BiggerPockets Money Podcast - How She Built a $1 Million Net Worth and Quit Her Job Before 35

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

Two years ago, Alex Preziosi came to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast with one big question: should she quit her W-2 job and go all-in on real estate? Fast forward to today, and she's left behind her brutal commute, grown her real estate business, added another rental property, gotten married, and built a net worth of more than $1 million, all before 35! But here's the twist: Alex is now just $50,000 away from Coast FI and wondering if she can finally take her foot off the gas. Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench catch up with Alex to talk about quitting your job before financial independence, building wealth with real estate, Coast FI, entrepreneurship, and whether $1 million is really enough when kids and a growing family could be in the future.To go beyond the podcast:Interested in a Flat Fee Financial Planner? Go to https://biggerpocketsmoney.com/fipro/Interested in Learning More About Buying a Franchise? Check out: https://www.biggerpocketsmoney.com/franzyGet 50% Off Your First Year of Monarch by using code ‘Pockets’: https://www.monarch.com/pocketsConnect with Alex Preziosi:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jerseygirlfinance/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandrapreziosi/Alex’s Previous Episodes: 395 and 589We believe financial independence is attainable for anyone no matter when or where you’re starting. Let’s get your financial house in order!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alex Preziosi came on the podcast about two years ago, wondering if she could quit her W2 job and go full time into being a real estate agent. Today, we're going to hear an update and what Alex's next major milestone will be. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me as always is my loves to hear Finance Friday updates co-host, Scott Trench. Thanks, Mindy. That's a great intro. Please don't quit your job nearly as aggressively as Alex did here.

We are so excited for Alex's third time returning to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. She has been on episode 395 and then again came back on episode 589. And it's probably been several years. It's been two years since we last talked to Alex. So I'm going to recap both of those for you here. But she should definitely go and check out those two episodes to see this awesome progression of a journey going on in real time. So without further ado, welcome back, Alex, to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Thanks, guys.

I appreciate it. Thanks for having me back. Just to set the stage, I'll go ahead and summarize what we talked about there. My friend Chat GPT was very helpful in summarizing those two episodes and helping me prepare this of it. Basically, the first time we chatted was in episode 395. What was that like 20, 22 somewhere in that range? Yeah, I think so.

Yeah. And how old were you then? 29, I think I was at that time. Awesome. And at that point, you had about $138,000 of income. and that was part salary, part real estate commissions, and then part project commissions. You had about $120,000 in cash and $37,000 in our Vanguard brokerage, $6,800 and $401K, and $11,000 and some other change there. And your question was basically, how do I get to FI by age 45?

Is that a good recap of that? Yeah, sure, at the time. The central problem at that point was that you had all these options, all these things going on, and we needed to focus on a couple of objectives. And it was basically like the real estate agent commissions were one part of that and a house hack specifically with the focus of an assumable FHA or VA mortgage. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened between that episode and the second one we talked about in 2024? Sure. Okay. So at that time, I had been renting but did want to buy a house hack property

in the town that I was renting in. Probably within that year, we found something in our town here in North Jersey, found it off market. I was marketing and also looking for things on market too. Found something, you know, relatively under market value, put a lot of work into it, ended up living in one unit and renting out the other one. And that's where I am right now as well. So still live it in that property. Awesome.

So bought a house hack and then you came back in 2024 and you brought us new numbers. He said your income had gone from about 138. K to $184,000, this time with 68K from your W2, $96,000 in your real estate commissions and a $20,000 bonus. And you were spending only 50 grand in part because of the house hack that left you with 120K in cash, $306K in a taxable brokerage, plus Roth 401k, Roth and IRA bonuses. And then $367,000 in the equity in this house hack. Does that sound about right? Yeah, that sounds about right.

Awesome. And your central question at that point was, should you quit your W-2 job, which, came with a pretty brutal, I think, two or three hour commute down to the Jersey shore. Yeah, pretty bad. And you wanted to go full time as an agent. Or you were thinking about going full time as an agent. Is that right? Exactly.

Yeah. I was going to say her commute was four hours plus round trip three days a week. Yes, indeed. It's not one and a half to two hours. It was like an hour and 45 down and two and a half hours back. Three days a week. My first thought was quit. I do think shortly after we talked, I did, I don't want to say negotiate down.

but I ended up going twice a week. And that made it a little bit more helpful until actually doing the full transition out, which was probably like another six months to a year after that. I was pretty convinced that that was going to be on the way out after the conversation as if I didn't already know the answer to that myself. That's the whole reason we do finance Fridays. Oh, I really don't like this commute. And then you say it to somebody else who hasn't seen you do this commute.

