still in there today, and I could resell that for $350. And I've only held that for about four years.

And that just showed me, oh, my gosh, if I did this one time, I could multiply this by, five, 10, 15, 20, and keep doing it to create the generational wealth for my family to come. What have you bought recently in the context of the current market to expand this real estate portfolio to seven? So I own a majority of different type of properties. I own my primary. I own two families. I own three families.

I own Airbnbs, which are short-term rentals instead of long-term rentals. So there's a plethora of different properties and strategies that I do, that I own, that I see benefits in both of those. So give me an idea. You got these rental properties. You said the short term and the long term rental properties. Is there any other, you know, for this financial independence path that you've been on or real estate path, do you do any other type of investing? Are you pretty much sold on real estate as your main vehicle? Do you have any other index funds, retirement accounts, being self-employed, entrepreneurial,

anything like that? Or do you, are you pretty much almost 100% in on real estate? And whatever your mix is, how did you come to that conclusion? So I'm mainly focused real estate. But my big thing is building ecosystems along with it. So sure, I'm the agent. I will help people buy or sell. I'll help myself buy or sell.

then for Airbnb's, we manage people's Airbnb's, and then the cleaning company itself cleans. So I like to create an ecosystem where I'm going to eat three times on one business. But in addition to real estate, yes, I also have two financial advisors. And I like having two instead of one because you pin them against each other and see who can make you more money based off of that. But I have index funds. I have stocks. each month I try to put between 10 and 15,000 away and just looking at the compound interest

calculators watching that 10, 15,000 a month grow in the next 10, 15, 20 years. That's going to put net worth at a crazy amount much higher than I ever would have expected. What do you think that all this success has given you? What do you love most about your day here in 2024? I would say I love the flexibility. I love, I'm addicted, I have a very addictive personality. So it's a good thing that I turn it to business and I turn it to growth in a whole nine yards. So anything that I touch, I like to grow it as big as I possibly can and help people along the way. But my goal is to be working like a dog like I am now to be able to spend my time freely when I am ready for that. What is the end goal here with your empire? How do you, how do you describe what the finish line looks like? Oh gosh, I think my finish line changes every single day of what I'm looking to do and how it's going to go further.

I would love to have a whole team underneath me of agents that I'm teaching how to go from zero to a top producing agent itself. I passed my broker's test, so I'd love to become a broker itself and have my own agency underneath that. I'm selling the cleaning company. So that's been a journey that I'm getting ready to close that chapter on. And I envision myself just continuing to buy real estate too. My son is going to be born in September, and we already have his first property under agreement. So I've been able to put myself in a situation where each child, when they're born, we buy them a house. And by the time that they're 18, that house will be almost paid off.

And if they're a good kid, it's like, here's a business. What are you going to do with it? Do you want to keep it? Do you want to live in it? Do you want to sell it? Just to set my future family up for financial success, too. Awesome. What is like that is setting your family up for success an amount or an outcome for them?

How do you think about that? I think of it more as an outcome than an amount because day after day, month after months, those numbers to me change. of what's good, what's bad, what's ugly, what I'm striving for itself. So more of the outcome, more of the financially free. I could be financially free now. But every day I'm just looking to build a little bit more. So I have a question.

You know, I'm listening to your story and I'm like, I'm just hearing an entrepreneur, you know, like someone that just, like you said, you have this addictive personality and you just like can't help but optimize and grow the things that you get started. And it's just like, you know, I asked you the question about real estate or other investments. And you answered it great and completely not like the answer I was expecting, which is the answer that I hear, whether it's clients or other people that I talk to that are very entrepreneurial. They don't really care what the vehicle is. They want to pick something up, optimize it.

And what does Dan Sullivan say? something, his definition of an entrepreneur is taking something from like chaos or really low value and expanding the value. I just totally butcher that. Google that everybody. He says it way better. But that's what I hear you are and what you're doing. And it sounds like it's so fun for you. My question is, do you think that's for everybody? Now, this is probably, that's kind of a leading question. But like, if there's other people that want to go on the same journey, do they need to have like that love for entrepreneurship and optimization and growth that you do. I think people would be really curious coming from you transitioning through so many things and growing so many things,

