BiggerPockets Money Podcast - The 5 Biggest Money Fears Keeping You from FIRE (and How to Overcome Them)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Nobody in the Phi community has all of the answers. What might keep you up at night may be a really easy answer for somebody else. Today, we're looking at your money fears. Yes, that's right. These are fears from our dear listeners. Scott and I will give our take, and we'd also love to hear from you. Hop on over to YouTube or on our Facebook group to give your take on these questions too. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:28 My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as, always is my fearless co-host, Scott Trench. Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here. I don't know how it gets better than this. We're going to go headfirst, fearless. It's the most common money fears that we have on Bigger Pockets money. Hopefully you got that if you're a Taylor's fan. I was of the first two albums, at least. Bigger Pockets has a goal of creating one million millionaires. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house and quarter because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you're starting. And today,

Starting point is 00:00:56 we're going to discuss common money fears that fire adherence, I think that's the way we're to describe us folk on Bigger Pockets Money, have, including, am I being too frugal? Am I not being frugal enough? How shi factor? Housing cost, real estate investing, burnout, inflation, all of these different things that grind towards financial independence and so much more. So let's kick it off. Mindy, you found a lot of these big fears inside the Bigger Pockets Money Facebook group, I believe. Do you want to share the first one and talk about it? This question, I think, is really, really prevalent, especially among younger people who have discovered financial independence

Starting point is 00:01:35 and who are a year or two into their journey. I wonder if I'm missing out on life by being frugal at age 25. Now, notice Scott they said frugal, not too frugal. And I think this is a really important distinction. But are you missing out on life by being frugal at age 25? Well, what is your definition of frugal? Does that mean that you're not spending more money than you have? No, you're not missing out on life. You're missing out on debt, which I guess is part of life, but also that's not a fun part of life. So you can just skip right over the being in debt part if you're frugal in your 20s and you are being intelligent with your money. However, our friend, Ramit says you need to concentrate on living a rich life. So if you're being too frugal, if you're saving, saving, saving, saving, and oh, I'm going to save, for the future. I'm not going to spend because I'm, I'm, you know, worried about reaching financial dependence earlier. I'm worried about money in general. I think there is a point that you can be

Starting point is 00:02:35 too frugal and enjoy the journey is the lesson that I have learned by being too frugal my whole life. Scott, what about you? Yeah, look, I think that if you sacrifice the things that really matter to you, at 25, you're going to regret it. At 25, the things that are mattered to me were being able to go to the mountains and, you know, go ski and enjoy a weekend downtown, go to a Rockies game, spend $100 at a bar, whatever with my friends. Like, that was the time in place in my mind, in my life, for those types of things. It was not the time in place for a very nice house in the suburbs or an electric vehicle or, you know, eating out on Tuesday night or ordering takeout. So what I did is I just had my spending reflect my values at 25,

Starting point is 00:03:31 which was to have fun with my friends and play rugby and those types of things. And that was right. And I spent in that area. I just didn't spend on housing. I house hacked. I drove my carola or biked to work most of the time. And I packed my lunch and spent time at the grocery store. And so to me, that wasn't missing out on life. I sure, I didn't get to live downtown next to where it was all happening. I had to Uber back and forth, but that was a happy arbitrage for me. So I think it's how you frame it. And most of the time for most people in America, the big three expenses are housing, transportation, and food. And I believe that many people, not everybody, but many people, when they're 25, don't value the very best in those three areas, the same way that

Starting point is 00:04:14 they'll value them maybe later in life. And so I would just encourage you be super frugal or keep those three expenses under really tight control and then spend on the other areas, if that's travel, if that's vacation, if that's fun, or whatever it is for you. That's how I think you avoid that FOMO question. Scott, you said a couple of things that I really want to highlight. You said values. I was living my life in my 20s according to my values. And I think that's really important. If you are just being frugal for the sake of being frugal, you're like you're playing this game with yourself. How little can I spend? because you feel like that's the right thing to do. That may or may not align with your values,

