BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - Honest Advice to Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Financial freedom—no boss bugging you, bills taken care of, vacations easily paid for, and time to do whatever you want. This is the goal of every real estate investor, and the goal Dave and Henry had when they bought their first rental properties. But now, they’re financially free, with real estate portfolios that can pay for their lifestyles and seven-figure net worths. Is financial freedom what they thought it would be?  No.  Dave and Henry could quit. They could vacation for much of the year. They could drive Ferraris. But…they don’t. They both continue to work and invest, even while being financially independent. But why? Today, we’re talking about why financial freedom is much different than you think, why Dave and Henry decided NOT to live off of their cash flow, and what actual financial freedom looks like (it’s not endless beach days). You want financial freedom, but what if the reality of financial freedom is even better than you thought? Today, we’re showing you how to get there, how to change your financial freedom goals as you grow, and why getting to financial freedom slower will make you even happier. In This Episode We Cover Paying off properties vs. buying more: which gets you financial freedom faster? The “levels” of financial freedom, and which one you’re at right now  Financial freedom vs. financial flexibility: the real goal for real estate investors  Why spending your rentals' cash flow delays your financial freedom  Why you should have some lifestyle creep and upgrade your standards as your wealth grows  And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1169 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

Financial freedom is a journey, not just a destination. And that's a good thing. Maybe you want to replace your income and quit your job someday. And real estate can absolutely help you get there. But maybe what you really want is financial flexibility, the ability to buy dinner or go on vacation without having to stress about the costs. And the ability to provide that flexibility is somewhat unique to real estate. Today, we're talking about how your goals can change over time,

but there's always an investing strategy to meet you where you are. Hey, everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing here at Bigger Pockets, and I'm joined once again by my friend, Henry Washington. What's up, buddy? Glad to be here. I am glad you're here as well, because I think it's fair to say both of us have sort of reached our own version of financial freedom. Is that right? Would you say that?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'd say that. It sometimes doesn't feel like that, but yeah, for sure. Right. I think that's kind of the point, though. I've sort of hit financial freedom too, but also neither of us are actually retired at this point. Like, we're still working every day, which is basically sort of the big secret in this

entire industry, everyone who says that they're retired is not actually retired. They're just maybe doing something different than they were doing before they started getting into real estate investing. But that's okay, right? Like that is, I think, the whole point of the episode we want to have today is that the journey that you take on financial freedom, does not look the same. It's sort of a moving target. It shifts and changes. And in my opinion, at least, every real estate deal I do, every decision I make should make me more financially free. And like what the actual destination is, I don't even really know. And that kind of changes, but it's about improving your financial situation with every deal you do. So that's what we're

going to talk about today and how everyone's goals are going to change during a wealth building career and how it's actually okay to use real estate to make your life better right now, even if that means it will take you a little bit longer to reach some number that you may have in your mind. So Henry, let's just dive into your story a little bit. When you first got started, was financial freedom even a goal? Like, did you know that word? Was that what you were pursuing? Yeah, that was 100% what I was pursuing. It was. Okay. And like, what did it mean to you? So I had this vision in my mind of like at some point I would have enough rental property that I would just have cash flow coming in just in droves.

And I would just be able to sit on a beach somewhere and not have to work. And just in other words, I just had this like picturesque vision of cash flow funding everything so that I could go where I wanted and do what I wanted and not have to worry about making money because my real estate portfolio just kicks off all this money for me. You were Scrooge McDuck just like diving into your pool of gold to every day. It's just like doing gold coin angels. I mean, that is a vision I think a lot of people have. It changed though because you said that was your vision at the beginning, but it sounds like

there's a butt coming there. Man, I don't want to sound like a downer, but like I want people to have a realistic understanding of like what it is when you get in this. business. As you start doing deals, what you start to realize is like, yes, you buy properties that do make cash flow, but realistically, in a long-term rental scenario, your properties are probably kicking off between $100 and $500 per door of monthly cash flow. And so for you to truly live the lifestyle you want, it probably is going to take a whole lot of doors if you still have leverage on your property for that to become a reality. The other reality is like the more doors you