and we're like, that's an awful commute. Yeah. Get rid of that job. There's another job you can find that's making that same money for far less of a commute. For sure. You know, your question was,

can I quit my job and go full time as an agent? And chat APT sums up me and Mindy's entertainment only, of course, advice in this particular episode as this. Both said yes, unusually emphatically. Scott's argument was that she generated 96,000 in commissions part time while commuting 12 hours a week, has five years of commission tax history

spends almost nothing and has two and a half years of expenses in cash. He suggested she pitched her boss first, who also a broker, on shifting towards selling instead of admin work, since that would also benefit him more. You know, there's a couple other things about, you know, the self-employment, in fact, you're talked to a lender before doing that because that may impact your loan app qualifications, look into a mega backdoor, Roth or solo 401K, think about cost segregation or depreciation, timing, and then max your HSA and save your receipts for later reimbursement. So that was our entertainment. for you on that particular episode. What ended up happening in the next year or two since we

last chatted? I ended up quitting. I gave like six months notice, you know, so I ended up going down twice a week for that six month period. Ultimately, yeah, left. I've been full time, I guess you'd say full time. A lot of times, I guess I've come to the realization in retrospect that I've really just been working two full-time jobs for the past three years, right, or four years, but I'll just say I'm full-time only real estate, you know, commission, realtor for almost a year now. It was last November. I had finally quit. And at that point, I felt comfortable because of the cash position and other factors. And it was just kind of time for me, yeah, to kind of take the next step and see what I could do being full-time. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at

right now. So clearly your financial position, has improved after leaving this 12 hour a week commute job. I want to caution anybody who's hearing this and saying, oh, I should just quit my job and be a real estate agent. I'm a real estate agent. I think being a real estate agent is great. It's a great way to make a lot of money. But the market has slowed down a lot.

And there's a lot of circling factors that are pointing to it may slow down more because interest rates may go up more because inflation is going up, yada, yada, yada. how has your specific income, I mean, obviously you're doing great, but you also have more time to spend on it. Have you seen a lot of impact in your market or your specific job? Like, are you having to hustle harder and work harder to get clients? Or has it not been impacted as much as some other places in the country? Yeah, it's a good question, Mindy. I think overall that is the sentiment that it is like a harder market to make money overall.

But also to your point, for somebody to say, just jump in and become a real estate agent, it's probably way harder for them than even first, say, me, because I've really been doing it part time, say, for that, say, six year period, right? As a result, I have past clients, I have referrals. That's a big chunk of my business still. And do I feel like I'm hustling harder? I don't know. Maybe.

It's just that it's my day to day now. So it's kind of just part of the routine. as opposed to trying to, say, squeeze it in and having to do it at night and having to do it on lunch or whatever it is. So I'm investing more time, I think, just naturally. And I've also been investing more money, a lot more money into those things, too. And have seen some, you know, ROI on that, you know, generally. But yeah, I'm pretty much on track to double my income from the part-time input.

it. So overall, I can't really, I can't really complain being, yeah, first year, first year, quotation marks full time, you know, in real estate. I think that's awesome. I think a lot of people will say, oh, being a real estate agent is so great. And it is, but it takes a long time to get up to that being a real estate agent is so great. Yeah, definitely. And you have six years of experience, six part-time years, but there's still six years that you have been there selling real estate. Every business owner hits a point where they need more expertise than they can handle a loan, but another full-time hire isn't always the answer. That's where Upwork comes in.

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Scott, what did you say? Her income went up from like 120 or 140 to 180? And that's all real estate commissions. That was by the time we talked to her last time. What is it now? That was with my W-2 and my real estate agent commission. So I think at that time my real estate agent commissions were about 100,000, say. And then with my other job, say it was a little under 100,000, so about that 180.

Now, since I don't have that W-2, I'm, as of right now, at 100,000 in commissions this year. So in September. And then I have a few closings in the next couple of months. And I'm hoping to do more, obviously. But I'm tracking for 200,000 at least in commissions for this year. That's net commissions. Is that what you take home? Yeah, that would be what I take home.

Not including taxes. So, you know, that's always a toss-up. But that would be, yeah, my GCI, pretty much. We don't usually come in and say, quit your job, you know, in there. It's just that in this situation, when we talked to you last time, that commute and the relatively low income compared to your commissions and your cash position and your low spending and your house hack, just like made all the stars a line of it was obvious in the sense that your job was actually

a huge opportunity cost to you compared to this pursuit. and there's always a risk of shayshua at those, but the odds were so overwhelming, given that context and the five years of history, that it made that a relatively easy analysis. I don't want to get people confused that, hey, quit your job and go into this stuff, you know, it can be really, really hard.

If you had quit your job and had gone into your first year, getting your license, for example, you could have had a complete zero for the commissions this year or two closings at most, you know, or something like that. It's the fact that all those things

were stacked up in your favor here that made that a big advantage. Is the pace of your closings accelerating over the course of the year? Or is it, did you start out strong and it's slowing or has it been relatively smooth? I would say it's pretty consistent. There's been maybe two months this year that I didn't have commissions. And then the other months I've had one or two at least. So it's pretty consistent. Yeah. Okay. Awesome. And what are you doing with the cash? How are you managing your finances in a general sense now that you're an entrepreneur and have the jitters about where the next

paycheck will come from? Yeah. So I think to also talk to your points about yeah, not just quitting your job and trying to become a realtor or whatever the case may be. I think the confidence for my position is also the fact that I had that kind of cash stash that was at least, say, a year of what I knew my expenses were, or even more than a year, really. So to answer your question, Scott, what I've been doing is a lot of the same, but I am like paying myself from that savings account. So I kind of just have to be. have my weekly distribution into my checking account. That's like roughly what I need on a monthly.