Starting point is 00:04:54 but depriving yourself of something simply because you don't feel like you're allowed to spend on it is very different than depriving yourself of something because you can't afford it because it's not something that you value because of whatever reason. It's not really depriving yourself if it's not something that you value in the first place. And when I first heard this question, I was reminded of a presentation that you did in our office, I don't know, 100 years ago, you were presenting the concept of financial independence to our coworkers. And one of our coworkers at the end said, but I'm in my 20s. I want to live my life now. And my first thought was, oh, she's missing the message on this. And my second thought was, you know, when I read this question, what is it

Starting point is 00:05:44 that they're missing out on or what do they feel like they're missing out on? If you are just spending to spend. Oh, everybody else is out at the bar, so I'm going to go too. I mean, when I was 25, I had friends who were attorneys. I had friends who were computer programmers making big money. And I had friends like me who were, let's say, less well compensated. So you can't, you can't compare yourself to your friend's salaries. Let me take that over. You can't compare yourself to your friends when you're not playing on a level playing field. So if your friends are constantly doing all these things, if you value spending time with them and it's something within your budget, great. But I think focusing on the future is important as well. Put aside

Starting point is 00:06:33 some money for the future, but don't put it all aside for the future. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And look, a great framework for this is afford anything. Paula Pantt, we both know her, friends with Paula Pant. She's got a great podcast. out there. You should go check it out. Her whole concept is you can afford anything. You can't afford everything. That's all it is. What do you value at 25? Well, I valued very different things at 25 than I value now at 34 with a two-year-old. And I spend on the things that I want to do with my two-year-old now. And I don't spend on the same things that I wanted to spend on when I was 24. I haven't racked up a bar tab in a long time, Mindy.

Starting point is 00:07:10 You're not taking the baby out to the bar? They will come to the brewery and we'll get a, beer, you know, kind of deal. But there's no, there's no, yeah, none of that. But I do now, I finally got rid of the Corolla and got a Tesla, as I think we mentioned in a previous, previous episode. And that's good. I go to work. It's 35 minutes each way on that. And I actually have been taking calls from BP money listeners and chatting about their situation for entertainment purposes only. So that's been fun. And that's a big difference from doing that in the Tesla versus the Corolla. So that's a value that's changed, right?

Starting point is 00:07:41 That's awesome. Are you on self-driving when you're taking those calls? Yes, I got to use one that had the full self-driving that came with it. So, yes, the Tesla drives me to work. We need to take a quick break, but stay tuned for more of your money fears, like how to feel confident in your FI number explained after this. 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.

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Starting point is 00:10:53 All right. Question number two. One of my money worries is, will I have enough for retirement? And I think this is a really interesting question. Somebody asked further information and they said, I'm not sure. I will have enough money saved or I'm not sure if I'm making the right choices now in my mid-40s that could affect my retirement. So let's hear from you, Scott. What do you say to this? I think we're going to spend half our lives, Mindy, answering this question, right? This is the one, I mean, this is the whole question. This is why, like the short answer to how much do you need

Starting point is 00:11:27 for retirement is the 4% rule, which we have now covered super exhaustively, probably at least five to 10 times on the Bigger Pockets Money podcast with full dedicated episodes, including with the inventor of the 4% rule, or a version of the 4% rule with William Bangen in his Trinity study, including with someone who arguably has taken that to the next level and studied it more exhaustively than any other human being in Michael Kitsis. And that is the answer to what is enough for retirement. And we've also exhaustively discussed how nobody really accepts that as that answer for them. And they all want to go beyond it. The 4% rule is the starting point for fire for almost everyone that we've ever talked to. We have found a few close to outliers now as we've been floating that

Starting point is 00:12:10 out to our audience here. But for the most part, folks want to get to that 4% rule and add in a big, even bigger margin of safety through some sort of extra bonus, whether that's a big cash position, whether it's a rental property or two, whether it's a pension, whether it's Social Security, whether it's a part-time job, what have you. I'm going to tag on here and say that if you have not yet read the original 4% rule article that Bill Bangan wrote. You absolutely should. We will link to this in the show notes, but you can also email Mindyat BiggerPockets.com. And I will send you a copy of this. It is not an easy read. It is not a quick read. But I felt that it was a very reassuring read. When you read through this, he didn't just make this up. He ran test after test, after test.

