My apologies, for what follows is a very long response, because after reading the last posts from others it's clear that answering individual questions isn't helping. I apologize for length... but not sure how else to respond or offer any more than what I have already tried to do over the last few days. I also apologize for any typos or grammar issues, though I seem to be the only one held accountable to those and/or writing style.
I will not apologize for trying to share our story or occasionally being on the defensive here. Ive tried hard to continually take the high road, but it's clear that it wouldn't matter anyway.
So... have at it, think what you will, say and do what you will. Your mind's were made up about me/us before you finished reading the first post and there's clearly very little I can do to change them (which is A.OK by me).
Seriously though… this thing is really heating you up, eh? I haven’t even logged back in for almost 24hours, and you’re still ranting (I now count no less than 12 more posts in my absence, almost all intended as nothing more than personal attacks about me since I last tried to respond to your questions)!!
I’m responding here despite some sound advice from another poster to leave this thread…
but I want to make it VERY clear that i’m trying to give more details on our story for the benefit of those who wrote me on the side with interest (and some who have posted in this thread who seem genuinely interested) - not for you and a couple others who seem to only be looking to make yourselves feel better by ripping the new guy to the party because he wasn’t made aware the dress code required a tux.
Ive never suggesting that any of this is easy… this **** is as hard as it gets! In case I haven’t repeated it enough times in this thread already - I’m not even suggesting that everyone quit their job and live in a van… that’s not much easier, but for us was a means to an end. Im simply trying to use our story to show that you don’t have to have all the pieces lined up and tidy before you go…
Especially those who (like we were) are not happily going to work for someone else every day, it is actually possible to leave the workplace early and figure some details out after you go with hard work and creativity.
I wish someone would have been there to tell me… so I’m putting it out there in hopes it helps someone else who needs it. Now or later.
Of course I left out some ‘holes” in the story…we’re talking about 7 years of ours lives and it’s a long, long story. If you look back, you’ll see when someone asked how we fund ourselves I told them.
Passive income from real estate and other projects/side hustles.
Mostly, it was hard work and some creativity - The only thing different between us and most of you is that we chose to do some of the hard work before leaving the jobs and some of it after - once we realized we had no desire to go back. We felt “broken” because we had tasted the other side - and liked the taste of freedom very much.
SO, If you have more questions, ask them… but please try to do so nicely and without labels and name calling. Okay?
Our passive income is mostly single families and duplexes in Portland.
Mostly things we bought when we had an income and while we took advantage of the banks’ willingness to give away money with very little down before the banking crisis, we luckily were too risk adverse (at the time) to take any bad loans, balloon payments or hard money.
They have been slowly doing what real estate does… growing slightly year by year while someone else is kind enough to pay off our mortgages and give us some writeoffs.
The way I always looked at it, you should invest in something you know and can impact… if a stock I buy starts to sink I cant go sit at the boardroom, but I can certainly add another bath to house. I also happen to love the fact that I can invest a small percentage while the bank and my tenants invest the rest for me as long as im willing to wait.
Our side hustles started as passions projects helping others to try to accomplish some of the freedom that we had - working with neighbors to convert their garage into a rentable space, or better yet a space for them to downsize into as the kids flew the nest and rent out the main house (win-win for their personal freedom). At some point DW pointed out that if I’m willing to be up all night designing their spaces for free…maybe we accept some of their offer to give us a bit of money in return. Helps them and helps us. Seemed fair.
I’d hardly call it employment… but the income from time to time as we decide to take an exciting project on certainly doesn’t hurt… and besides, I enjoy the projects and finally have a chance to use my design skills/training doing one of my biggest passions while helping others in the process. And I get to check off other goals that I had given up on, like getting a design project built, getting published, etc.
Could side hustle1 be an actual design firm with several employees and making much a lot of money? Oh yes! but that’s not of interest to us because we’d be - WORKING.
