BiggerPockets Money Podcast - How to Make an Extra $100 a Day in 2025 (Working from Home!)

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Want to know how to make $100 a day in 2025, all while working from home? We brought the queen of side hustles, Jackie Mitchell, back on the show to share how her money-making journey has been going. Jackie set a goal to make $100 a day to save up for a down payment. She did just that, making close to $11,000 in total in her one-hundred-day side hustling stretch. Now, she’s bought a house, still side hustling, and saving a TON of money. How’s she doing it? Jackie reveals the easiest and most profitable side hustles from her $100-a-day challenge. Some side hustles made her $500 for just three hours of work, while other more casual tasks paid her anywhere from twenty to twenty-five dollars per hour while she was hanging out at home. But what has she done with that extra money? Today, Jackie shares the huge money moves she’s made to put herself in a FIRE position early on in life. She’s got a big goal: pay off her new house in her thirties! Can she do it? With these side hustles, it’s looking likely. Plus, she shares how she pays for trips, holiday gifts, and more with her easy work-from-home side hustles anyone can sign up for. In This Episode We Cover The $100-a-day work-from-home side hustles you can do entirely online  One side hustle that paid Jackie over $100 per hour and how she found it The time-consuming side hustle that is NOT worth the money  Paying off your mortgage early vs. investing and why Jackie is going against FIRE advice  Budgeting hacks Jackie and her husband use to spend just eighty dollars a week on groceries (seriously!) Why Jackie DOESN’T want to retire early (but WILL still reach financial independence!)  And So Much More! Links BiggerPockets 299 - Food Spending Eating Away at Your FI Plans? Here’s How to Eat for Cheap w/Budget Bytes BiggerPockets Money 590 w/All the Hacks’ Chris Hutchins  BiggerPockets Real Estate 955 -  Real Estate vs. Stocks, the Ultimate Wealth-Building Debate w/The Motley Fool and Chris Hutchins Jackie’s TikTok Jackie’s Newsletter r/beermoney Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-595 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

What if you could make $10,000 in just 100 days? That is exactly what today's guest, Jackie Mitchell, did. And we're bringing her back to tell us all about how her challenge has changed her financial perspective, what side hustle she did, and what her new financial goal is. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen. And with me, as always, is my Everyday Is Hustle-in, co-host Scott Trench. Thanks, Mindy.

It was a clean intro, unlike the Rick Ross song, which would help us lose our family-friendly status here on Bigger Pockets Money. Bigger Pockets is a goal of creating one million millionaires. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house in order because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting, including if you just want to make that first extra 100 bucks. Jackie Mitchell is a 26-year-old rising TikTok star based in Columbus, Ohio. Jackie, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you back on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. Thank you guys for having me back. I am super excited to talk to you. So Jackie, when I first met you, saw you online, you were

on TikTok, where you were sharing your $100 a day for 100 days side hustle challenge. And we talked to you kind of in the middle of that challenge back on episode 470. Before we get into updates, let's give a little bit of a recap. What is your current job? And can you give us a brief overview of your history with money growing up? Sure. So I currently work in the nonprofit sector. Both my husband and I work full time. Like I said, I live in Columbus, Ohio. Grew up with a healthy view of money. I think my parents instilled a good idea of what it meant to be financially responsible. So, you know, I was given an idea of what it meant to spend money, what it meant to earn money. I was always the kid who wanted to do a lemonade stand, always the kid who wanted to find some weird way

to sell something at, you know, garage sale or or thrift and flip something. I always came up with little business ideas. None of them ever stuck. But, you know, that was kind of me growing up. I kind of always had that drive or that knack for earning a little bit of extra money. And my parents helped me understand what it meant to steward money well. So I'm really thankful for that. Let's go into this $100 a day, 100 day challenge. What was your impetus for starting this challenge? Yeah. So at the time, my house. husband and I had been married a couple years, rented for a few years, and we really wanted to solidify our goal, our dream, really, of being able to buy a house. And at the time, I had calculated,