buy, the more money just comes in and goes out. And so yes, every month I get paid from my property manager and then mortgage payments comes out and taxes come out and insurance comes out and and maintenance requests come out. And, you know, I have over 100 properties. And so like this morning I got an email. I have, you know, somebody wanted $1,100 to replace a front door that somebody had kicked in. And somebody wanted another $3,000 to replace a siding glass door and some trim in an apartment. And that's just multiplied across a bunch of properties. And yes, in my underwriting, I accounted for these things to happen. Sure. But like, the money comes in, the money goes out. And unless you're just some super accounting spreadsheet genius, it's hard for you to know at any

given point exactly how much actual net cash flow you have every single month. And then like sometimes unexpected things happened. And so even though I thought I was going to have so much net cash flow, I have substantially less because maybe this month I had like four HVACs go out. Right. And so what I learned was it's really hard to live your life based on that cash flow income because every month is different. And if every month is different, it's hard to have some consistency with like being able to pay your bills and truly live off that money. And so what I quickly learned was like, I don't necessarily want to live off my cash flow. I want my properties to cash flow. Yeah. But I want to be able to have a different, more consistent income stream that I actually live off of.

And then I can take the cash flow and I can focus like on a quarterly basis or on a on a semi-yearly basis on paying down the assets with the cash flow that I have because at some point, as more assets get paid off, that cash flow grows exponentially because now I don't have leverage to pay off anymore. And then you can truly live off that cash flow. Because it's kicking off so much more cash flow that it's easy to actually plan your life around it. And it's easy to take care of the maintenance items because your cash flow will go from $100 to $500 to $500 to like $1,000 to $1,500 to $2,000 a door, right, if you're not paying that mortgage payment every month on that property.

And so I realized that the true cash flow that I'm looking for comes after the properties aren't leveraged anymore. And if I can not live off the cash flow and I can reinvest that cash flow into helping me pay off the assets sooner, I can get to that goal sooner. And so that's why I started flipping houses to generate the more consistent income that I can actually live off of because I can I can do the math and know if I flip five houses a year and I average 40 to 50 grand per flip like that's good I can manage my life off that I would never when I first started think that you would say flipping is the more consistent income but the way you do

it it does actually make sense that like if you do enough volume it does become actually more predictable than cash flow on a monthly basis yeah I think what you said makes a lot of sense is that cash flow is great to hold on to your property. But until you reach a certain size of your portfolio, it's not actually all that dependable, even if it's dependable on an annual basis or a long term basis, which you should be if you're underwriting well. On a monthly basis, like, you got to make rent. You got to pay for your car. Like, you know, you can't really rely on that until you get a certain size. And actually, what I thought you were going to say is like, money's coming in, money's coming out, which is true.

from an expense standpoint. But I think the other thing that happens is you start to make cash flow and you start, even if you're acquiring it, you want to use it towards your next deal. You want to use it to fund your next rehab. You know, you don't want to use it for your lifestyle. And that can sort of spiral too because if you want to get to a significant portfolio size, you need to keep up a pretty good reinvestment rate. That's how you compound, right?

You just keep pouring your money back into your business. And so I think that's another thing that sort of gets lost in the shuffle here. But let me just take a step back because when you first started, I get what you're saying. You thought you'd live off cash flow. I think everyone does. Did you have a number in mind? Like X dollars of cash flow would give you your beach living fantasy? Yeah, the original number was just to get to what my current monthly income was from my day job in monthly cash flow.

So I was making about $10,000 a month, right? Before taxes. Before taxes, yeah. So if I could get to $10,000 a month in net cash flow, then I wouldn't need my job anymore. Seems like a pretty reasonable thing to think about. Great way to think about it. Yeah. And so you get there.

And like I said, it's just not as easy to know that you're actually going to have $10,000 every month to spend. But what I truly started to learn was that, like real wealth, is built through equity and appreciation. Like, that's where real estate is the most powerful. Real wealth isn't built through leveraged cash flow. Leveraged cash flow, it's more of a measuring stick to know you bought a deal that makes sense because it makes you money every month.

That's why they say real estate's a long-term game. Like, the real payday comes much later. You know, I do agree with that. And that has been my experience as well, that cash flow doesn't make you a ton of money, especially up front. But I do think that there are times in my life when I look at my investing career where cash flow did have a real significant impact on my lifestyle at that moment. My goal when I started real estate wasn't to retire. I wasn't like, I didn't have this vision of like, oh my God, I'm going to sit on a beach. I'm going to buy enough rental properties.