Yes, that first project came out of pure NEED and we spent the rest of our money (and lots of blood, sweat and tears) to make it a reality. But “dire need” status changed quickly because that project not only created passive income for us and allowed us to continue traveling full time, but also created the side hustle mentioned above.
Okay fine, I know, I know…you just have to have all the details…
Again, a LOT can happen in 6 years if you work at it.
We managed the properties when we were in portland and working. We handed them over to a manager (also a friend who was trying to grow their business) when we left to travel and it was probably the smartest move we ever made. Happy to elaborate if anyone’s interested.
Yes, we also took the money out of DW’s 401k to fund another renovation (that also split a single family into 2 units). The extra passive income now and the added value to the property long term made it worth us taking the hit. (yes, in our opinion - the only one that matters to our plan/decisions. Its okay if you don’t approve, you don’t have to tell me…).
We also worked on a couple other projects in between travel to add value to properties. No, not really work, just projects we did in between friend/family outings and other adventures as we had the time and money needed.
Last year we also sold a property that was out of state that had turned out to be a bad investment for us, but that transaction still gave us cash in hand to do an exchange for new properties closer to home.
Somewhere along the lines (last year) we started a second side hustle related to our van. Not because we planned to, but because dear friends approached us looking for a way out of their jobs and all it required (in theory) was us teaching them what we knew and then to continue doing what we were already doing - marketing our build by traveling and answering questions about our van and our lifestyle when people asked. We wanted to help them, and in theory it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.
Sadly, those business partners/business plans didn’t pan out and the business almost went down in flames because they backed out at the worst possible time (despite having immense good press and people begging to place orders), but we weren’t willing to let something that had our name/brand on it fail and had no interest in calling people to tell them we couldn’t come through with our promises. So… we went home and spent a few months working our asses off again to meet commitments that had already been made. Obviously, that then came with some money as projects were delivered (even after buying out our friends/partners at a much better rate than we probably should have under the circumstances).
In terms of the boat purchase, we also had other real estate projects/improvements planned for last year and had refinanced a property trying to make sure those plans are/were possible. After the work on side hustle2 mentioned above we were burnt out and had no interest in the work those projects would require… so between the money we’d been saving over a few years of collecting passive income with almost zero expenses + the money made from sales at side hustle2 + the money we already had in hand from the refi (oh, + money from selling our van/rolling home)… we decided to chase a lifelong dream and moved onto a boat.
Best financial decision ever? I’m certain not - but as you should be figuring out by now we don’t make our decisions based on money, we make them based on happiness, and making a lifelong dream happen while you’re young enough to truly enjoy it seems to fit that bill.
You’ll see earlier in the post that we don’t think of the boat as an investment (and never will), but we literally sat down and had a conversation that sounded roughly like
“Honey, if we knew going in that we were going to lose X thousand dollars a year (X being a very large number here) to live on a boat in the Caribbean living out our dream, would you do it?? Yes, absolutely! And so we went… and here we are.
That’s it (still in somewhat of a nutshell and im sure with some details left out, and im sure some questions unanswered, but not from my lack of trying or typing over the last two days).
So… sorry to let you down, but there’s no magic ***** pocus, no trust fund account, no you tube revenue (sounds great actually, but we both HATE being in front of the camera) and no blog earnings (also sounds great, but i’ve turned down paid ads and posts since day one because it simply doesn’t seem ethical to me). IF it matters, we’ve also been offered TV shows and other opportunities that some people might strive for. They aren’t for us and we turn them all down… because while it might have been an easy way out and good money ands/or fame, that’s not what were after (and theres that camera thing again). Happiness. Remember…thats the goal. Thats the only goal.
Upfront??
If the issue is that you didn’t understand I was willing to take on projects or rip out walls to make our properties more valuable, or that I was willing to add risk by buying more properties along the way, or willing to form an LLC when it was made clear that others wanted to pay me for work I was already doing for free… that’s clearly not something I withheld.