you know, to be comfortable without, like, you know, digging into kind of our reserves, we needed about an extra $10,000 in order to make that down payment realistic for us. You know, so there were a couple ways we could go about it. Certainly, both he and I had brainstormed a few ways, but one of the easiest ways we found was just to break it down into everyday bites. And for me, I was the one who had more flexible hours at my job. I was the one who was kind of already connected to some of these side hustles that I had been doing since college, since, you know, even high school, some of them. And so once I realized that 100 times 100 is 10,000, you know, I thought, is it so crazy if I just try to challenge myself to make $100 a day for 100 days? And that's kind of where

the challenge was born. I posted it mainly to keep myself accountable and people, definitely did keep me accountable. So then I was stuck. I really had to do it. I had to follow through. Did you end up making your $10,000? Yeah, I ended up making close to $11,000 actually. I think eight days early, I hit my goal of $10,000 and I think I landed somewhere around $10,800 for the final day total. That is awesome. So did you put to buy a house? Did you put down the money and yep. We're in our house right now. I'm recording this from our brand new house. So, you know, actually towards the end of our challenge is when we started home shopping and we shortly after I finished that challenge actually within the next month moved into our brand new home. Well, brand new to us,

but our new home, yes. I have a question here. Did it get easier to make the $100 a day? Were you able to do it faster and faster by the end or was it pretty consistent the whole way through? Certainly. For a couple reasons. The first one being when you learn a new side household, there's always that like learning curve of getting started, understanding the platform, whether it's, you know, something like user interviews, something like a focus group, data annotation, prolific, any of these sites come with a learning curve for sure. But then secondly, I ended up starting to earn from social media, which was unexpected for me. And so by the end of the challenge, I would say about a third to a half of my daily income was generated through TikTok's

ad program, creator program, which was crazy. I love that. Okay, one of the biggest questions that your viewers had for you was on how you were going to pay your taxes. Was filing taxes easy, or was it kind of a nightmare because you had all these different tax forms to return? I mean, really, it's just the same form over and over again. So it depends on how much you like filling out forms. But yeah, you know, from the get-go, I said I was going to overshoot how much I set aside for my side hustles just because I would rather over-save and then, you know, have more in my tax fund than I needed. So I set aside about 30%. I definitely overshot that, like I said. But then when it came time to pay, I just paid. I actually make quarterly payments because with

that kind of work, 1099 work, I believe it's, I don't know if it's required or if it's just preferred, but the government really would like you to pay every quarter for that. So I actually went ahead and made one quarterly payment in 2022 and my final payment in 2023. Yes. Did you hire a CPA for that? I didn't, but I did have a family friend kind of check it just to make sure he thought I was doing all the right things. So while we didn't hire him and I did most of it myself, I did have someone check it. But now I feel confident enough to be able to be doing it myself and I'm doing quarterly taxes again the same way. Okay. When we spoke last year, you were doing data annotation as your, as one of your big side hustles. What was your favorite side hustle?

what one paid the most and what one paid the least? It's a really good question. My favorite side hustle besides, I think, social media, which is the one that I've kept at the most since this challenge, would probably have to be prolific. Prolific is a site that a lot of graduate programs or PhD programs use to collect data for research for either papers or different studies, some of them social, some of them. you know, regarding psychology, some of them, a lot of them actually this year, regarding the election, but these are short studies. So while focus groups are great, a lot of those are longer, like maybe two-hour studies that you get paid to do. Prolific is anywhere from like a minute to maybe 20-minute studies, and they pay by hour. So while, you know, you may not, you may not get a lot from one study, you're doing, you know, five to 10 an hour. And I was averaging, I think, around $20 to $25 an hour on that site. And there was a good stream of income. I do know that they have a wait list sometimes. So I was cautioned people join it, join the wait list. It's always worth it. I've never heard anyone

get into prolific and be like, yeah, I hated that site. Everybody who gets in really likes it. So that was probably my favorite just because the studies are fun. They're interesting. They're short and it pays well. And once you get in, there's a good stream of them. In terms of my the ones that paid the most, I would say focus groups always pay the best per hour, but they are harder to come by. So that is the. downside right so I only do focus groups I think the last one I did was two months ago now I'm in a couple different focus group like emails or sites that kind of send you ones that have been pre-screened for you that they think you might be a good fit based on your profile um last one I did in home study