My original goal was like, I was waiting tables and I was struggling to make rent. And I was like, if I could figure out a way to get $250 a month, that would be really beneficial to me. And that's why I bought my first deal. I had a friend who was like making a couple hundred bucks a month on a rental property. And I was like, I want that. And when I got that $200, I think it was actually more, I wound up doing a little better on that first deal.

That like had a really big impact on me. You know, like I could go out to dinner. I could make rent. I wasn't a struggle to make my car payment. And as my lifestyle got more expensive, and I know people will say like, oh, you shouldn't have lifestyle creep, but like, that was part of my goal. I was 22 and I was skrimping by. Like, I wanted a better lifestyle.

I'm sorry, you know. I wanted to go on vacation and to not worry about my finances all the time. And so, like, as I sort of settled into what I actually want my lifestyle to be, my goals, like, totally changed. And that's where I sort of like took the approach you started saying, like, oh, actually, 200 bucks at a time is not going to get me where I want to get to. I got to go a different route. Yeah. I think that the great thing about real estate is that if you start generating cash flow, whether it's $200 a month or $20,000 a month, is its flexibility. Like, it allows you to decide every month based on changing circumstances. Do I want to reinvest this capital into my portfolio?

Do I want to invest it in something else? Do I want to use it to support that my lifestyle? Like, That's to me financial independence. Like it's not some destination that you get to where you're like, okay, I'm done. I'm never working again. Everything's fine for me. It's like, no, I have some level of independence where if I choose to spend more this month, I get to spend more this month. If I choose to reinvest it, I get to make that choice.

To me, that's the part that, like, reduces my very significant amount of financial anxiety that I've had for my whole life. Like, that's the thing that I find valuable. So let's dig more into this flexibility. concept because this is a really important thing that I think a lot of new investors maybe don't realize. And honestly, I think a lot of experienced investors don't take advantage of as much as they should. We do have to take a quick break, though. We'll be right back. Thinking about wholesaling or flipping your first property, but not sure where to start.

The truth is, deals don't just fall into your lap anymore. You need to go out and create opportunities. That's where PropStream comes in. With PropStream, you get instant access to over 160 million properties nationwide. Use 20 pre-built lead lists such as pre-foreclosures, tax delinquencies, and vacant homes to find motivated sellers fast. And now PropStream has integrated batch leads and batch dialer to provide you with a complete all-in-one solution. That means you can not only find motivated sellers, but you can also reach out right away. Skip trace phone numbers free on select plans, then send postcards, emails, or call sellers directly. Don't worry if you're new. PropStream also gives you AI-powered insights and comps that are over 99% accurate. So you

you're making smart offers. Plus, you'll have access to PropStream Academy to guide you step by step. Start your seven-day free trial and get 50 free leads at Propstream.com slash BP. That's P-R-O-P-S-T-R-E-A-M. Don't just dream about real estate. Make it happen with PropStream. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was so. suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Funrise Flagship Fund. Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features 4,700

a single-family rental home spread across the booming sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave. The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified. and it's managed by a team of professionals. And it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges,

and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund before investing. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship. This is a paid advertisement. Okay, we're going to shift gears for a minute to cover something important, especially for new landlords. The shows often talk about getting stuck doing everything ourselves and the cost of sweat equity.

The key question is simple. Is my time better spent elsewhere? I use a tool that cuts down on a lot of landlord hassles. And the wild part is, it's just $12 a month. It handles rental screenings, rent collection, maintenance requests, and accounting, all in one platform via a mobile app or desktop. It saves me time in tenant communication and keeps me organized for tax season. It's called rent-ready, and you can sign up for a six-month plan for just $1 with promo

code BP 2025. Pro users get it for free because we believe in it. Just sign in through your pro account to get some. started. Rent Ready helps ensure on-time rent with auto reminders, keeps communication professional, and lets you post listings to multiple sites. Check it out at rentready.com slash bigger pockets. That's rent-r-re-di-i.com slash bigger pockets. A lot of property managers think their job is answering tenant emails and coordinating repairs. That's not the job. The job of a property manager is protecting and growing your operating income and earning your trust while they do it. And that