what you would advise them to do depending on their personality. So I think everybody's different and it's all what gets them out of bed every morning. I understand that I am crazy from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to bed and that's not for everybody. And I understand that. For example, my husband, he's a nine to five worker. He thinks I'm crazy when he gets home. That says off time. And for me, there is no off time. So I think it's whatever you want to make it. But something that I like to think for myself is I don't want average with anything. I don't want average with my life. I don't want average for business. I don't want average for my future. So being able to put the time, energy, and effort in that others aren't, I think that separates myself in. the real estate world in the entrepreneurial world, too. So if anybody else is looking to do this, my advice would be to outwork everybody around you and you can go crazy places. So how does that, I would love to drill into that dynamic a little bit with your husband and the nine to five, I'm going to chill out after that mentality. How, how, what is how, what are the joint goals in your

household with that dynamic in place? Like, is there a early retirement or is there just a, I'm more of that, like, I'm going to retire when I'm 65 mentality for your husband. How does that translate to how you think about finances as a household? Well, I think like five years ago, if you asked me, I'd want to be retired by 30. I'm 28, which is two years away. But now I've grown to love everything that I do on a day-to-day basis that I don't think there is a timeline to stop as of now. I wake up every day excited for what I'm doing. He's a little bit different, which is fine, and that's what makes the world go around, but roles are different. Like, again, I'm working from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to bed, but he's taken care

of the house. He's taking care. He makes dinner, which is fantastic. I do the dishes, but it's a balance. It's a balance and everything that I'm growing. I'm growing for the future family. It's not just for myself and my own well-being. It's for the future. It's for generational wealth itself. And we're on, we have to be on the same page for that or it just wouldn't work. Is your household financially independent? Like, could you both stop working right now, sell all the business and retire? Yes. We 100% could stop right now. But I have zero interest in doing that. We have to take one final break, but stick with us. More on Brooke after FI. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial

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subscription with the code Pockes. 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 in Edle. 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 sponsored jobs helps you stand out and hire the right

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Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 9-88, 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. All right. As a quick reminder, everybody, we do have a website with even more information about investing

and specifically real estate investing on it. If you like to learn more, go to biggerpockets.com. All right. Welcome back to the show. If someone could take a first step and they don't have maybe just like the entrepreneur poll that you do to just like provide and create and expand value in every area of life, which is just awesome. I'm built very much like that.

I wouldn't put myself on the scale of you. So this is really cool that what you've been doing. But like for someone who sees the benefits of financial independence and flexibility and the picture Scott painted of that teacher, first step, you know, like what they're putting their 6% in their 403B and their individual account program in Oregon and their Opsert pension in Oregon, Tier 1, Tier 2. You know, they've got all these things in their mind. all age 65, what's the first step they can do to veer off that path just a little bit to maybe have more flexibility if life throws something else their way? Yeah, and Brooke, I'm sorry to pile on to the question here with us, but I think that

what is, I think that there's a relatively rare teacher who becomes a teacher and then looks for an out, a way out of being a teacher right away. I think that most teachers, I imagine most teachers, and they can beat me up in the comments here, are like, yeah, I'm a little annoyed with the administration and all the red tape for all this. But like, I signed up to be a teacher because I like to teach. And that's my passion is working with kids on this. I would love to the, like, I have to work around the constraint of a fairly low income and not great, you know, not great pay and necessarily benefits here. I want to have the option to fire. That's why I'm most. to bigger pockets money, but I'm not running as fast as I can as a hardcore entrepreneur to get away from teaching because I fundamentally like it. I think that that's the mentality of the bigger pockets money listener who may be a teacher, for example, or know a teacher. And in that context, how do you approach Kyle's question?

Because inspiration is not there, right? You're a rare breed. You signed up to be a teacher, but like, no, I have the heart of an entrepreneur. I'm going to go after it. How does that person learn from your journey here without putting in, 90 hour a week to escape teaching because that's not that's not the goal for for for right and the world needs great teachers and that's what the the world needs and can benefit from with all of our children um but i would say passion finding whatever passion that is goals breaking everything up

into small steps so whatever it is that you want to do if along with teaching breaking up into small baby steps and celebrating each step as you go. Short-term goals, long-term goals. It's super important no matter what it is to hit those goals, celebrate them as you're hitting them, and believe in yourself the entire way. Teachers, I feel like 95% of teachers out there are looking for other ways to make money. They teach, but then maybe they bartend on the side. Maybe they babysit on the side. They do all of these other things because they're teaching supplement. isn't exactly up to 2024 in the world and the life that we live in right now. So whatever they're looking to do, I would just make sure that they're super passionate about it

to be able to put more time, energy, and effort into whatever that avenue is. Well, thank you very much, Brooke, for great conversations today. Where can people find out more about you? You can find me on social media, big on Instagram, Brooke E. Coughlin. Also, my book that's coming out is called She Closes Deals. It talks about my story from how I started to where I am today, with a blueprint of other agents to be able to do the same. Awesome. Well, I'm sure a lot of people will benefit from the incredible hustle and the work harder and work smarter approach that I picked up from our conversation today that you seem to employ in every area of your life.