THAT, actually IS the exact thing im referring to when I continue to say it is possible to leave the workplace early and creatively figure some of the details out after leaving the job. If you somehow thought I was suggesting that everyone quit, move into a van and pick four leaf clovers hoping for their previous investments to double on their own in 7yrs with no work involved… than my writing style really is as bad as both you and Amethyst suggested a few posts ago!
To be clear, because apparently this story is only valid if there’s ample risk involved, or some high wire act is performed…
When we left to go travel every single one of our properties was still in the negative. We had to add funds to the rent check every month to make each and every mortgage payment. When we decided on a number needed to travel it included to amount we knew we had to supplant our mortgage payments with.
It’s because of the projects we’ve done since that these properties now pay us. It’s still not a huge amount of passive income, but that’s why we live “somewhat” frugally… if you can call sailing the caribbean on a catamaran frugal.
If the question is about our “side gigs” and how much time I spend on them vs how much money I make on them… all you had to do was ask (nicely)…
It is also still a moving target, which is part of why I haven’t described it further already… and maybe because in a financial forum there a bit of questionable judgement in terms of turning down money and I think we all know i’m already on the defensive in this thread… but since im outlining all the details, here goes.
I haven’t taken a paid project from side hustle1 for over almost 2 years (and as stated earlier, had no plan to start a business or make money). As you saw above we were beyond busy… and we’ve been waiting on the right project and client to make it attractive/worth our time. I still spend hours every week responding to emails and taking phone calls from those who are looking for help… but that’s what we jokingly call my “pro bono” work…trying to help others better their lives even though I know I wont take them on as a client (or make any money off them). Maybe not what you’d advise financially, but I enjoy the conversations and get to spend my time how I want, especially now that I have plenty of it.
The second side hustle remains to be seen and is in constant flux… when we decided to leave I asked friends if they would be interested in running the company so that they could leave the job they hate (I know this is a touchy point for you and a few others… so to be clear - this is not me jumping to an assumption that “all people hate their jobs” this is me talking about those i’m closest to who do happen to hate their jobs but feel stuck because they have small children and/or other obstacles that made them afraid to take a leap. Their words, not mine).
In our minds we could offer them the intellectual property, whatever stock we had already built, and simply turn the backlog of requests over to them as an immediate income stream to give them the confidence to leave the 9-5 (or make it a side hustle if they preferred)… and we didn’t have to see a business we were passionate about shut its doors just because we were walking away from it.
Yes, we were essentially giving a way a business that probably could have been sold at that point for good money… but we don’t make decisions that way, remember?
We offered it to several friends, but they weren’t in a place to jump. Finally as we were leaving town someone was interested, but they have very little money and/or time to put towards it, so we scaled plans way back to match their available effort, and I offered to continue taking calls/making sales and doing design work for them without taking money. Why??… Because I love doing it and I love them.
Do I also hope the business continues to grow without me there so that it might eventually become another stream of passive income for us - of course I do… but not enough that I was willing to stay around for it, or willing to work a lot of hours from the road to make it happen now. But if I can help free friends from their hectic lives so they have more time to travel and spend with us… that’s a no brainer.
In terms of our rentals… are you really trying to accuse me of not being FIRE because I deposit a check from properties purchased??
Isn’t that like saying someone isn’t FIRE for taking a dispersement for their 401k…
Balance… to us it’s all about balance.
Happiness first, money after. And so far that mantra has been treating us okay.
Ill check back in after some time away… based on the last 24 hours it will be just as condescending and malicious as ive come to expect… but hopefully these details do actually help someone out there… and if that person is reading this please feel free to reach out. We are actually trying to help and happy to do so.
To everyone else, I hope all your various paths lead to happiness, whatever that is for you.
I will not apologize for trying to share our story or occasionally being on the defensive here. Ive tried hard to continually take the high road, but it's clear that it wouldn't matter anyway.
So... have at it, think what you will, say and do what you will. Your mind's were made up about me/us before you finished reading the first post and there's clearly very little I can do to change them (which is A.OK by me).