comes down to three numbers, occupancy, delinquency, and net promoter score. If those numbers slip, your income slips, and your trust slips too. And most PMs don't hold themselves to performance standards. They focus on activity, not outcomes. Mind is different. They obsess over the metrics that actually grow your cash flow. Go to mine.com slash show me to see how mine performs and get a month of management for free. Because if you're going to hire a property manager, hire one that manages your investment like an investment. Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer here with Henry Washington talking about the journey that is financial freedom. So Henry, you said at the beginning your goal is to replace your income as like $110,000. Like, have you updated that goal?

No, not from a cash flow perspective. Like where I'm at in my journey now is I'm fairly comfortable with the size of my portfolio. Will I buy more rental properties? Yeah, probably, but not at the pace that I was buying them before. Like, I can't pass up a great deal in a great neighborhood. Like, if I find it, I'm going to buy it. But for the most part, like, I'm not actively trying to scale as much. And so for me now, it's more about, like, paying down the assets that I have.

The way I look at things right now, like, I can get to a different level of financial freedom faster by getting rid of some of the leverage that I have. Yeah. Versus buying more doors with more leverage. So if the goal was cash flow so that I don't have to work, I can either get there by acquiring hundreds of doors leveraged to get me to a monthly cash flow number that makes sense. Or I can get there by paying down the doors that I have in exponentially increasing that

cash flow. And after having a big portfolio, I like the idea of not increasing that portfolio too much and then paying them off because big portfolios, the more doors you have, the more problems you have. There's a lot of work that comes with that. Totally. And so I can get there more comfortably and enjoy my life a little more by having a smaller portfolio with paid off assets than having a larger portfolio with more leverage. Okay. This just made me think. Hot take question for you.

Can you be financially free? truly financially free, whatever that means to you, if you have debt on your properties. No, you can't. Okay, you have to own them outright. I kind of like, I kind of like that take. I've never really thought of it before, but like I kind of feel like if you, you're sort of right, you still have, there's like a certain amount of risk in that that limits your quote unquote freedom, right, if you have debt.

And you don't truly own the asset until it's paid off, right? Someone can come and take that from you and change your financial freedom, situation, right? Like if something happens and you can't make the payments, you can lose that asset. And then your lifestyle's different. Also, the larger the portfolio, the better you have to be at managing your managers or managing those properties yourself. And that's a job. That's not freedom. That's work. Yeah. And I'm not saying that I'm getting rid of that work, but I'll have a whole lot less of it with less doors that are paid off than with hundreds and hundreds of doors that are leveraged. Yeah, that's a good point.

It's like financial freedom, right? You need to get your, you should have this cash flow number, right? Like there's a certain number that you need. But like there's also an amount of risk that you probably want to get to, an appropriate amount of risk and an amount of time that you want to be able to put into that. Because despite real estate being more passive than a W-2 job, it is not entirely passive. And so it sounds like for you, Henry, it's kind of like a, you need three different

variables that you're trying to work on. The total amount of cash you're bringing in, the amount of risk you're taking and the time that you're putting into it. Yeah. And we're talking about financial freedom here, but there's another element to this that we're not touching on that's also important to me. And it's not just the financial freedom that comes with owning the properties and getting the cash flow outright, but it's also the legacy of being able to pass on those paid off cash flowing assets. It's the wealth that I want to pass on to my children. And the more leverage I take on, that's more leverage I would pass on to them. But if I get these things paid off, like people use the term

generational wealth all the time, but I don't know that they actually think about what that means. If you want that wealth to transcend you, you've got to get those assets to a place where you own them, you control them, your trust or your family owns and controls them and not a bank or some other financial institution, right? And so that they're actually producing meaningful income that you pass on to future generations of your family. So it's more than just financial freedom for me, but it's also financial freedom for the people who are going to be around after me. And that's going to require me to get those assets paid off. I love that. This is a great take. I love it. Financial freedom. The three variables is really cool idea. It's not just money. It's

also these other things that really matter here. But I need to circle back to something you said earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Has your financial goal really not changed? Like, is that 10 grand a month you were trying to replace still what you're, like, you're comfortable with? Or has your lifestyle changed and had gone up? When I said the financial goal hasn't changed, I just meant like, I haven't sat down and figured out what the new number is.