And then when I get a commission, I distribute, you know, X amount in tax, 40% then in my cash account and then 60% in the brokerage account. So I'm still like pretty heavily investing in my brokerage account because I guess one of my big intentions overall, but especially this year was to get to. get to as close to like 500,000 in principle, like invested, because at that point, I feel like I don't have to save for retirement anymore. And everything else, I can allocate towards real estate. I could allocate it towards, you know, I want a shorehouse one day, right? So it's like I don't need to sacrifice my current lifestyle or position to do those things because I'm pretty much set

already, like for the future. So with that being said, I'm maybe like 50,000 short of that goal. But overall, I'm pretty confident that I'm all right. Like my 65 year old self is okay. So at this point, I could like do a couple of other things with cash and not feel worried about it. Hey, Scott, what do we call that when you have enough money invested that you don't have to save for retirement anymore? Coastify. Coast five. Alex is Coast Fy or so close to post-five. There you go. Yeah.

One of the things we talked about is that you wanted to add a couple of more rentals to your portfolio. Have you done that over the last couple of years? So it's funny. Right after we chatted and scheduled this, we got under contract on a property last week. So that would be our second rental property if all goes well. It's also in our town. It's a three family.

And it's definitely a big purchase. very big purchase. The numbers are maybe not for everybody because this intention is truly to maybe make a little bit of cash flow. It's not going to cash flow very much, especially if you consider, say, the purchase price and the cash

that will be invested, etc. But it's more of just the long-term hold play here. So yeah, that's like very new as of last week. So that would be our second rental property that we're hoping to add. Okay, you've said we and our, who is this? Me and my husband. That's him right there. Oh, on the cover of Forbes. That's awesome. So, yes, so it would be, it would be our property. Is that new from last time? Oh, yes. We got married last September. It's actually our anniversary this coming weekend. So that was another thing that happened, I guess,

right, in the last year. You've been busy. Yeah, that sounds like a kind of key update here. You had to quit your job. You didn't have anything. time to work. A lot of things, a lot of things. Did you combine finances? How are you thinking about it? We, how are we thinking about it? Yeah. So we don't really have combined finances. It's just a little bit easier that way. He also has a daughter who, you know, he provides for and everything like that. So it's just a little bit cleaner for us to have. We both go over our finances together, but it's kind of just separate. Like all the accounts are separate. We do have a joint account for this house, the next property for the sake of like an operating account. But overall, he's also self-employed as well.

So just like cutting that up, it's not as easy as like if we both had a W-2 and like, you know, distributed it into an account equally. So yeah, we just keep it that way. Okay. So with this joint account, I am fascinated by this. And I want to ask everybody who has this joint account and then separate finances, how do you decide what portion of each person's income goes into the joint account. Is it 50-50 or is it based on how much you make versus how much he makes? So it's really very much just for the sake of like our mortgage taxes and insurance. So like for example, like right now our mortgage payments, everything considered is about $3,600. So it's really just like half of that. We both have it automatically going into the account monthly. And then anything else is

kind of separate. Okay. It sounds like you guys have thought about this, discussed it, and come to an agreement. This is how we want to handle our finances. And I love that for you because you've had that discussion. My husband and I never talked about money before we got married. And like, this is my job. But also, there were context clues that gave me the idea he's on the same page as I am. Like, he didn't have some fancy car. He wasn't renting. He had an actual house. because he didn't want to throw money away on rent. So there's a lot of things, but like we never talked about it. And now I come to this podcast and I'm like, I can't believe we never talked about money.

I mean, we've made up for it. Don't get me wrong. We talk about money all day, every day. That's like the top topic we have. So I love that you've come to this decision because I've seen various comments from people, you know, who aren't in your marriage saying things like, oh, one bed, one bank account. or if you're going to be married to somebody, you should trust them with everything. Well, you know what?

Those are great for you, but those aren't great for Alex and her husband. So leave you out of Alex's marriage because this is Alex's marriage and she could do whatever works for her. I appreciate that. It's also not even a trust thing. It's just that's some people's preference. Yeah. And like you said, he's got a daughter.

It's cleaner and easier for you to do this this way. And it works for you. So great. Yeah. I think I've seen other like critical videos of married people. like venmoing each other and people are icked by that. And I'm like, I venmo him all the time. We're always just splitting stuff that way.

But it just works for us. That's it. If it works for you, if this is like something you've discussed, then who cares? Those other people aren't in your marriage. We spent way too much time and bigger pockets money judging the judges already. So, you know, that's that. You think it's a key?

Then we think you're a key. Let's go back to numbers here, though. So where is your net worth today? Okay, so my net worth, considering also my house equity, it's probably a little bit more than this, just for the sake of my last appraisal. That's what I'm putting it at, is $1,776,221. The double comma club. Woohoo, welcome. All right.

Yes, we love it. And where were you when you started or your first came on the show? Oh, man. If I went into my Excel sheet. Oh, actually, maybe. I have a, let's see, 29. I was at 382,000. 2019.

At age 29. 2020 at age 29. Yes. And that was no real estate or anything at that time. And I think what's so awesome about your story here as well in the real estate sector in particular, right, you are an agent. That was your job, too, both as an agent and in the administrative function. And you've house hacked all since 2022.

These are not low interest rate last decade numbers. This is your path unfolding in real time in the, much more challenging environment since then. So that's phenomenal and that changes a lot of the perspective that almost all your agent growth has come in the tougher market that we have right now. Okay, so we have a million bucks. We just got married on pace to make 200K, self-employment income. We're 50K away from Coast Phi.