they sent me some cleaning products and I reviewed them and I didn't end up having to have anyone come to my house I just did like a in-person video I did a video and then sent it to them of me reviewing the product and that paid $500. So, you know, $500 for maybe three hours total of work, that's a great, great hourly rate. But again, the downside is they don't always come, you know, into your inbox very often. So I would say I do those when I can. I love them. They're fun. And there's no wrong answer, right? So that's the other part that's fun about things like prolific and things like focus groups. There's no wrong answer. It's just your opinion. So to be able to just give your opinion for three hours. I mean, I talk, you know, probably eight hours a day. So to be able to

get paid for three of those, that's great. But again, the downside is just that they're harder to come by. And then the ones that paid the least, I had actually trialed. I'm trying to think of the name. Amazon has a tasking site that is, I think, similar to sites like data annotation and prolific. And I was asked by some viewers to join and kind of give my honest review. And I just found the pay rate to be way too low. So I tried it once and it just wasn't for me and I don't recommend it. I think there's sites that pay better. What have you kept doing? Tell us about what happened after the challenge in your house, your home purchase. And what have you learned from or kept doing following that? Yeah, I think, you know, after my challenge, I was kind of on a high of like, I can't believe I did

this. And so I think I should always do this forever. And I slowed down a bit. I don't do it every day like I thought I might. But I do still side hustle for a couple different reasons. The main one being, I really enjoy social media. So I've put a lot of effort into continuing my platform. And I've really enjoyed the opportunities that have come from that. But then there's still great opportunities. I mean, I still like doing prolific. I still love doing a focus group. Like I said, I just did one a couple months ago. And it paid for like half of our Christmas gifts this year. So, you know, I love to do it for things like traveling, gifting, any like out of the ordinary expenses, I think these are great ways to just kind of, you know, boost your regular income. And so that's how I kind of treat them now that

we've hit our big goal of buying a house. Are you saving up for the next goal? Yeah, I mean, right now I would love for us to not have to dip into our reserves to buy a new water heater. So that is going to be on the top of my list in the new year. Our water heater is quite old. so he's ready to kick the can. And I'm going to Europe with my friend and I'm doing that completely with side hustles, which I've done before a couple times in the past. Actually, our honeymoon was completely side hustled in 2020. February of 2020, I went with my friends to Paris and that was side hustled. So this will be my third trip that I'll side hustle. Let's look at some of the numbers involved with those side hustle trips. And are you combining them with like credit card hacking or are you

paying for them with the side hustles. The first two, I did not combine with credit card hacking just because I was in college for the first one and then we had just kind of gotten like a nice travel credit card when we went on our first trip together as a married couple. But this time I am using some points. It's actually as the day of recording is supposedly Travel Tuesday, which is one of the best days to book for the next six months for airlines. So after I, you know, log off of this, I think I'm going to hop on and see on Google flights any deals that I can get. And then that'll kind of decide our itinerary. So I will be doing that and hopefully spending some points. But the last two times, no, it was all out of pocket through either earnings from sites like, like I said, focus group,

swag bucks, anything like that, just earnings that I saved up. Stay tuned for more after a quick break. But while we're away, we would love to hear from you. Do you currently have a side hustle? Answer in the Spotify or YouTube app while we're gone. The tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch.

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Audible has been a core part of my routine for more than a decade. I started listening years ago to make better use of drive time and workouts, and it stuck. At this point, I've logged over 229 audiobook completions on Audible alone, and I still regularly re-listen to the highest impact titles. Lately, I've been listening to Bigger Leaner Stronger for Fitness, the Anxious Generation for Parenting Perspective, and several Arthur Brooks' audiobooks that have been excellent for mental well-being. What makes Audible so powerful is its breadth.

Beyond audiobooks, you also get Audible originals, podcasts, and a massive back catalog across business, health, parenting, and more, all accessible in one app. If you're looking to turn everyday moments into real progress, Audible has been indispensable for me over over 10 years. Kickstart your well-being journey with your first audiobook free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash BP Money. Welcome back to the show here with Jackie Mitchell. All right, Jackie, you know, you went through a hundred-day slog to save up $10,000 and beat your goal.