Okay. What I essentially planned on doing after I figured out that the true wealth is in getting these things paid off was my original plan was like, how many doors still? I need to get to for me to be able to sell off a portion of my portfolio to pay off the majority of the rest, right? And so that's kind of how I started looking at this problem. So in other words, if I had 100 doors, could I sell 50 and pay off the other 50, right? Yeah. Because 50 unlevered is going to pay me well more than 100 levered. And so what I actually started to look at was like, okay, in my portfolio, which assets are producing the way I thought they should or better, which assets are underperforming.

And then I can look at the assets that are underperforming and I can say, okay, does it make more sense for me to sell this asset, take that equity and pay off another asset? Or is this an underperforming asset that's in such a good area that it makes more sense for me to pour capital into that asset? Right. To get it to perform better because the location is so good, right? So it's, it's, my goal became more of an analysis of like, okay, let's get strategic with what you do have. and then make decisions on what you should sell to pay off the ones you love or the ones that are in the best areas or the ones that you should not sell, but maybe need a capital infusion or maybe some sort of exit strategy pivot. Right. So that it does produce because of the location or because of some other quality of that property that would say I shouldn't sell this property.

And so I've just gotten a lot more strategic. That just makes so much sense. I hate the idea. I always say this. but I hate the idea of people being like, I'm going to buy real estate and never sell. Like, that just doesn't make sense. Or, like, I'm going to do one renovation.

Like, maybe you need to do another. Like, if you think about the way other people invest, stock market, like, you don't not invest in a great company because you bought it at $20 a share. If you can buy it at $30 a share and you think it's going to go to $50, sell some other stock and buy more of that one. Like, it's the same concept in real estate, right? Like, if you have some assets that are fine,

but you can have one that you take from being a solid performer to a great performer, go do that. Like, that's the kind of strategic thing that you need to be doing. I wanted to ask you that question because, one, it makes me feel better about myself. Because I was concerned that you said, like, oh, I've just, like, had this enormous amount of success in real estate and my financial run rate and goal hasn't changed at all. And that would have made me feel terrible because mine definitely has. But I think like the reason I bring that up is because like that's kind of how it should be.

I know there are these like financial puritans out there who are like, you set a goal when you first start at real estate to get five grand a month in cash flow and like once you're done with that, you're retired. And like I just don't buy that at all. Right. Like I didn't get into real estate to live the exact same lifestyle that I had when I was 22 and scraping by. And like that's why I just think this concept of like financial independence as a destination

or a single point in time is just not real. What your goal is going to be changes all the time. At least mine does. And like I, you know, what I thought my goal was when I was 22 is completely different from what it is now. And it's not just from lifestyle creep. It's because I understand things like risk and time and inflation, which was just like never on my mind when I was 22.

I was like, all I'll ever need is $500 for rent. Like, that's what I was paying in rent. My expectations have changed quite a lot since then, you know? And so, like, that's where I just, I think this, like, concept that of, like, locking in that, like, you have to have this, like, date or this number in mind is honestly kind of limiting. I just think, like, that's never going to happen. You have to go with the flow a little bit. And I still keep a goal. Like, I have a five-year goal always.

Yeah. But, like, it changes. And it probably will change again. And it's not just, like, your lifestyle or what you. want changes, but like the situation can change. Like for example, you know, I did. I set up for a long time. Once I get to 100 doors, I look at selling half to pay off the other half. And when I sat down to actually do that exercise, I started looking at some of the assets. And I was like, well, I don't really want to sell that one because it's in such a great location and it's doing well. And I don't really

want to sell this one because it's in such a great location, but it's not doing well. And so I'd rather try to save that one and maybe sell some other ones. And so then it turned out like, no, I'm going to sell half to pay off the other half, but I am going to sell ones that it strategically can make sense to sell. I'm literally closing on one two day. I'm signing docs right after this to sell a six unit that I bought just a year and a half ago because it doesn't perform like I wanted it to perform. Yeah. And I can put that money to use somewhere else. In another scenario, like I have a legacy property. I call it a legacy property because I knew the day I bought it. I was like, I'm never going to sell this thing. Yeah, yeah. I can throw a rock and hit the university. It's