That's awesome. What's next? What's going on in the future here? Oh, man. Well, I guess I'm going to see how this purchase goes. That'll be one thing. After that, I guess just like business as usual. I like to kind of keep everything pretty simple.

and also really be in kind of like a work optional like mindset at least. Like I find myself wanting to take time off. But I'm like, oh, I guess I have to, you know, service these people, right? Who need my help? But even like earlier this year, I had a family member who really needed my help. She had an issue. I had to be there every single day. And this was like a few months of doing this.

And I felt really grateful that I was in a position. where, like, I was still working, but I didn't have to, right? Like, I didn't really have to. And it just made me feel really, yeah, just grateful that I was able to be there for her at that time, as opposed to, like, really, you know, prioritizing money because I needed it or something. So just always, like, being in that type of a state. For me, obviously, it looks maybe different than someone else. But for me, it is really just having that money in my retirement, kind of just keeping it there. Ideally, almost always having like $100,000 liquid somewhere or at least, you know, a year of spending liquid. Yeah, a couple of rental properties. But as long as I can maintain that, I think, you know, I'm just trying to live my best life, I guess.

It sounds like what I'm hearing is you came in to the 2022 first conversation at age 29 saying you wanted to fire. by 45. What I'm hearing is, I just kind of want to, I want to maintain my coastable position indefinitely now. That's where this is evolved to. Is that, is that the right way to interpret what I've, what I've just heard from you? Yeah, exactly. Okay. I don't think I define any sort of like five number, so to speak, or have some kind of, you know, number that I'm placing on like, okay, now I can retire early. It's really more of, you know, even like on a year time span. It's like, okay, what does this year look like? And it's very predictable for me, right? So it's kind of more of that. Yeah, like having the flexibility and maintaining like a work optional type of lifestyle for the most part.

Aside from your husband's daughter, do you plan on having children? Yes, ideally. How do you factor that in? So I would have a challenge your world view here of, I'm going to, I'm just going to kind of maintain coast by indefinitely. You know, you're going to have kids. I have a little bit of skepticism that that is going to persist into having kids. kids. I think your expenses will go up at that point. What's your response to my little challenge here? It's definitely fair. And I've thought about it as well. And I think there's also the aspect of like also creating this flexibility for that as well, like where I have to say prioritize, maybe taking care of a kid over working. So I think that that is still on my mind, like as I'm

still trying to build up that type of a position. In terms of expenses, I mean, I don't think I will know until I'm there. But, you know, if I have to scale back a business a little bit, you know, I could shave off $2,000 a month today if I wanted to, right? So I'm hoping to still be at least aware and planning for the expenses ahead and being in a position where, you know, it's not going to be a huge surprise to me, hopefully. If I have to, you know, have more invested for kids in childcare and things like that. Let's do this real quick because this is fun. I built a data set that I am not shy. about repeatedly showing off here.

And so here, let's do this. This is at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash budget. And where are you located? What's the nearest metro? You could put Linhurst, New Jersey, Rutherford, New Jersey, whichever it might come up. East Rutherford, New Jersey. Yeah, that would work.

Okay. I'm going to categorize you, should I couple, I'll characterize you a couple with no kids for now. I'm going to put you in this bucket just because that's where you may be in a few years with kids. I'm in the 35 to 44-year-old range here. At this point,

Median spend is about $8,000 per month. I imagine you're coming in below that to some degree. Is that fair? No, not this year. Yeah. Well, I guess if I'm just counting, say, like, not my business expenses, because I guess that that's where it gets a little, like, funky. Because my personal is closer to, like, 4,000 a month, like, personally.

But then my business expenses, I've invested a lot, like I said. So it's closer to, like, almost 25 to 3,000 a month, depending. Okay, but those are business expenses, and they would not have. be counted here. Got you, got you. Okay. It looks like I'm actually very close, considering that you're a couple. And so half of that would be your spend there.

And so let's do a couple with kids. So we're going to do a couple with two kids, age 35 to 44. Now your spending is going to go to $10,000 a month. And that's before child care. So if you want to work full time to some degree, that spending is going to go to $12,800 per month as a median level of spend in that area for a household of that type. Does that seem about right? I guess so.

I think the next phase of your challenge here is, thinking about how to cover that level of expense during the time when your kids are young. And what I'll also say is you said, I kind of want to chill on the coast for a while, but your activity set does not seem to be doing that. Your activity set is I'm expanding a rapidly growing business that's gone ramped to $200,000 run rate this year and probably all signs are full steam ahead for next year too, right? Oops, right? And we just bought another rental. And we're $50,000 away from covering retirement.

I will say it's more of, I guess, just the mindset about it, you know, like really just still trying to be aware of, okay, where my money's going, where is it coming in, where is it, you know? And I guess that gives me enough peace of mind over even like the numbers, if that makes sense at all. But yeah, so I guess it's really just that because I agree with you. I'm like, even with this new purchase, I'm like, once again, like, oops. They bought it. They didn't really intend to, I guess. But at the same time, I guess, you know, I'm trying to be light about these big purchases and just the position overall. And yeah,

just not take things so seriously, I guess. I think you have been so focused on your numbers that once you hit this 500,000, you're not going to completely stop. You're going to, oh, I want to save up for this house on the shore. Okay, great. You're going to, you're going to, you're maybe you funnel some money there and then you decide, well, I want to just put a little bit more away for retirement. I want to just put a little bit more away. Now we're starting to talk about having a baby. I'm going to put, you know, a little bit more into my year and a half of cash. So now it's more like two years. So I have more of a cushion. I don't hear you as somebody who's like, oh, thank goodness I could stop saving for retirement. I am so done with that. Now I'm