And that's awesome. And that's something that's going to inspire, has inspired and will inspire for many years to come, a lot of people out there. But it's one piece of a broader kind of long-term financial strategy. And I would say probably not sustainable for most. Most people wouldn't want to try to keep that challenge up for an indefinite time horizon. I love how you limited it to 100 days in a specific goal there. how are you starting to zoom out now and think about your larger financial goals and your journey to wealth building now that this challenge is complete, you know, we've heard a little bit about

the travel hacking, but how are you thinking about broader personal finance in light of the success you had here? Yeah, you know, for me, one of the biggest things I learned for my challenge was that little bits really do add up. I mean, I know it's a simple concept, but gosh, like until you really see the results of that, it seems incredulous. So, you know, So I think one of the things that this challenge reoriented me on was the idea of just spending a little bit more on our mortgage each month, just throwing little bits extra. To me, it always seemed like people who paid off their house were paying, you know, you know, five thousand extra dollars a month or, you know, they were paying double their

mortgage every month. And that's not true. We've already shaved off a couple years on our mortgage just by making extra payments rounding up, you know, a couple hundred dollars here and there. And so while I'm not attacking our mortgage with the same intensity that I was attacking our down payment because it didn't seem as urgent, it is nice to know that however hard I want to attack that, the opportunity is always there and little bits always make a big difference. So for us, paying off our house early would be amazing. I'm actually 27. I just turned 27. And to be able to pay off our house by our mid 30s would be the goal. And I think it's something that, you know, through, this side hustle challenge through social media, just through learning about how we can go about that in a healthy way that seems balanced and still enjoy time with our friends and family. I think that's my biggest goal for my 30s. And then just to love on our friends and family, I mean, to be honest with

you, I always say that finances are a part of life, but they're not the point of life. So I would like to be in a place financially where I'm always able to have people over. I'm always able to spend on my friends, spend on my family. I'm always able to have experiences with people that otherwise if I didn't have my finances in order would be either difficult or impossible for me. So beyond spending and kind of trying to pay off our house early, I think our goal is just to feel comfortable enough to be able to host and love on people the way we want to. I love that. I am not 27 and it took me until I was about 50 to learn that lesson. So I'm so delighted that you've learned this early on.

You seem like you have a really good solid financial footing, which is frankly not that common in your age group. So it's January. Many people are focused on getting their finances in order as part of their New Year's resolutions. You've pivoted to budgeting and specifically reducing grocery costs. What are some tips you have for people who are looking at their budget and saying, how did I spend $2,500 on groceries last month? Yeah, I've got a couple

tips. The first one being you cannot leave anything up to chance. You may think that you're good at estimating and guesstimating what you need for recipes and what, you know, kind of ingredients you want to buy. But when you get into the grocery store, I mean, this is true of me. Marketing will get you every time and you will spend more than you think. So for me, the most important part about grocery budgeting is naming every single item that I'm going to buy. And I'm going to buy. listing those out and then going into the grocery store as if I'm a shopper for someone else. So I'm not shopping for me in that moment. I've got a list to fulfill and that's not my own list. But, you know, budget eating doesn't have to be boring and I'm really passionate about that. I think variety is huge when

your budget meal planning. You just need to make sure that you're not eating the same things day and day out. If that works for you, that's great. But for me, that is the biggest reason why I end up eating out is if things get monotonous at home and take out looks enticing. You know, that's a different, that's a different flavor. And I've, I've been eating the same thing. You know, I made a casserole on Tuesday and I've been eating the same thing every day since then. So I think that's a great idea. And then also, you know, just personally, me and my husband have found that lunch items are

expensive. And so for us, cooking every dinner as a family of two to serve at least four to six people and then packing those leftovers for lunch the next day is always more cost effective. leftovers for lunch are the way to go. We're very pro leftovers in this house. Embracing leftovers can be a real help because like you said, you've got these leftovers. I had a really great dinner last night. Now I'm going to have it for lunch. I don't necessarily want to eat. I don't make a lot of chili because I tend to make a lot of chili and then I'm eating chili for like 14 months in a row. And I don't really want that. But also chili freezes really well. So if you have extras and you don't want to do this, pop it in the freezer and, you know, bring