Starting point is 00:13:01 And 4% is the safe withdrawal rate. That means when you're withdrawing 4%, you'll probably have more money at the end. But this one is in 96% of the cases, fine. You will have money for 30 years because it was based on a 30-year retirement. It's a 60-40 stock bond portfolio. And it is in many cases, in most cases, you have significantly more money than when you started 30 years ago after withdrawing the 4%. Bryce and Christy from Millennial Revolution have been testing this theory for the last 10 years.

Starting point is 00:13:46 They retired on their portfolio. Any additional money that they made went into a different pile that they have not been touching. They've been withdrawing 4% from their portfolio every year. And now after 10 years, they have more money than they have more money than they. They did 10 years ago. Math doesn't lie. And I know that there are some people out there who say, well, well, you know, it's not tested.

Starting point is 00:14:10 It's based on historical data, yada, yada, yada. I get that. But this is like, I don't have a crystal ball. I can't predict the future. I really want that Biff Tannen book from Back of the Future three where he can see all the scores. Not to see all the scores, just to not to gamble, just to see what's going to happen. Oh, look. stock market is going to continue to go up into the right. I mean, look at historical data,

Starting point is 00:14:35 but there are also some people who will never feel like they have enough for retirement. They could have $4 billion and spend $10,000 a year and still feel like they do, what if the stock market crashes? What if I run out of money? So I think that there are definitely going to be people that we're never going to be able to answer this question for. But if you are on the paths of financial independence and aiming for a number based on the 4% rule, I think that's a really great start. If you're looking for guarantees, good luck. You probably need to find another podcast. We don't have any guarantees. The 4% rule is as close to a surefire answer to the question how much will I need for retirement as you're likely to find. It's been back tested in every historical

Starting point is 00:15:23 situation and has never failed to run out of money over a 30-year time horizon. But if you're looking for a guarantee in the future? No, of course it doesn't guarantee that a future event won't be different from any historical setting. I will say that another fear that people have around this is even if you accept the 4% rule, is my number going to change? And that's very realistic, right? My phi number was something like $750,000 when I was 24, 25. And it was like, okay, well, that's not really the fine number that I actually would accept now at 34 with a wife and a kiddo and another one on the way. that's not how we would be planning it at that point. So I think it's fair to say that it will change. And I also think it's fair to say that those needs may downshift once kids are out of the house to a certain degree. We talk to somebody who is going to have $2 go in high school.

Starting point is 00:16:12 And when they're done with college, depending on how much you want to allocate for weddings, for example, in that particular scenario, you may need a lot less than what you need today in terms of spending when you're planning out your retirement. So there's different stages of that. And that's an evolution that I'm starting to go through and learn about and think about in a more robust way of like, what are the stages here? Fire at 25 is very different than fire at 35. Fire as a single guy at 25 is very different than as a married guy at 35. And it's going to be different still at 55 from a spending perspective.

Starting point is 00:16:45 And how are those, how do you think about those changes and those points waxing and waning? Is there one part where there's accumulation, one part where there's a little bit less accumulation and then, you know, a truly retirement level of wealth at 55 or 60, closer to traditional age, I don't know, but those questions are starting to pop up and they're really good ones from the community. They are really good ones from the community. I mean, when we first started talking about this, what, seven years ago, we were in a very different economy.

Starting point is 00:17:14 We had different interest rate environment. We had a different inflationary environment. So one thing to build into your financial state of the family meeting every year is to reevaluate your spending from the last year and your 4% rule based on that spending. If you find yourself like stair stepping every single year, perhaps your spending is out of whack or perhaps your spending isn't and your fine number needs to be adjusted, but adjusting it during the journey as opposed to reaching. Scott's $750,000 and then discovering, oh, wait, I'm married and I have a kid with another on the way, maybe this 750 isn't going to last me nearly as long as I thought it was going to. In which case, I mean, if you're spending $100,000 a year, $750 is not your fine number. But reevaluating it, I think, is a great part, a very important part of your financial

Starting point is 00:18:12 state of the family address. Scott, our third question comes in a couple of different parts. I kind of combined a couple of questions here. Will I ever be able to afford a house? Is it worth it or should I prioritize investing elsewhere instead? Also, similar, I make more than my parents did combined eight years ago and I still can't afford a house. I'm going to answer this question by annoying the heck out of our book publishing business