going to spend all my money and just, you know, buy everything that I've never been able to buy before. No, I think that that's a good way to put it, Mindy, and it may be, yeah, that that kind of is the whole idea, is just the feeling that I'm still going to work. Like, I'm probably still going to work. It just is what it is. And I mean, I love my work and I like to contribute and I like to help people. So as a result, I'll probably be making money and just that the priority won't be the retirement as as heavy now. And it would be, say, a family or something else that money could be allocated to for, yeah, into cash or into a shorehouse or something else. It's interesting because you're married and you're planning on having a family, but you handle your finances separately. So let's say that you were combined and your husband had a similar net worth. I don't know.

But your position might be $2.2 to $2.4 million, somewhere in that place, in that case, if he brought in exactly similar portfolio to there. That changes the math pretty dramatically, right? So I think the one hand, I'm coming at it like a million bucks is good. You're doing great. But is it like truly I can really completely take my foot off the gas permanently if I'm just a few years out for having kids in a expensive area like New Jersey? I don't know. You know, that's where I get a little antsy. And you're so relaxed about it.

I think maybe that's because I'm anchoring to, no, I would be more comfortable with a larger number in a married household. But that is your piece of it. and it's more equivalent to an individual's $1 million, which is clearly much farther along than the married couple. Yeah, no, I understand. I think, like, maybe my thoughts in the immediate haven't been as whole as, say, what things look like as a, say, family, like a family of four or, you know. So I guess when I am speaking like this, it is in this next, say, year of my life

where I could feel kind of comfortable where I'm at, personally. I mean, my husband say income and the things that he has, I don't think that that really factors into like my feelings about my finances personally overall, but maybe when that conversation does come closer to the time of, say, starting a family and having kids, maybe I won't be so relaxed. Maybe I'm, maybe, you know, I'll feel a little bit more anxious. One question I have is when you go to work, you show up and you perform an activity almost the entire time, right? If you're hardworking and a good employee, and that's what you get paid for, right? You show up for eight hours and you get paid for those eight hours of hustle. As an agent,

it doesn't work like that. The revenue producing moments come at times. I'm sure responsiveness matters, but if you react to a client's question quickly within a few minutes, you performed a great service and four hours could go by and you could play video games or stare at the wall or work out or whatever it is. And the revenue is totally untethered from the time that you're spending on that. Am I getting close with maybe something that's gone on in your life in the last year since you left the active income part? Yeah, I don't really like to play video games. But other than that, I think that that's pretty accurate. Well, I think, you know, Mindy, you could relate. There's definitely both sides of it where I've definitely had clients who I ran around with.

I put a lot of work into it. I, you know, did X, Y, and Z. And nothing came out of it, right? And that could have been an opportunity cost of $20,000, right? And then there's things that, to your point, Scott, you know, the input is more of the actions that you're doing and the prospecting. And yes, following up with people and being there for people rather than it being time related. I mean, all those things take time, but it's not like you're being paid there. And, you know, my first job, I remember, I was on YouTube much of the day. Like, Don't tell anybody, but, you know, I mean, I was, I was listening to Bigger Pockets, okay? Like, during that time, it was educational, but it was not my work.

And I was being paid the same. That is a lot of it. It's you work hard for your money, that's for sure. Yeah, it comes in fits and spurts. I spent too much time in my first job listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos. So if anybody listening to this or watching this on YouTube is doing so on the clock right now. They are. I don't know if there's a safe way to let us know that.

So don't let us know. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe not on your work computer. Yeah. Yeah, don't sit it on your work computer. But you can let us know. We're not going to rat you out to your boss.

Fair enough. So, Alex, you've kept your expenses pretty similar since the first time you joined us around $3,000 or $4,000 a month for personal expenses, which is like $48,000 a year. So what is that? Like four or five houses that you're selling in a year just to cover your basic expenses, which are not basic. That's your, I want to spend this much money. expenses. So there's a lot of people who think that you can't be a real estate agent when you have

a small baby, and that's just not true. You can't be a full-time agent, maybe, unless you're putting the baby in daycare and having somebody take care of the baby for you. But you can absolutely be a four or five a year agent with a small baby. You just, you know, work it out on the weekends. I think that's a good point. I want to challenge that a little bit. And maybe I'm just being a worry word here. I was very aggressive last time we chatted and said, go quit. the job and become an agent. But I'm actually going to start to give you a little bit of like a, I'm a slightly uncomfortable with where you're at right now. I think you should finish to play in the next couple of years. Like you're, you can have great time and all that. But I think,