it back out when you haven't had it for the last 17 days. Absolutely. Are you familiar with Budgetbytes? Budgetbytes.com and Beth, I believe it's Beth Munsell. I don't think I am. Oh, I'm going to change your world, Jackie. We interviewed her on episode 299, and she breaks out all of her recipes. Here's the ingredients and here's how much they cost. So this recipe has a tablespoon of olive oil that's 17 cents. And this recipe has, you know, a pound of ground beef. that's $4.99 or whatever. So it starts making you think about exactly how much each recipe is going to cost you at home. All of her recipes are amazing. My friend JT. has like a whole calendar and you look through his calendar. It's a budget bites, budget bites, budget bites. They're really,

really great recipes. And then conversely, if you are, you know, in a tight spot and you want to make an inexpensive meal, you can go through and look for one that is inexpensive or look for one that has ingredients that you already have in your cabinets. I think that's fantastic. Yeah, she's an awesome, awesome blog with, I don't know, 10 billion recipes, something like that. My count might be a little off. You know, you bring up a great point when it comes to budget eating. You do have to have the essentials. And I love that she's counting that because, you know, there are a lot of times where people will share recipes. And then you realize that half of the things that they're using are things that they consider pantry essentials that are like very odd or niche or

specific. So I always tell people spend $80 on pantry essentials. I've got a list on my page that I pin because that's like my most asked question. But things like flour, sugar, salt, soy sauce, peanut butter, these are things that you spend on once when you get into your house or when you're starting out cooking at home. And then you're not going to be replenishing those all at the same time. So it is an initial investment of maybe $80 to $100, but you're never going to have, you're never going to run out of all of those things at once. So once a week, week, pick up whatever ingredient that you're out of garlic powder, pick up flour, pick up peanut butter, and then you're good because you always have that base to refer to. And so what I really try to do

is encourage a nice little, you know, I don't have a lot of space in this house, but I love my house so much, but I don't have a pantry. So I've just got some cabinet space of just pantry essentials. And I think that makes the biggest difference, especially for people in my age group, cooking seems daunting and it seems more expensive than take out at first when you don't have those pantry essentials. but those will pay off 100% of the time. What do you spend every month on food? We spend $80 a week on our groceries, so I guess that would be $20 or, yeah, $240 a month.

That's pretty good. I don't know anybody else who is doing that. We would do it in the show for a long time. So that might be the best ever for two that I've ever heard. And is that include all, take out everything? Like your food budget is 240 to 300 bucks. Yeah, so we always say we don't go out to eat unless it's a special occasion.

And, you know, that's just the way we've set up our lives. We like having people over. So if someone's going to hang out with us, we're always willing to have them bring over an extra pound of ground beef or whatever or splurge to buy an extra little bit of ingredients for friends. But other than that, it's just the two of us. We cook every meal at home because of that. Yeah, we're down to $80 a week.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Like I said, we eat dinners and then we pack leftovers for lunch the next day. and then we prep breakfast grab and go items. So something like oatmeal bars, overnight oats, eggs, something easy, fruit that you can just kind of grab and go and not have to worry about. So you bought a house. Would you mind sharing a little bit more about the house? Is this a thing? Could you give us like mortgage payment or some sort of idea of how much house we're talking about? Yeah, absolutely. So this is a three bed, two and a half bath in Columbus, Ohio. we spent just over 300,000 and our mortgage is about 2,300 a month.

So, you know, for us, that was right around what we were looking for. It was a mad dash in Ohio for the real estate market. So we kind of bought the first house we set eyes on and liked, and it worked out for us. Awesome. And what is your mortgage rate on the house? We are at 6.325, I believe. Got it. Okay.

That's great for the current interest rate environment. Better than I thought. Better than I thought when I was getting some estimates. So I'm happy for that. And the last question here, and I'll tie it all together with why I'm asking these a second, what do you do for your cars? Do you have one? Do you have two?

We have two cars that we have both owned since we were teenagers, hand-me-downs of hand-be-downs. And we've put a new motor in one. They're not pretty, but they're functional. get us to work. So that's where we're at with our cars right now. All right, we've got to take one final break and then we'll be back with more. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole thing. And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going and more importantly, where your taxed refund

can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments, net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves 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 people quickly. Your job post jumps straight to the top of the page where your ideal candidates are looking and it works. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored posts. The best part? No monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results.