eight units. I bought it so cheap and it's worth so much more. Like this is the exact kind of property that I want to pass onto my children like the location is perfect. And then some fund came and offered me so much more money than it's actually worth. Exactly. Yeah. That I was like, take it. I'll find a different one. Yeah. I'll pass something else on to my kids. changed. Exactly. That's so true. Well, I think that's true on a property level, right? Like, which ones you want to hold and keep and change. But I just, for me, like my lifestyle-wise, it's also really changed in my life, too. Like, I, you know, I bought my first deal. I needed a couple hundred bucks. Then I was like, all right, I'm just going to keep acquiring units.

Like, that's my goal. Like, get more units. But then all of a sudden, I was like running out of cash to buy more units. And I figured maybe I should go back to great. graduate school and I should invest in myself so that I can get a higher salary so that I can go ahead and buy more units. And if I had just tried to buy more units or if I was living off my cash flow, I wouldn't have been able to do that. And instead, what I did was I was house hacking at the time, so my living expenses were relatively low. And for, I guess, a year and a half, two years, I took my cash flow that I would have reinvested into more property or I would have used for my lifestyle and I paid my tuition to grad school instead of taking on loans. And I know a lot of people

would say, oh, my God, you slowed down. You didn't buy doors for two years? No, I didn't. And when I, when I finished graduate school, my salary went up by like 80%. And you know how many more doors I could buy after that? A lot. That's when my real estate investing career, like, really started to take off. And I think that's the sort of like your goals, your circumstances, just change. And so like, through talking this out with you, what I'm realizing is like, flexibility is the goal. Like, it's not even necessarily a certain number that I'm looking for. I just want the ability to change my lifestyle as I see fit. And I guess in that way, I have become financially free.

Like, I can do that right now. That's 100%. Even though I'm not at some magical number that's going to like the number I want to die with because who knows what's going to happen. but I have reached a level of financial flexibility that I am very proud of and very comfortable with. We need to put that on a shirt. That's what it is. That's 100% what I was going to say to you too.

It's like what I really wanted as I dug down deep was to not be limited in my ability to do something that I want to do or something that I need to do for my family. And for the most part, I'm there. Yes, there's limits. Yes, I couldn't go buy a private jet and fly to Dubai and stay in a penthouse for six months a year. Like I'm not. Who needs that? But I don't want to do that, right? Like pretty much, if I want to go somewhere with a little bit of planning and time, I can travel to that place. If I need to, I was talking about this last night with my students as I was like, look, I just needed to get to the level of financial freedom where you can buy four tires at a time for you. your car. Like, like, that's, that's freedom. Oh my God. That's freedom. Yeah, you don't have to just ride on the two front ones are bald as hell. Most people can only replace the one tire that has a problem or the two tires. And then you got three different types of tires at three different levels of

tread. And like, you just do what you can to keep that car rolling. I was, I, if I have a problem with my car and I need four new tires. Dave, I can give four new freaking tires today without thinking about it. I love that. That's the level of financial freedom that real estate has brought me. We should start ranking. How many tires are you? You have one tire? Right. Yeah, you have one tire? You had two tires? You three tires? I love that. It's so funny. You got to get to four tires, guys. Four tire club. It's like, yeah, I can't buy a jet either. I don't care. It's not what I want. But, you know, Henry and I are going to Vegas a couple days early before BPCon. And are we going to go do some dumb shit and spend a little bit of money?

Probably. And we have the financial freedom to be able to do that. That's a guarantee. Not a probably. Yeah, that is an absolute guarantee. I just didn't want to say it in the podcast publicly. What dumb stuff we're going to do in Vegas. But it's going to be a great time.