Isn’t that the point? How else would I answer your many, many questions and concerns about my life?
Seriously though… this thing is really heating you up, eh? I haven’t even logged back in for almost 24hours, and you’re still ranting (I now count no less than 12 more posts in my absence, almost all intended as nothing more than personal attacks about me since I last tried to respond to your questions)!!
I’m responding here despite some sound advice from another poster to leave this thread…
but I want to make it VERY clear that i’m trying to give more details on our story for the benefit of those who wrote me on the side with interest (and some who have posted in this thread who seem genuinely interested) - not for you and a couple others who seem to only be looking to make yourselves feel better by ripping the new guy to the party because he wasn’t made aware the dress code required a tux.
If that’s really what you read into my words in the original post I suggest you take a step back, because you were going to read that into any possible set of words written by me or anyone else.
Ive never suggesting that any of this is easy… this **** is as hard as it gets! In case I haven’t repeated it enough times in this thread already - I’m not even suggesting that everyone quit their job and live in a van… that’s not much easier, but for us was a means to an end. Im simply trying to use our story to show that you don’t have to have all the pieces lined up and tidy before you go…
Especially those who (like we were) are not happily going to work for someone else every day, it is actually possible to leave the workplace early and figure some details out after you go with hard work and creativity.
I wish someone would have been there to tell me… so I’m putting it out there in hopes it helps someone else who needs it. Now or later.
Of course I left out some ‘holes” in the story…we’re talking about 7 years of ours lives and it’s a long, long story. If you look back, you’ll see when someone asked how we fund ourselves I told them.
Passive income from real estate and other projects/side hustles.
Mostly, it was hard work and some creativity - The only thing different between us and most of you is that we chose to do some of the hard work before leaving the jobs and some of it after - once we realized we had no desire to go back. We felt “broken” because we had tasted the other side - and liked the taste of freedom very much.
SO, If you have more questions, ask them… but please try to do so nicely and without labels and name calling. Okay?
Our passive income is mostly single families and duplexes in Portland.
Mostly things we bought when we had an income and while we took advantage of the banks’ willingness to give away money with very little down before the banking crisis, we luckily were too risk adverse (at the time) to take any bad loans, balloon payments or hard money.
They have been slowly doing what real estate does… growing slightly year by year while someone else is kind enough to pay off our mortgages and give us some writeoffs.
The way I always looked at it, you should invest in something you know and can impact… if a stock I buy starts to sink I cant go sit at the boardroom, but I can certainly add another bath to house. I also happen to love the fact that I can invest a small percentage while the bank and my tenants invest the rest for me as long as im willing to wait.
Our side hustles started as passions projects helping others to try to accomplish some of the freedom that we had - working with neighbors to convert their garage into a rentable space, or better yet a space for them to downsize into as the kids flew the nest and rent out the main house (win-win for their personal freedom). At some point DW pointed out that if I’m willing to be up all night designing their spaces for free…maybe we accept some of their offer to give us a bit of money in return. Helps them and helps us. Seemed fair.
I’d hardly call it employment… but the income from time to time as we decide to take an exciting project on certainly doesn’t hurt… and besides, I enjoy the projects and finally have a chance to use my design skills/training doing one of my biggest passions while helping others in the process. And I get to check off other goals that I had given up on, like getting a design project built, getting published, etc.
Could side hustle1 be an actual design firm with several employees and making much a lot of money? Oh yes! but that’s not of interest to us because we’d be - WORKING.
Correct. As I have described to you in this thread already, that is where we were 7 years ago. This is now. Isn’t the whole point of this RE thing to change your financial status over time?? That period of dire need was after two years of living off our limited travel savings and returning to portland to realize we had to pay rent or mortgage because someone else was living on our house (and at the time, we didn’t even have our van back from central america yet). And before you ask “didn’t you know that?” Yes, we understand how rent works… but we actually weren’t planning to stay in portland, we simply came back because we missed our friends/family and wanted to soak them up for a bit before continuing our travels. Plans change and so we adapt… that’s part of the whole point of what this thread was intended to be.