So congratulations on the phenomenal success and can't wait to see what happens over the next five, ten years. as your empire begins to grow. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Kyle. It was a pleasure. Great having you. All right. That was Brooke Coughlin.

Kyle, what did you think? Oh, man. I mean, there's so many thoughts running through my head. You know, my first one is like this gal just loves creating value and just it's like, like, she said in her own word, it's like an addictive thing for her. And, you know, there's, I know people like that too. And I think most of us know people like that. If I'm being honest, my other reaction is like, I don't want to do that.

It doesn't sound like fun to me. But I know like for her and other people, it's super fun. So I, you know, I think when I listen to an episode like this, you can always glean like really good strategies from people and how they made things work. And I do love hearing hard work in an episode because too much, there's too much out there where people think that you can't really put in some work to get things done. You don't have to do it forever, but you really do need to. So I really appreciate that about her story.

But yeah, what about you, Scott? Yeah, Kyle, you know, I was, the word enough kept popping into my head throughout the interview. And, you know, I love a lot of things about the way Brooks approaching things, but that word enough is not part of her vocabulary and may never be part of her vocabulary. And I think that that's fundamentally different from most of the guests. and maybe most of the listeners we have here on bigger pockets money, right? I think most of the folks, the guests that we've had on bigger pockets money, most of the finance Fridays, and perhaps most of the listeners are like, I just want, you know, a couple million bucks, maybe, you know, one to three million dollars

in a diversified portfolio so that I can just have the options to do what's really important to me in my life. And for Brooke, I guess what it is is what's really important to her in her life is entrepreneurial success and outcomes in those areas. and that's awesome. She's achieved that and can pursue that in that front. But I think, you know, while I was listening, I was filming the same thing. You were filmed. Like, I don't want to do that. For me, like, I want a portfolio that allows me to do things I want to do in life.

And what I want to be doing in life is not, is being asleep at 5 a.m. in the morning and having the alarm go off closer to 6.30 or 7 to begin my day, get a workout and go on with those things. So I think that that's, I think that's a, you know, it was good reflection for me. and wonderful success from Brooke, a lot of people should go follow her example if they want to have kind of outcomes that she's had there. Yeah, definitely. So, you know, like maybe I'd like to get your feel a little bit for the question we posed to her,

and I think it would probably benefit our listeners. You know, if there's a teacher that doesn't have like the incredible drive that our guest had, what, and they want to, you know, say they want to work for 10 to 15 years as a teacher, probably at least. And they just want to have the option in 10 or 15 years to be like, you know, if I'm burnt out and I want to switch to something, what do I need to do now 10 years ahead of time to kind of start moving me in that direction? Like, what's a tangible thing? Like, what would you tell someone in that situation?

Yeah. So, you know, I think I think teachers, I would imagine. I have not actually gone through the finances of a lot of teachers. But I would hazard a guess that teachers, especially like a married couple of teachers, would have a high risk of falling into the same. middle class trap that we've discussed, where essentially all of their wealth after 10 to 15 years would be in their 403B, maybe a snowballing pension program, and their home equity. And so I think I would back my financial plan into avoiding that outcome, or at least acknowledging the possibility of that outcome, and saying, how can I have a sizable aftertax

portfolio, maybe in addition to some home equity in 403B and the pension programs that are prevalent for teachers. And I would say, okay, what needs to be true on an annualized basis for me to have a three to $500,000 nest egg outside of those areas in that 10 to 15 year time horizon? And that might sound scary, but you break it down, that could be $1,000 a month times, you know, 10 years. And with compound interest, you could get pretty close to that. And okay, where's that $1,000 a month going to come from? Is that going to come from just budgeting and making sure I'm diverting funds there at the opportunity cost of putting that into the home equity or the 403B? Is that going to come from a second job like was discussed there? My wife, for many years, worked at a summer camp,

which is highly congruent with teaching, for example, right? Could it come from a real estate investment or two? Can I take a summer, save up, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40 grand over a couple years and then buy a property and fix it up in the summer. What are the advantages of the situation that I can use to back into that outcome? And that would be the beginnings of the plan. And there's probably several good options in there that may fit someone's lifestyle in that context. What do you think, Kyle? I would say the exact same thing you just said. I think that those not so golden middle class handcuffs when you're 10 to 15 years down the road. It's really interesting.