We do have to take a quick break, but more with me and Henry right after this. Thinking about wholesaling or flipping your first property, but not sure where to start. The truth is, deals don't just fall into your lap anymore. You need to go out and create opportunities. That's where PropStream comes in. With PropStream, you get instant access to over 160 million properties nationwide. Use 20 pre-built lead lists such as pre-foreclosures, tax delinquencies, and vacant homes to find motivated sellers fast. And now PropStream has integrated batch leads and batch dialer to provide you with a complete all-in-one solution. That means you can not only find motivated sellers, but you can also reach out right away. Skip trace phone numbers free on select plans, then send postcards, emails, or call sellers

directly. Don't worry if you're new. PropStream also gives you AI-powered insights and comms that are over 99% accurate, so you know you're making smart offers. Plus, you'll have access to PropStream Academy to guide you step by step. Start your seven-day free trial and get 50 free leads at Propstream.com slash BP. That's P-R-O-P-S-T-R-E-A-M. dot com slash BP. Don't just dream about real estate. Make it happen with PropStream. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also

historically been sort of complex, time consuming, and expensive. But imagine if real estate investing was suddenly easy, all the benefits of owning real, tangible assets without the complexity and expense. That's the power of the Fundrise flagship fund. Now you can invest in a $1.1 billion dollar portfolio of real estate, starting with as little as $10. The portfolio features 4,700 a single-family rental homes spread across the booming sunbelt. They also have 3.3 million square feet of highly sought after industrial facilities, thanks to the e-commerce wave.

The flagship fund is one of the largest of its kind. It's well diversified, and it's managed by a team of professionals. And it's now available to you. Visit fundrise.com slash BP Market to explore the fund's full portfolio, check out historical returns, and start investing in just minutes. carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses of the Fundrise Flagship Fund. This and other information can be found in the fund's prospectus at fundrise.com slash flagship.

This is a paid advertisement. The rise of the tech savvy investors here. You don't need a huge team or tons of overhead to manage rental properties. Just the right tools. So I want to tell you about how I use rent ready to get ahead. For landlords who treat their time like capital and recognize the cost of sweat equity, this tool gives you everything you need to scale. Rent collection, tenant screening, maintenance accounting,

so that you're organized come tax season and you can run numbers in preparation for future deals and more, all in one platform via a mobile app or desktop. Modern landlords don't just own property. They optimize it. Rent Ready will keep you organized, running leaner, and ready to grow. Start with RentReady. Visit RentReady.com slash Bigger Pockets.

That's RentR-E-D-I-com slash Bigger Pockets and use code BP 2025 to get Rent Ready's six-month plan for a dollar. 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, sponsored job posts help 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 post. The best part, no monthly subscriptions or long-term contracts. You only pay for results. And speaking of results, in the minute, I've been talking to you, 23 people just got hired through Indeed worldwide. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of the show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash rookie. Just go to Indeed.com slash rookie right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed, on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash rookie. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. Managing properties can feel like a full-on circus. You're juggling vendors, tracking payments,

chasing approvals across multiple properties, and maybe a few HOAs, all while trying to keep tenants happy and owners confident. One delay can throw everything off and suddenly your day is all clean up, no progress. That's why hundreds of property managers rely on to streamline their finances. Bill for property management lets you add all your properties, assign permissions, pay bills, and receive payments quickly and efficiently without the usual bottlenecks.

It syncs with platforms like QuickBooks, Zero, NetSuite, and Sage intact, so your accounting stays aligned. You can automate bulk payments across properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like Same Day ACH, international wires, card, or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized.

Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets, and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. Welcome back to the bigger pockets podcast. I'm here with Henry Washington talking about how financial independence is more of a journey than a destination. Let's get back to it. But I think that I guess that's why I want to have this conversation with you is I feel like the you know what gets lost in some of the personal finance stuff is like yeah you should

compound you should reinvest absolutely but also enjoy your life like that's the whole point and if you just spend 20 years acquiring units and trying to get to some destination and don't enjoy the process along the way like what have you really gained at the end of the day like you just lost 20 years of your life i would rather make my financial journey go from 15 years to 25 years and enjoy every one of those 25 years instead of being miserable for 15 on the hopes that when I retire, I'm going to find something meaningful for myself that's going to supplant what I was doing before. Like, I don't know. Maybe it's just getting into a life philosophy lesson, but like I'd rather just find a life I enjoy. And yes, move closer to financial