Starting point is 00:18:41 and giving everybody who listens to this podcast free access to the spreadsheet that we put together for first-time homebuyer on this. And that can be found at biggerpockets.com slash homebuyer bonus. And at biggerpockets.com slash homebuyer bonus, you will find a spreadsheet that Mindy and I created that tells you whether to run the calculation for buying or renting a home. And look, what this person is talking about is in the last two or three years specifically, by the way, big misnomer, housing has not gotten less affordable on a price. price per square foot basis over the last 70 years until 2022 when interest rates went up. Go look it up. It's a headline. People talk about it. Prices went up. Yes, they went up,

Starting point is 00:19:26 but affordability per square foot really didn't change much over the last 50 years until interest rates spiked this year because as as interest rates came down gradually over 40 years, those payments adjusted for inflation actually stayed remarkably flat per square foot. New home prices increased because they got bigger and bigger and bigger on average over that time period. But per square foot, home affordability actually remained remarkably consistent for almost 50 years. But in the last two years, buying a home, affordability has absolutely skyrocketed in terms of getting less affordable. And what has happened there is interest rates win up, which increased the principal and interest

Starting point is 00:20:10 payments on many mortgages, 30, 40, 50, 60 percent in many cases. What hasn't happened and what should happen from an economic economist's standpoint is rents should have gone up at that. It locks up with that. So the last two years, as prices stayed flat, but mortgage payment costs increased dramatically, we didn't see rents increase nationwide. And why is that? It's because we built so much new housing supply over the last couple of years. 2024 will be the most multifamily new housing construction, new housing deliveries in American history on top of 2023, which was then a record for the most new construction units in American

Starting point is 00:20:54 history. So, no, you're not crazy. Affordability for housing has gotten much worse in the last two years. And what, again, the surprise that has taken place is that the cost to rent has not gone up in lockstep. I believe now is a great time for renters in America. It is a much more affordable option in many places, and it's much more relatively affordable than buying a home.

Starting point is 00:21:19 I think that the average when we wrote first-time home buyer two or three years ago, I think it was in 2022, it was like a seven-year payback to buy a home versus rent in an average market. Now it's probably closer to 12 to 15 years where you got to live in there. So I think that renting is a great alternative to buying for many, if not most Americans in most markets here in 2020. and heading into 2025. And I think that will remain the case

Starting point is 00:21:46 through the balance of 2025 into 26 until I believe rents will begin picking up pretty dramatically. Thank you for the data because I wasn't aware of some of that information. Going back to this actual question, will I ever be able to afford a house? I want

Starting point is 00:22:02 to temper expectations. My parents lived in a very large all brick house. They had a lot more money than I did when I was 20 and they were 50, 60. So temper your expectations. If you are looking at these larger homes, maybe pull back, maybe consider getting a roommate. I mean, house hacking is a really awesome way to own a home without actually having to pay

Starting point is 00:22:34 the entire mortgage yourself. There are instances where no, you will never be able to afford a house. One that comes to mind instantly is New York City. An average salaried person in New York City is not going to be able to afford a house because New York City has outsized housing costs. Does that mean you'll never be able to afford a house? No. But that means that looking in the places that you're currently at and knowing how much houses cost may not be the place that you're going to end up long term.

Starting point is 00:23:05 Can you move? There are lots of more affordable locations than New York City. city and L.A. That doesn't mean there's no affordable locations near there, but there's a lot of affordable affordability, excuse me, there's a lot of affordability in the center of the country. We did an episode about moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tulsa, Oklahoma has a lower population growth, and they wanted to increase their population growth. So they were paying people to move to Tulsa. You had to live there for a year. You had to have a job there that wasn't a remote job, but they wanted to increase their community and they're doing it. In fact,