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Visit northwest registeredagent.com slash money-free and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com slash money-free. Thanks for sticking with us. Now back to Jackie. Awesome. So you have two 10-plus-year-old cars that are paid off.

And then you're going to emerge in six, seven years. It's going to be faster than that. I'll bet you anything. With a paid-off house. And, you know, maybe you replace one of the cars or whatever during that time period. And you keep this food budget that low. You're going to have every option in the world. And it's because you have such tight control over the big three here. I mean, the house, you got to have a house. And he decided to go that route with purchasing. I think that's

almost certainly the right call in a place like the Midwest, like Columbus where you're at, I believe. And then you have the paid off cars. I mean, you're going to be able to save 50, 60, 70 percent of your income while once that house is paid off. And I imagine you're not blowing all the money somewhere else on this. So you're like what a fantastic situation to find yourself in at 27 here. One of the burning questions I think that folks might have though is why are you paying off the mortgage instead of investing? And I agree with her to by the way. I just feel like the question needs to be asked. No, I appreciate it. You know, this is my most controversial take is that I am throwing extra at the mortgage, although we do invest and we both have retirement accounts.

You know, for us, the non-monetary value we place on not having any debt is huge. Part of that is personal. Part of that is, you know, myself watching my parents pay off their house when I was growing up. That was huge for me. And, you know, just hearing what a relief that is, even though, sure, you can gamble. And not even really gamble. there are good methods of, you know, investing that then can yield some returns to us. It's always been about eliminating our debt. And we include the house in that. So again, while there are other

ways to invest, and I think that's great for people that want to do that, I like to say that, yeah, it's a non-monetary value that we hold to be completely debt-free. And this is the fastest way to go about it. And I sleep easier every night when that mortgage goes down little by little. So here's another way of looking at it in defense of your decision here for all the folks saying that you should be investing on that you pay taxes. I don't know what your household income is, but let's call it with the, let's imagine you had 120k in household income here. You would be paying taxes at a 22% federal bracket, 22 to 24%, and you throw in Ohio, I don't know what Ohio taxes are like from a state perspective, but you're probably paying 25% blended income tax on that income. If you were to get gains on

investment in the stock market, you'd have to get a materially higher rate of return than 6.325% in order for it to actually on an after-tax basis beat the early payoff of your mortgage on there. And so it's not that big of a spread. It's not like 6.325% versus 10% you could get in a stock market, for example. It's probably closer to a 2% potential spread. And the peace of mind from having a paid-off mortgage is absolutely worth it for tens of millions of people compared to that 2% spread on there. And you'll be able to stockpile as much wealth as you want into investments without that, you know, a big, the lion's share of that 2300 a month

payment that you're making. So I think it's a great call. And it used to be clear cut. I would have thought you about it three, four years ago, even though it's a feelings call. But I would say it's, like the math is definitely not, not saying, don't do this at this point. So you ever need that argument for somebody who's asking you about it. I think you got it. You're making a really decision with paying off mortgage. Good. Okay. And what I'm hearing her say is this is a decision that she has chosen consciously. She's not just throwing extra money at her mortgage because she doesn't have anything else to do with it. She's not just throwing money at her mortgage because somebody somewhere said maybe that was a good idea. She looked at it. She looked at her husband. She looked at

their mindset about having debt and said, we don't want to have the debt. It's not just this offhand decision. So that's, I mean, that's the most important. Jackie's money is Jackie's money. So Jackie can do what she wants with it, but Jackie should be doing it consciously, which she absolutely is. But this is a finance podcast and we're going to get YouTube people commenting on and why Jackie's make a big decision on it. So we have to fend it off. Yeah, no, I love that you are defending that. And if anybody has an issue with it, you can email Mindy at biggerpockets.com and we can have a nice little conversation. I do have one more question, though. You said you were contributing to like retirement accounts on top of that.

Could you walk us through how far you go? Are you taking matches and then everything else goes to the mortgage? Yeah, so we are taking our matches. My husband handles the retirement actually, so I have little to know. But I'll just give you the broad overview of what I know is that we do take our matches because that to us is free money. And then beyond that, we're contributing just, yeah, I think up until our match, I believe. Last question here. Is everything on top of that going to prepaying the mortgage? No. Okay, where does the rest of it go? So I just started grad school.