Yes, that first project came out of pure NEED and we spent the rest of our money (and lots of blood, sweat and tears) to make it a reality. But “dire need” status changed quickly because that project not only created passive income for us and allowed us to continue traveling full time, but also created the side hustle mentioned above.
Yes! Any other questions? =)
Okay fine, I know, I know…you just have to have all the details…
Again, a LOT can happen in 6 years if you work at it.
We managed the properties when we were in portland and working. We handed them over to a manager (also a friend who was trying to grow their business) when we left to travel and it was probably the smartest move we ever made. Happy to elaborate if anyone’s interested.
Yes, we also took the money out of DW’s 401k to fund another renovation (that also split a single family into 2 units). The extra passive income now and the added value to the property long term made it worth us taking the hit. (yes, in our opinion - the only one that matters to our plan/decisions. Its okay if you don’t approve, you don’t have to tell me…).
We also worked on a couple other projects in between travel to add value to properties. No, not really work, just projects we did in between friend/family outings and other adventures as we had the time and money needed.
Last year we also sold a property that was out of state that had turned out to be a bad investment for us, but that transaction still gave us cash in hand to do an exchange for new properties closer to home.
Somewhere along the lines (last year) we started a second side hustle related to our van. Not because we planned to, but because dear friends approached us looking for a way out of their jobs and all it required (in theory) was us teaching them what we knew and then to continue doing what we were already doing - marketing our build by traveling and answering questions about our van and our lifestyle when people asked. We wanted to help them, and in theory it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.
Sadly, those business partners/business plans didn’t pan out and the business almost went down in flames because they backed out at the worst possible time (despite having immense good press and people begging to place orders), but we weren’t willing to let something that had our name/brand on it fail and had no interest in calling people to tell them we couldn’t come through with our promises. So… we went home and spent a few months working our asses off again to meet commitments that had already been made. Obviously, that then came with some money as projects were delivered (even after buying out our friends/partners at a much better rate than we probably should have under the circumstances).
In terms of the boat purchase, we also had other real estate projects/improvements planned for last year and had refinanced a property trying to make sure those plans are/were possible. After the work on side hustle2 mentioned above we were burnt out and had no interest in the work those projects would require… so between the money we’d been saving over a few years of collecting passive income with almost zero expenses + the money made from sales at side hustle2 + the money we already had in hand from the refi (oh, + money from selling our van/rolling home)… we decided to chase a lifelong dream and moved onto a boat.
Best financial decision ever? I’m certain not - but as you should be figuring out by now we don’t make our decisions based on money, we make them based on happiness, and making a lifelong dream happen while you’re young enough to truly enjoy it seems to fit that bill.
You’ll see earlier in the post that we don’t think of the boat as an investment (and never will), but we literally sat down and had a conversation that sounded roughly like
“Honey, if we knew going in that we were going to lose X thousand dollars a year (X being a very large number here) to live on a boat in the Caribbean living out our dream, would you do it?? Yes, absolutely! And so we went… and here we are.
That’s it (still in somewhat of a nutshell and im sure with some details left out, and im sure some questions unanswered, but not from my lack of trying or typing over the last two days).
So… sorry to let you down, but there’s no magic ***** pocus, no trust fund account, no you tube revenue (sounds great actually, but we both HATE being in front of the camera) and no blog earnings (also sounds great, but i’ve turned down paid ads and posts since day one because it simply doesn’t seem ethical to me). IF it matters, we’ve also been offered TV shows and other opportunities that some people might strive for. They aren’t for us and we turn them all down… because while it might have been an easy way out and good money ands/or fame, that’s not what were after (and theres that camera thing again). Happiness. Remember…thats the goal. Thats the only goal.
Upfront??