Starting point is 00:23:46 after we release that episode, Scott, one of our employees moved to Tulsa. And now she's moving to OKC. I don't love that that's the case. But I think, yeah, like if you're in New York City and you can't afford a house, moving is an answer to it. And it's not one people like to hear. But, you know, I didn't, I didn't move out to New York City and expect to buy real estate. after graduating college, right? I moved to Denver, Colorado, and I expected to buy real estate around there. And that's part of the decision tree that I think folks have to face around this is, you know, will I ever be able to afford a house? Well, it depends. If you're going to live in New York City and you want to be able to afford a house, better go and get one of those

Starting point is 00:24:28 super duper high paying jobs that New York City offers that isn't available in a Denver, for example, to the same extent. And there's major costs associated with the career, the trajectory, the decade of grind you may have to go through in order to climb the ranks and earn that salary. There are always alternatives to doing that. But in certain locations, if you want to buy a house, it's going to be really hard. You're going to have to earn a super high income. And I just think that the obvious answer to a lot of those questions is rent instead of buy. We'll be right back after our final ad break. Tax season is one of the only times all year when most people actually look at their full financial picture, including income, spending, savings, investments, the whole

Starting point is 00:25:10 And if you're like most folks, it can be a little eye-opening. That's why I like Monarch. It helps you see exactly where your money is going, and more importantly, where your tax refund can make the biggest impact. Because the goal isn't just to look backward, it's to actually make progress. Simplify your finances with Monarch. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life, including budgeting, accounts and investments,

Starting point is 00:25:31 net worth, and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or your laptop. Feel aware and in control of your finances this tax season and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with the code Pockets. What I personally like is that Monarch keeps you focused on achieving, not just tracking. You can see your budgets, debt payoff, savings goals, and net worth all in one place. So every decision actually moves the needle. Achieve your financial goals for good with Monarch, the all in one tool that makes money management simple. Use the code Pockets at Monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off at Monarch.com code Pockets.

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Starting point is 00:28:00 Northwest Registeredagent.com slash money-free. Welcome back to the show. Yeah. And I mean, Renting is a great option. Renting can, your costs are fixed. Your rent is the most you're going to pay every month. As a homeowner, my mortgage is the least I'm going to pay every month. That's a quote from Rameit. I didn't make that up. I want to give credit where credit is due.

Starting point is 00:28:22 But I have my mortgage payment and then I have property taxes, which are wrapped up into your rent payment. I have utilities, which sometimes are included in rent and sometimes aren't. Oh, something broke. Now I have to fix it. My landlord is not going to fix it because I'm the landlord. I own the property. Whereas if you're renting, your landlord is going to fix it.

Starting point is 00:28:42 So your refrigerator goes out, you get a new fridge or he fixes the fridge, but it doesn't cost you anything. Renting can be a really viable option while you are saving for that home, that down payment. You could rent a property in somebody else's house hack, help them pay their mortgage and then move it. Didn't you do that with your real estate partner? I rented for two years here in Denver, even while I owned a large real estate. estate portfolio in Denver, right? Remit, who we're going to talk to tomorrow, is a big fan of renting. And, you know, look, I think that over 30 years, rents are going to go up. Whether or not they go up versus inflation is anybody's call, but I will bet on rents going up at least or faster than

Starting point is 00:29:22 the average of the rest of the CPI over the next 30 years. That's a bet I take as a real estate investor and landlord all day long every day. But if I'm going to over, I think that that day could be 30 years out in front. And if I were to invest the difference between a house, a home purchase price and a rent in a Manhattan, I bet you that you come out ahead by investing the spread in the market and renting for 30 years versus buying a home in Manhattan, even though you'll lock in that payment for 30 years. We'll have to see. I'll have to run the numbers, but I bet you that would be the case. Okay, Scott, tagging off of that is real estate a good investment? Too easy. Next question. Is the amount of work in buying and maintaining rental properties worth the difference from owning a reed or investing in a syndication?