So some of it goes to grad school. Some of it goes to long-term savings. For us, a car is definitely in our future, like I said. And then that's all high-yield savings. And then some of it goes to travel savings. Like I said, for us, we don't spend a lot day-to-day. We don't spend a lot month to month. And we're pretty boring.

We eat every meal at home and we like to do things for free. So we like to splurge on travel. Like I said, you know, that is important to us, especially at our age. So that's an expense. And then, yeah, you know, in the next year or so, that'll look like maybe contributing to some 529 plans with the hope of eventually having children. Yeah. Again, Scott, I hear intentionality in this spending and in the way that her money is working for her. And that is absolutely the best way to go about it is doing it because you're doing it on purpose. Jackie, our audience is mainly focused on the fire movement, financial independence, retire early.

Do you identify with any parts of the fire movement? Definitely, to some degree. I think I'm not on fire as much as some fire people would like me to be, but I'm somewhere in the middle, certainly paying off our house early. It falls in line with that. When it comes down to retiring early, I could see us retiring either myself or my husband, but not both, I believe, is kind of our goal right now, or at least allowing one to stay. And if we have children, God willing, you know, stay with the kids. So that's kind of our long-term goal. But again,

I enjoy my day job and I enjoy my side hustles. So to me, like, I see myself as a person who always will be working in some capacity. So to retire early may not be the choice for me, although I think it's a great goal for many people. I am just someone who deeply enjoys working. I mean, I don't know why, but even I worked at a restaurant in the evenings up until about two years ago, and I loved that and missed that and didn't know what to do with my evenings when I was done with that. So for me, I think there's always work in the future, but not out of necessity, but out of a love to do it, I think. What is the driving kind of philosophy behind the way you're approaching your finances? And what does be, you know, you mentioned kids, you mentioned all these things.

is it just this kind of notion of flexibility or is there a more specific goal 10, 15 years down the road? Yeah, I mean, broad view, just to be honest, like a lot of this is just stewarding what we have well. That's something we take very seriously in our personal lives. My husband and I, out of partially religious beliefs and just our own personal mantras. So, you know, long-term goal is not to maybe... is not to maybe accumulate more and more, but to be comfortable and be paid off. So that everything would be paid off, that we would have a comfortable monthly income, and that we would be able to provide for a future generation.

I would say it's our long-term goal. I think that is going to happen, Jackie, based on what I'm hearing on here. So I think you're going to be way past that. You're going to have really fun situations and problems and opportunities in about 10 years. Jackie, what advice would you give our listeners who are looking for creative ways to get their finances in order for the new year? So I think there are two categories of work. And if you can find the second category, I think that's where your money is and your longevity is. You can always work for money and there's always going to be side hustles. There's always going to be extra jobs, evening, jobs, right? So in terms of like, could you get a job waitressing? Could you get a job doing XYZ? Absolutely. I encourage people for longevity to find something that they at least somewhat enjoy.

And I know that's hard to say when it comes to work. So I'd like to simplify that by saying, you have to understand what it is about completing a task that you enjoy. Do you like being on your feet? Do you like checking off checklist? Or do you like being left alone and being creative? I mean, these are some big questions you have to ask yourself. I think have guided me into realizing things that I do like and things that I don't like. That helped me on my side hustle journey. That helped me just in life as well. And then, you know, the internet is a great resource for research as well. I'm always a big proponent of Reddit. I know the fire community has a great Reddit page and a lot of resources.