I think you should finish to play and get a little closer to FI if you're thinking about having kids, because I'm not as optimistic as Mindy on this. I think that even if you put the kid in daycare, you know, for a couple years and want to be a full-time agent, I think that's going to be hard because daycare at closes. And then people aren't torn houses at three o'clock on Tuesday while kiddos and daycare. People are torn houses in the evenings and the weekends. And that's going to be very difficult to do at the same degree with a little one in tow. There's a situation here that evolves over the next couple years where things are going great. But then we've got to draw down a little bit, you know, in some of those years or work something out, have a conversation about how we're going

to manage spending or income with the husband in those first few years with the kiddos. That could be a little uncomfortable there. I would actually encourage a little more caution from you on this one. Maybe like, I'm not going to go crazy. I'm not going to, you know, like you're obviously in a strong position. How many people would trade places with you with a million dollars net worth before having kids on your own? But I think the other side of kindergarten will feel a lot better. And at that point, I think you could fully take your foot off the gas here. But I'm just like, I have that little bit of apprehension about the way you're coming across, not with any of the numbers that are coming, given your stated goals. But that's just one guy's take on this. I appreciate it, Scott. It's probably

because I just came back from vacation and I've got a little bit of like a relaxed draw to my talk right now. I mean, I'm probably coming across more chill than is my reality. That's definitely true because, you know, I'm still just as aggressive tracking every single thing. Also, to Mindy's point, you know, I do think about, say, the future of, okay, well, if I could just kind of maintain kind of where I'm at right now with, say, six houses or seven houses, right? Can I do that with a kid? I think I probably could. At the same time, I see, you know, your caution as well. And like I said, I think at that point, it would be a conversation between my husband and I. Because, yeah, of course, he is also making income and those sort of things. And that's not being, say, considered here. And it's not, I guess, relevant for just like the immediate, just talking about me right now. But I agree with you. I think that, you know, I don't think that I'm never going to work again, right? And I don't think I intend to not work or, like, return. hire early in the traditional sense of that phrase. It's more of, you know, the optionality or just

flexibility of it, but I also don't see a time where I'm not working at all, you know, if that makes sense or if that helps a little bit. That makes perfect sense because that's where I'm at. I will always be a real estate agent. I might not be active. Like, I sell about a house a month, and that's good for me. I don't want to sell 50 houses a year. That's too much work for me. about a house a month is great. I actually had one day where I had three houses under contract and then one closed. And I was like, oh, I got to make sure I'm doing all of this and all of this and all of this. And that's, that's too much. Because right at the beginning of the contract is, you know, a lot of stuff going on. What I had meant was, Scott, she could sell four or five houses to cover her base living expenses.

And she can do that while, you know, coordinating with her husband's schedule, oh, I've got to show houses tonight. can you be home with the baby, as opposed to just take your foot off the gas. I was a stay-at-home mom. That's when I got my license. And Carl was working full-time. So I didn't sell any houses that first year. But the second year, I would coordinate with him, hey, I'm going to go show houses. So can you pick up the girls from school?

Or can you keep an eye on Daphne because she's not even in school yet? It'll be workable when you get to that point, of course. It just may be a little harder than that. And it'd be a shame to let go of easy ways. which you're not doing. So you're crushing it. I probably just misread the vacation vibes there. That's okay. That's fine, you know. Well, cool. So we have a million bucks. We have a house hack and a rental property that we're presumably going to close on the next couple weeks. The business is thriving, got married,

thinking about kids, million. I mean, it's just awesome. So what is a day in the life like right now when it's not active vacation? Let's see. When it's not active vacation, I go to the office every day. I do. I prospect most of the day. And, you know, go on appointments. And on Wednesdays or sometimes Tuesdays or Wednesdays, I go to my grandma, I hang out with her, like the whole day. I just try to have some kind of a balance throughout the week. But I'm going on appointments every day, you know, and trying to just spend time with my family at night as much as possible, not trying to be out too much at night.

That's just generally, you know, it's, I come across like this, but I really am working every day, you know, in some capacity. And also different from the 9 to 5 that you mentioned earlier, Scott, it's like as a realtor, and I'm sure you know, Mindy, you're just always working, like just throughout the day, the night, the weekend. So it's a little bit different. Like the time is more spread out. So that's just kind of the operation, yeah, weekly.

Well, congratulations on the massive progress. Your actions are clearly paying off here. There's clearly like a really awesome entrepreneurial effort that is beginning to compound. I say beginning to compound because I think it will continue to accelerate if you keep doing what you're doing on that front. And it just seems like all the stars are aligning for you right now as far as we can tell. Is that how it feels? I appreciate Scott. I mean, you know, it feels all right.

I mean, you're making me nervous now. No, you directed the stars to align. This is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do. And then you took action once they did. I think there's a lot of people who listen to these podcasts and they're like, hey, that sounds nice. You got to do something about it too.

And you have. I appreciate it. It's hard, too. I mean, I understand fear is a big component. I think fear held me back for a really long time in a lot of different ways. And, you know, moving past it is little at a little at a time as best as possible, you know, strategically. I mean, if I was to give any kind of advice, it would be exactly that. Just kind of, you know, don't think that you could jump into something or you could get rich quick in one day. You know, this was, say, 10 years to be here and I still have work to do. So it's just like a day at a time. And yeah, you just got to do your best. Your story is so fascinating because you had the clear goal of fire. The stars aligned really well to go entrepreneurial. And you could argue that you might even been able to make the move to being a full-time agent sooner than even the podcast we recorded two years ago.