As you're saying that, I just thought of a conversation just last week. I talked to a lady at church who had just lost her job. And she's probably mid-50s. And she has been in the education system for a long time, which is what she told me. She didn't tell me if she was a teacher or if she was, you know, there's different like assistance and different things like that. but she was looking very hard to find a very specific position and it sounded like she, it wasn't because she loved it.

It's because she's tied up in a pension system and that everything is in that. And it was, you know, it was a short conversation. But that's, that's what you're saying. We want to try to avoid that down the road. Like if you're 55 and you're still loving it, I mean, worst case scenario, now you've got three or 400,000 somewhere else outside. of your industry. So I would, I would definitely say, and teachers, they do.

You have the summer and the summer's office is such a cool thing for family stuff. But it's also like what else happens in the summer? Summer camps for an extra job. Farming harvests. Some farms actually pay really well for farm workers. And if you're a young teacher, I mean, you might as well just go sweat it out a little bit and earn some money and sock it away. Like it's, especially if you don't have kids or something.

Like there's all kinds of things when you have that big of a chunk off. You know, I know a guy who his dad has a fencing company and he works for the fencing company. He's a teacher, works for the fencing company during the summers. There's all kinds of different things to do. But yeah, removing those not so golden handcuffs of the 10 to 15 year pension lock-in from those types of system is really good. And those systems aren't as good as they were previously anyway. So it makes it even more important when you're a young teacher. And like if I'm if I'm a teacher, I've been, I probably didn't go into teaching trying to escape teaching.

That wasn't that's not that doesn't really make a lot of sense. I don't think that's the goal of most teachers. But again, that that would scare like what you just said would scare me pretty badly. Like 50 years old and 10 years away from the pension. And that's all I got, you know, from a long term planning perspective, maybe besides a house. and a little bit of a, like, that's not, that's the outcome, I think, that is very avoidable with proper planning in a long-term outlook early in one's career that I would, I would steer people towards. Love those seasonal suggestions. There's so many of them. And teachers have, have good

options if they're able to deploy them. It's not like you can do a lot of stuff during the school year, I think, in my experience, I think that that's a little optimistic for all but the brooks of the world here. But I think that in the off season, that that's where some opportunity lies to to really chart a new financial trajectory or avoid that trap that I would fear in a teacher's shoes. Yeah, definitely. And it sets up a whole bunch of other options for you, too. Like, say you invest in some real estate and then you have a rental property that you maintain yourself or an Airbnb, you know, some of these other things that also gives you some other fulfillment that if at some point you end up not liking teaching as much, I think that's the

whole financial independence community. It's not always like, I got to get out of his job right now. The really smart ones that start early love their job. They found something that they like or can really get into, but they recognize that life changes. And in 10 years, life looks a lot different. So why not be flexible? Best case scenario, you still love it. You have more flexibility. Worst case scenario, you switch and do something else and you've got the resources to do it. So I think that's the whole thing, not just for teachers, for anybody starting out, that flexibility, you don't know. You might think you're going to do your job until you're 90, which is what I thought as a financial planner.

I told clients, I'm going to do this until I'm 90 because I love it. I did it 10 years. That was, that was it. I love it. I think it's a great discussion here. And it's always great to get a glimpse into kind of the entrepreneurial outcomes here that other folks are driving because I think it's a, I think it's a good reminder. For some folks, I hope you were inspired today for Brooke. And for other folks, I hear you, I hope you were like, oh, okay, that's what?

They're doing in the entrepreneurial space, kind of like my 150K a year job and the fact that it ends at five on this and can still get to fire. Both are awesome. Yep. All right, Kyle, should we get out of here? Let's do it. All right, that wraps up. This episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. I am Scott Trench, and he is Kyle Mast saying, good day, good 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 Mickin. Thanks for listening.