The same is true for a lot of side hustles. There's one in particular that I used a lot during my side hustle challenge. I think that's called R slash beer money. And it's just that. It's just little extra bits of money. You know, it's not going to pay maybe your entire mortgage. Maybe it will. But it's just beer money. And that's a great resource to find sites that I used for my 100 day that, you know, maybe pay $25, $30, $50 a day that you can stack. So if you want to do something like me, it's always worth searching on Reddit. People are always willing to give more information, I think, than you think, but you have to know the questions to ask. I love it. Okay, Jackie, our listeners who do not yet follow you on TikTok, where can they find you? Yeah, you can find me

on TikTok at Jackie Mitchell. I believe there's an extra L there. So it's J-A-C-K-I-E-M-I-T-H-E-L-L-L. But if you search Jackie Mitchell, I should come up. And I'm on TikTok, and I've got a, if you're interested, a weekly newsletter where I send out all the recipes that I use on $80 a week, a long with some side hustle reviews, some thrifting reviews, budget reviews. It's called Thrifty Weekly, and we just kind of talk life, budgeting, and how to make things work on even the smallest of incomes. Okay. And how do I sign up for that newsletter? Because I want to get that. In TikTok, my link is in my bio. Awesome. Jackie, it is always so much fun to talk to you. I'm so thankful that you had time for us to share what you've been doing and where you're going next. I'm super, super

excited for your future because I know it's going to be an absolute rock star future. So Jackie, thank you all of the other things that I just said before. Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate your time. And we'll talk to you soon. Thank you guys for having it. It's great to be on again. Scott, that was Jackie Mitchell and that was so much fun. I loved hearing about her side hustles when she was halfway through. And I really, really think that side hustling, especially when you're younger, can just be the difference between being in debt forever and paying off that debt, saving up your emergency fund, and even saving for a house. I am so happy that she came on the show today. What did you think of the episode? I thought, I think she's fantastic.

You know, I think that the headline is the side hustles, right, as it should be. That's a really cool experiment that she did. That's going to inspire and help a lot of people. But the story is really one of all of the basic foundational principles that we talk about all day long here on bigger pockets money. And at this stage in a career with her career and what they're doing, expense control is the number one thing that's going to make a difference in terms of how much wealth they're going to accumulate. It's not how they invest businesses or other things there. It's just, is there enough of a gap between income and expenses? And is that being accumulated rather than blown? And they have such tight control with a very reasonable home purchase with their food budget, $80 a week, is absurdly

good and then their transportation with the paid off cars from childhood that they're just going to be able to save an enormous percentage of that income. And that's only going to make the game super easy for them at 35 with a paid off house. Even if, you know, in a future state, there are kids in the picture around there. Their intent to have one parent stay at home and the ability to control expenses on the food side is going to give them such flexibility for their entire life that it's just going to be a wonderful, wonderful set of options that they're never going to have to compromise with her and her husband. So what a fantastic story. I love it. You know, that if she wanted, fire would be well within reach in the next seven to 10 years as well with this situation,

given how things could compound. But she'll fire anyways one way or another in the next 10 to 15 years. So I loved it. I think it's an inspiring story. And I think there's a ton to learn. Well, and I just like the intentionality that she and her husband are living their life through. And they don't, their mindset, they don't seem like this is a hardship. They don't feel like they're giving things up. They like cooking at home. They see how much they're saving versus their friends who aren't cooking at home at every meal. They're seeing how much more they can put towards their mortgage with these little

side hustles that she actually enjoys. I've done focus groups. I think they're a lot of fun. I haven't done them in, you know, several years. But I think a focus group is a super fun time for. Or, you know, an evening. You're talking to people that you don't know. You're talking about products that you may or may not like.

It's just, it's an interesting way to make a couple of hundred bucks really quickly. And she's, you know, she's enjoying things. She's not doing things that she doesn't want to do. Or she's trying it out and saying, yeah, that's going into the no pile. But she's just having a really great time doing what she wants to be doing while earning extra income that she's then putting towards her house. So to quote, Dave Ramsey, live like no one else now. so you can live like no one else later. I absolutely agree with your assessment, Scott.

Fire is going to come for her, even if she chooses not to retire early. She's definitely going to be financially independent. And Dave Ramsey is a key word there. If someone wants to replicate some of her success, they should follow Jackie. But also Dave Ramsey, like this is classic Dave Ramsey playbook. And it works. It's a really powerful system. I'd argue you can build more wealth a little faster with different plays than layering some of the real estate.

But this is so certain of a path to success or, you know, among this high, probability is, paths you're ever going to find. All right, Scott, should we get out of here? Let's do it. That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Indy Jensen saying happy 2025 and also Cheerio Fallin Snow.