Is that fair? Yeah. It's hard to say because it's like you never know what exactly could have been other than the reality of what actually happened. But I actually credit that time in my life to a big part to even though, yes, I was working two jobs, but that very much allowed for me to accelerate this also with a little bit of a safety net pretty aggressively in a short period of time. So, you know, I'm also kind of glad that, in a way, that it worked out that way. So it's hard. It's hard to say, of course. And I think that's

the way to start being a real estate agent. If you're, like, if your mom is an agent and you're joining her team, that's different. But if you want to be a real estate agent, start with the safety net, because there's a lot of lean, no commission months or years right when you start out, unless you're really, really, really working hard and doing it correctly. And I mean, right now, I don't even know that somebody could start from zero and just take off. One of the things that I think is so wonderful about what you've achieved is I think that what you are doing right now is in many ways the real goal of a lot of bigger pockets money listeners, right? A lot of bigger pockets money listeners do not want to just retire.

They want to earn some kind of active income post fire, right? So this is from the last month. This is a YouTube poll. Do you earn or do you expect to earn some form of active income to at least some degree after you fire, which is how I worded that, which can include side hustles, part-time work, business activities, managing rental portfolio, etc. 51% of 639 people who responded to this said yes, just unqualified yes. Only 23% said no. 20% said perhaps. And six said no. And I specifically called this out because I got

confusion last time. Not really aside from managing my semi-passive handful of rentals, right? But 51% want to do something along the lines of what you are doing. And I think this is really interesting because I'm not aware of a lot of good academic literature, like sources, papers you can cite and refer to that talk about what the dynamic of your situation is right now. Like, We have a 4% rule in withdrawal. We have tons of conflicting, but generally within a reasonable band, research on what a withdrawal rate looks like if you're not going to earn any active income. But how does active income or the pursuit of it and its uncertainty as an agent, for example, impact this decision to go and work for myself? When is it time to pull the trigger and actually make that move?

Your situation from last time was so far past it because, hey, I've got two and a half years of cash. Oh, and I'm house hacking. Oh, and I already make more from my agent commissions than I do for my full-time job. Okay, we don't really need to do a very detailed analysis to say, this is probably a good bet for you in this situation. But I think a lot of people's situation is much harder than yours was, right? Imagine that you were making $175,000 at your job when you came on two years ago instead of $68,000. And imagine your commissions were $96,000.

Same deal, right? That's a big income. It's actually a much larger and better income position than you were in. but it makes it a lot harder to leave that $175,000 base job. That's a problem I'm really interested in uncovering right now. So if someone listening is in something like that situation, right, please reach out to me at Scott at biggerpocketsmoney.com or Mindy at biggerpocketsmoney.com. We'd love to hear that story and begin unpacking that problem.

We're probably not going to have the answer. It's probably going to be very conditional. But I think that there's a circular component to the choice of, I'm not fire. I'm not ready to fully hang it up and never earn again. but I'm somewhere along this spectrum of its, I may be approaching past or well past the time to leave active income if that's really my goal and go into this uncertain world of self-employment or business building or entrepreneurship. That's what half the people listen to the show say they want.

Yeah, but Scott, with Alex's situation, she had set herself up to a point where she could comfortably or reasonably assume that she would be successful. This is not the same advice that I would give other people with different scenarios. When you're ready to start your business, Northwest Registered Agent helps you do more than just file paperwork. You get all the tools to build a real business identity from day one, a business address, website, phone number, operating agreement, free guides and more at no extra cost. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They are the largest registered agent and LLC service in the U.S. with over 1,500 corporate guides. These are real people who know your local laws and can help you in your business every step of the way.

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but I'd probably be very uncomfortable with them leaving their full-time job. And I'd say, keep grinding it for a few years. If they're spending 75 or 100, maybe I feel very differently at that point. Maybe if they have two years of cash and a million two, the answer changes still further. I think that that is a problem, like that spectrum of problems may be what a lot of bigger pockets money listeners are going through right now in their household. Is some version of that. And I'm going to leave the certainty and the upside, like that $175,000 a year income earner that I've just made up here is maybe making more in three years or five years. is if they stay at their job, because the prospects are good.

Something's gone right if you're making an upper middle class income single-handedly in your job. There's also upside in the entrepreneurial pursuit, and that's where the heart lies to some degree, and that's what they're working towards. So I think that's a problem I want to explore. And again, I think, Alex, your situation, you made it so easy for us because the answer was so clearly, obviously you should go for it, because the job was not paying very much, relatively speaking, and your setup was so ready for entrepreneurship or self-employment. Yeah, I think to speak to that, it's even for myself,

like earlier in my career when I really wanted to leave to be a realtor was probably, you know, many years ago. And I stayed for exactly that reason, right? I was probably making like $100,000 at my job. I wasn't really making very much in real estate at that time. And to jump ship and take on some entrepreneurial risk felt very, well, I shouldn't even say risk, because everything's a risk. Even your W2 is a risk, right? There's no real certain. to you around any of it. But for the sake of your example, like, yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of people in that situation. And I think it is just, you know, possibly just taking the little bit of steps towards maybe exploring what else you want to do outside of your W-2 if it's not something that

you enjoy going to every day. And I think that that's a tough thing, you know, seeing that you're making $175,000 and it's comfortable, but you're not happy, you know, and I've been there. So, yeah, I would be curious to hear about people's situations. situation in that too. I think you get there by building your wealth, getting closer to fire number, two, building up the side income stream as a side hustle, if you can do it. Three, increasing your cash position or liquidity in there. And that's a real problem, right? For sure. The no longer middle class trap, no longer middle class trap, the deferral dilemma that we've talked about here on bigger pockets money, I think it's also circular with this.