Starting point is 00:30:12 We had a great episode on this one where we went back and forth with UC Ascola. That's J-U-S-S-I-A-U-S-K-O-L-A. UCI also writes for the Bigger Pockets blog and has a YouTube channel as well. UC has an opinion on every single one of the 200-plus. publicly traded United States real estate investment trusts or REITs. And at that time, we discussed how REITs had seen their values dropped by something like 30% from their peak in 2021 through that point in the 2022 or early 2023. And that was, I think was a fantastic take and very compelling. He and I would tit for tat on the pros and cons of REIT investing versus rental

Starting point is 00:30:57 properties and there certainly are pros in rental properties and there certainly are pros in reits around there. But I think at the highest level where I landed on reits versus rental properties are I believe that U.S. publicly traded stocks will outperform reits over a very long period of time. And if I'm going to take an index fund like exposure, I'm going to put them into publicly traded index funds or like large scale low cost index funds. And if I'm going to make the investment in real estate, I'm going to go for the concentration and leverage that is provided by owning duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes. He will argue that I'm nuts and that those tradeoffs are not worth it and that I'm not putting in, not factoring in the cost of self-education,

Starting point is 00:31:44 of dealing with the 2 a.m. toilet, of dealing with the property manager of all those types of things. But I believe that I'm getting the advantage of leverage. I'm getting the advantage of control and the inflation adjusted income streams that I have the option to manage myself over a long period of time. I think that real estate is a good investment the way that I do it. I move into a property that is very ugly. I make it look beautiful over the course of at least two years and then I sell it. And then I go do it again. I buy another property that's very ugly. I take all of my gains and put them to put most of them into the stock market, and I put 20% down on the next property to not have to pay PMI. I make a lot of money when I sell these houses because people don't

Starting point is 00:32:30 want to live in ugly houses. They want to live in beautiful houses. So my house is an investment because it is my primary residence, but it's very ugly, and I am forcing appreciation. I am forcing it to be worth more. Now, should the market collapse and my house, isn't worth what I put into it, what I put into it plus my projected profit. If I just don't want to sell it, I'm going to stay there. It's a safe way to invest in real estate. It is not a scalable way to invest in real estate. Anybody listening to the show has heard me talk ad nauseum about the Section 121 exclusion. I'm not paying taxes on this because it's my primary residence, but I can only do it once every two years and I have to live in the house for two years,

Starting point is 00:33:15 at least two years before I can sell it. So you can't scale this up, but it's a great way to get started. It's a great way to buy a house when you can't really afford anything else. That's how I got started in the first place. I couldn't afford anything else. The only thing I could afford was a very ugly house. And I said to myself, I am not living in this ugly house. I'm going to make it look nice.

Starting point is 00:33:37 And then when I sold it, I was like, how much did they pay for this house? I'm going to do that again. And I did, and I did. So is real estate a good investment? Yes, it can be. It is work to buy and maintain rental properties. And it is far less work to invest in REITs. And it's a definitely do a lot of research and choose your own adventure answer. I wish I could give you a better one. Awesome. So I also want to cite some research I did on The Motley Fool for this one. There's a, um, an organization called the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trust, so blah, blah, blah, called Nereet.

Starting point is 00:34:18 And this tracks the performance of public REITs since 1972. And public REITs from 1972 to 2023, which was a down year for REITS, was 12.7% from a total annualized percentage of return, which beat the SMP from a total return perspective over that time. So if you have reinvested your returns from these reed investments, you would have done better than the S&P 500 on that. And I also think that another good kind of counterpoint to my own argument in favor of real estate here is that reeds are actually a little down still versus their previous highs from 2022. And that's not true with the public market index. So I think there is something. That's why I invited UCON to the podcast and why we've invited him to write

Starting point is 00:35:10 more for the Bigger Pockets blog. You can go check that out at biggerpockets.com slash blog. Um, is because I think there's something there. I think there's something worthy of consideration in that REIT sector. And I think if you're kind of nervous about real estate, but want some diversification to the stock market and want some exposure to real estate now is not an unreasonable time potentially, um, this is for entertainment purposes only to put some diversification or potentially exposure to REITs.