independence over that time period, but not at the cost of like becoming like super monastic about it and like not, you know, enjoying anything and doing stuff. And we all make tradeoffs as well, because there's things that we all like enjoy or vices that we have that everybody's like, man, if I only made X amount of dollars, I could go do this thing. Right. And for people who've reached that level of financial flexibility, it's not that they can just go to the bank, take out the money and do the thing. It's more about like, I can think through what I have. And I can put together a plan to get there in a fairly reasonable time frame. Like if I wanted to go buy a Ferrari tomorrow, I probably couldn't go buy it tomorrow,

but I probably could look at my portfolio. If I really truly wanted something that was expensive, I could figure out a way to get there within the next six months. And that's financial flexibility. I'm not saying that that would be a smart financial decision. I'm just saying I could get there. I have the flexibility to get there. So this asset that you're selling right after this recording, are you just freeing up

capital to use when we're in Las Vegas. 100%. Blackjack money, baby. I'm just, I'm going to double that money in Vegas, boy. Yeah, that's the new strategy. I love it. My cash on cash return for playing blackjack with that money is so much higher than if I had just left it in this property.

Don't listen to me, folks. This is terrible financial advice. No, it is. This reminds me, there's a blogger and personal finance influencers. His name's Nick Majuli. We've had them on on the market twice. We actually just had them on. a couple days ago. He's awesome. He has these like levels of wealth and financial freedom that I

really like. He just evolved it. But like his old strategies levels of wealth was like level one is like I'm not stressed out about debt, which is a really important level to get to. Like if you don't have credit card debt and student loan debt, like that's amazing. That's a really important financial milestone. Level two. And I love that this is not like numbers or finance basis. I don't care what stuff costs in restaurant. And to me, like, I remember almost like vividly, like the time in my life where this became true. Whereas, like, I wasn't like going out on a date with my wife and like ordering the cheapest thing. And I could like actually go by not the cheapest bottle of wine, but the second cheapest bottle of wine.

Like I could accelerate my life a little bit. And like to me, like that's those are the moments I remember, not when my bank account or net worth hit some number. It was like, oh, I actually could go out to a restaurant, something I enjoy doing. and not care about it. And then level three is I don't care what a vacation cost. And that has been a more recent financial milestone for me. But that's what I remember. Again, not like how much cash will I have every month, but like I can go do this thing that I really love and is something that's important to me in my life. And I don't really have to worry about it. Like if I go on a vacation and they nickel and dye me in the stupid valet charges you 40 bucks when you show up that you weren't planning on it,

Like, you can survive that. And, like, you can still have a great time and enjoy yourself. And that's how I've, like, over time started to just think about my portfolio. Like, what does this enable for me? Not the number, not any destination, but, like, how does this make my life better on a daily basis? Even if I'm not using my cash flow from real estate, which is true, I'm not using my cash flow for real estate. But knowing that I have these valuable assets allows me to have more flexibility and live a little bit more. of, I guess I would say a little bit more of a carefree life.

100%. Look, I told you, level one financial flexibility for me was four tires at a time. Level two financial flexibility for me is not having to wait in lines. I pay people to not have to wait in any lines for anything. I hate lines. If you ever want to go somewhere that's busy, go with Henry, because he will pay someone to skip any line. And I love it.

It's my favorite thing about hanging out with you. I hate lines. Like you're going to a restaurant. There's a long line. Henry's going to solve that problem. And I don't even have to do anything. I just have to be near you and you solve that problem. You absolutely right, my friend.

So what's three? What's level three for you? Oh, that's a good one. I think I didn't think about that one yet. Maybe I don't know what that one is yet. Well, we want to know. It's not buying a jet. It's not jet setting on your private jet.

But it's somewhere between buying four tires at a time and a private jet. That's your level four. That's your level three financial freedom. That's a fair gas, yes. Well, this has been a fun conversation. I feel like I've had an epiphany during this conversation about what financial independence actually means. We would love to know what it means to you. So if you're watching this on YouTube or listening on Spotify, where you can now leave comments on the episode,

please let us know what your level one, your level two, and your level three financial freedom are. That will be a lot of fun conversation to have. And Henry, thank you so much for being here, man. Hey, thank you for having me, man. This was a great conversation. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Bigger Pocket. podcast. I'm Dave Meyer. We'll see you next time. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify,

or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calicoe content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.w.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose. And remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Bigger

Pockets LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.