Because if all your wealth is in the 401k and you want to go into entrepreneurship and leave the job, now you have a circle, right? Because there may not be any windows. to do the 401k conversion, you know, the Roth conversions or 72T in a helpfully arbitraged tax bracket situation, or if things go poorly, there will be, but that then crushes our plan. So I think that there's something there as well to explore in the liquidity. But you had the liquidity. You had the hard time job producing more income than the full-time job, and it was time to go. And now here we are thriving a few years later, seeing it all work. That's a function of your entrepreneurial spirit and the setup that you carefully constructed, perhaps well past a tipping point

that made those conditions favorable. All right, Alex, before we leave, where can people find you? And what area of the world do you serve as a real estate agent? Sure. You can find me on Instagram, Alex Presiosi, real estate, probably. I also have a new Instagram, Jersey Girl Finance, if anybody's interested. I mean, I've just been casually posting, not super growth-oriented right now, but it's okay. Or LinkedIn, Alexandra Presiosi, I service the North Jersey area, Bergen, Essex,

Maris, Basake, just really anywhere. I'm based out of Rutherford. So, yeah, appreciate it if anybody wants to follow or if I could help them out. Awesome. Alex, thank you so much for sharing your numbers and sharing your journey with us. It's been a lot of fun to watch your success. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.

Will you come back on another two years when you press like 1.5 or two and you know. All right. Maybe I'll have a kid and it'll be completely different. Everything will be upside down. So we'll see. Never know. I think we're two for two on these. but let's see, let's see, I'm going to take another guess for two years from now.

But I think what's going to happen is you're going to keep your foot on the gas. I mean, I guess. Next year will be even better. And the income will become large enough with a couple of these investments that the risk I am pointing out will really be not a major factor in your life by 2028 or 2029 if you do choose to have kids. That'd be my guess is where things will end up. But we'll see. I appreciate that. All right, Alex.

We will talk to you soon. Take care. All right, Scott. That was Alex's update. Wow, she is really crushing it. I think she's doing a great job in her choices. I think it took her a little while to quit the job, the W-2 job. But once she did, good for her. She's crushing it as a real estate agent. And I think she's the kind of person who will be able to weather the current and upcoming real estate agent storms, for lack of a better word. I was starting to worry just because of the way she was coming across on the show that the ambition was fading. And I think that two years ago, my enthusiasm for her going into being a full-time agent was partly because of the drive that I sensed and the numbers and the trajectory that all seem to be lining up for entrepreneurship. But that only works if it sustains to a certain degree in my view.

But on the other hand, she's already got a million bucks and is clearly fine, clearly way ahead of most people her age by a huge margin. putting up numbers that say other than her, you know, her kind of relaxed attitude on the show. So that was my worry. What do you think? Was I justified or going too far on that? Oh, I didn't get the not driven attitude that you did. I think that she is just as driven as she was before. She did say that she had just returned from vacation. So maybe she's still on island time or wherever she was on vacation. But no, I think she is going to be just as driven. I think she's got more time now to spend as a real estate agent, I think that you can do real estate agenting at her level or, you know, a reduced level when she has kids with just a little bit of finageling

with your schedule and, you know, coordinating with your partner. She is fortunate that she has a partner to coordinate schedules with. If he is willing to coordinate, I see no issue with her continuing to sell five to ten real estate properties a year, which will more than pay for her current level of living or spending and definitely pay for the slightly elevated level of spending once she has a kid. Yeah, I'm going to walk it back and say, you know, we just had a relaxed attitude today on the show, but it's clear everything, everything that we're seeing from her update numerically and otherwise is saying this is a thriving business that's off to the races right now. So I'm going to walk that back and say, keep crushing it.

Alex, you go and we'll hopefully talk to you in a couple of years, like I mentioned in the show, and see the positioning continuing to balloon into more and more optionality. Yep, I agree. Awesome. Well, should we get out of here, Mindy? Yes, Scott, we should get out of here. But, my dear listeners, do you want more financial independence information? You can follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at BiggerPockets Money. And you can head over to our website, biggerpocketsmoney.com slash phiPro.

that's F-I-P-R-O to check out all of our awesome FI partners. Yeah, and also a quick shout-out. We got mentioned on Reddit. Someone was asking about how you account for rising ACA health care costs, and someone linked the biggerpocketsmoney.com slash healthcare costs calculator that I built to do exactly that. So that was awesome. Made my day. Thank you for whoever that was attorney decent here.

And we even got a criticism where the calculator has some holes. It offers the bare minimum plan. Yes, it does. it's a bronze and silver plan tool i did not factor in the gold and platinum plans that's the criticism is spot on and it assumes you will basically never use your health insurance that part is inaccurate in my view about the tool i do i do assume you'll have out-of-pocket costs and i'll assume that you'll have maximum out-of-pocket costs moop in a couple of years and i'll allow you to do to assume that for two to five years of your journey there so some out-of-pocket

costs are are baked in every year of course and then um the maximum out-of-pocket costs, the moop are assumed for two to five years at your discretion, depending on how conservative you want to be. So that's the tool there. And yeah, thank you for ever shouted that out. That made my day. It was a good birthday present, actually. Well, congratulations, Scott, on getting mentioned on Reddit in a positive way. Thanks, Mindy. Should we get out of here? We should. All right. That wraps up this episode. He is Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen saying got to go, Dodo.