Starting point is 00:35:38 And I like the idea of an index. fund a style investment in the REIT sector that can try that can try attempt to pick some of these averages there's reasonable um there's a there's a reason to be fairly bullish i think about real estate or at least there's a contrarian play there where real estate's not been having a good couple of years and those indexes are down from their their their their peaks a couple years ago yeah i think that with any investment you need to do your research and understand what you're getting into. And real estate isn't an investment for everyone. But if you are intrigued about real estate and you want to learn more about all the different types of real estate, BiggerPockets.com

Starting point is 00:36:19 is the place to go. Oh, and PassivePockets. Scott, we have a new podcast out called Passive Pockets, which is talking about syndications and the different aspects of investing in a syndication, which is about as passive as you can get. And that's a kind of in between. between play, right? So we have our duplex investment. We have our public reeds. If you wanted to be a partner on a large, like a large apartment complex deal, that's what passive pockets. The idea is, is here's a large number of deals that are presented. And over time, as you look at more and more of them, you'll get more comfortable with the ones that make sense for you. There are higher fees associated with passive investments than things like reits around there and

Starting point is 00:37:00 less control than with rental properties. But if you're looking for a passive option that has different types of returns. That's what we're excited to explore with passive pockets. And I believe that the like multifamily apartment sector and office sector right now in particular are two very interesting parts of the economy for me because they're trading at such depressed multiples from their peak a couple of years ago. So much money has been lost and there's been such a huge crash in those areas that I think 2025 in particular could be a very interesting time to buy in that private sector. The thing about REITS is they don't trade quite in parity to the net asset value of the underlying assets. But the real deals can be found and the real disasters can be found in the passive

Starting point is 00:37:45 investing world. And I'm excited to learn more and dive into that with passive pockets. Awesome. Yeah, I am very interested to see where the commercial and large multifamily space goes in 2025 and 2026. I think it's an interesting time to be watching the market. I'm getting pretty serious about buying an office building here. So I'll have to fill you in on that when I actually start making offers. Ooh, I would love to hear about that. All right, number five, I am worried about burning out before I hit my phi number. I think this has a couple of different connotations.

Starting point is 00:38:17 So I'm going to send us back to question number one. I'm wondering if changing jobs and taking a pay cut would be worth it for more personal time or if I should grind it out a little longer. Scott, how about you? What do you think? I'll get back to you in 10 years on that one, Mindy. Well, I also knew that you were going to say that. I have taken a pay cut for more personal time.

Starting point is 00:38:44 I went from five days a week and 100% salary to four days a week and 80% salary. And it was the best decision I ever made because financially I was in a position to do so. And I wanted more personal time. Having Fridays off is awesome. I can do all of the errands. that I didn't get through Monday through Thursday, but I don't have to do them on Saturday and Sunday. I can go hang out at my kids' school when they were little. I just have more time back. I can do laundry. So I'm not doing laundry all weekend. It's 100% worth it so long as financially you can withstand it. And if that's

Starting point is 00:39:23 the option for you, do it, do it, do it. A hundred times do it. And did you guys know that 32 hours is a minimum requirement in many states to be considered full-time employment and eligible for benefits as well, which is a wonderful option in that cutting off, cutting a little bit of hours back. I bet you that many employers out there would take the call and say, yes, we will reduce your salary by 20% and move you to four days a week and keep you on full-time. Not everybody, but I bet you that's an option for a good percentage of people listening out there if that's something of interest to you. Yeah, especially if you're an awesome employee. Your boss doesn't want to lose you just because you don't want to work on Fridays or Mondays or whatever. So yeah, absolutely ask the

Starting point is 00:40:08 question, but be prepared for them to say no. And then what are you going to do if they say no? All right, Scott, I have a question for you. What is a podcast or a book that isn't Bigger Pockets related that you're reading or listening to right now? I'm listening to the 1% rule. by Tommy Baker, which is another one in my endless onslaught of personal development and self-help books. That has talked about 1% improvement on a daily basis. The commitment to just getting a little better every single day at something or other. So I'm really enjoying it. The framework is highly motivating.

Starting point is 00:40:46 And it's just another reminder of the importance of that of constantly pushing forward and getting just a fraction better, hopefully in each area of your life every day. I love that. The 1% rule by who? Tommy Baker. Awesome. We want to hear from you in our Facebook group or if you're on YouTube, leave a comment below. What podcast or book are you listening to or reading right now that you want to share with us? All right, Scott, this was a fun episode. I can't wait to do this again down the road.

Starting point is 00:41:14 But that wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench and I am Eddie Jensen saying, see you around, hound.

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