If the issue is that you didn’t understand I was willing to take on projects or rip out walls to make our properties more valuable, or that I was willing to add risk by buying more properties along the way, or willing to form an LLC when it was made clear that others wanted to pay me for work I was already doing for free… that’s clearly not something I withheld.
THAT, actually IS the exact thing im referring to when I continue to say it is possible to leave the workplace early and creatively figure some of the details out after leaving the job. If you somehow thought I was suggesting that everyone quit, move into a van and pick four leaf clovers hoping for their previous investments to double on their own in 7yrs with no work involved… than my writing style really is as bad as both you and Amethyst suggested a few posts ago!
To be clear, because apparently this story is only valid if there’s ample risk involved, or some high wire act is performed…
When we left to go travel every single one of our properties was still in the negative. We had to add funds to the rent check every month to make each and every mortgage payment. When we decided on a number needed to travel it included to amount we knew we had to supplant our mortgage payments with.
It’s because of the projects we’ve done since that these properties now pay us. It’s still not a huge amount of passive income, but that’s why we live “somewhat” frugally… if you can call sailing the caribbean on a catamaran frugal.
If the question is about our “side gigs” and how much time I spend on them vs how much money I make on them… all you had to do was ask (nicely)…
It is also still a moving target, which is part of why I haven’t described it further already… and maybe because in a financial forum there a bit of questionable judgement in terms of turning down money and I think we all know i’m already on the defensive in this thread… but since im outlining all the details, here goes.
I haven’t taken a paid project from side hustle1 for over almost 2 years (and as stated earlier, had no plan to start a business or make money). As you saw above we were beyond busy… and we’ve been waiting on the right project and client to make it attractive/worth our time. I still spend hours every week responding to emails and taking phone calls from those who are looking for help… but that’s what we jokingly call my “pro bono” work…trying to help others better their lives even though I know I wont take them on as a client (or make any money off them). Maybe not what you’d advise financially, but I enjoy the conversations and get to spend my time how I want, especially now that I have plenty of it.
The second side hustle remains to be seen and is in constant flux… when we decided to leave I asked friends if they would be interested in running the company so that they could leave the job they hate (I know this is a touchy point for you and a few others… so to be clear - this is not me jumping to an assumption that “all people hate their jobs” this is me talking about those i’m closest to who do happen to hate their jobs but feel stuck because they have small children and/or other obstacles that made them afraid to take a leap. Their words, not mine).
In our minds we could offer them the intellectual property, whatever stock we had already built, and simply turn the backlog of requests over to them as an immediate income stream to give them the confidence to leave the 9-5 (or make it a side hustle if they preferred)… and we didn’t have to see a business we were passionate about shut its doors just because we were walking away from it.
Yes, we were essentially giving a way a business that probably could have been sold at that point for good money… but we don’t make decisions that way, remember?
We offered it to several friends, but they weren’t in a place to jump. Finally as we were leaving town someone was interested, but they have very little money and/or time to put towards it, so we scaled plans way back to match their available effort, and I offered to continue taking calls/making sales and doing design work for them without taking money. Why??… Because I love doing it and I love them.
Do I also hope the business continues to grow without me there so that it might eventually become another stream of passive income for us - of course I do… but not enough that I was willing to stay around for it, or willing to work a lot of hours from the road to make it happen now. But if I can help free friends from their hectic lives so they have more time to travel and spend with us… that’s a no brainer.
In terms of our rentals… are you really trying to accuse me of not being FIRE because I deposit a check from properties purchased??
Isn’t that like saying someone isn’t FIRE for taking a dispersement for their 401k…
Balance… to us it’s all about balance.
Happiness first, money after. And so far that mantra has been treating us okay.
Ill check back in after some time away… based on the last 24 hours it will be just as condescending and malicious as ive come to expect… but hopefully these details do actually help someone out there… and if that person is reading this please feel free to reach out. We are actually trying to help and happy to do so.
To everyone else, I hope all your various paths lead to happiness, whatever that is for you.
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