Out Of The Rat Race? What Are You Doing Now?
I've recently left the rat race (by Robert Kiosaki's definition) so our passive income far exceeds our expenses. My wife and I are both 28, unemployed, and have few commitments (no kids or pets). We're still doing deals and drawing up companies to start and things like that. Work has become optional and flexible.
I'm interested in finding out who else has made it to this point in the game and what you're plans are now. I'm especially interested in meeting other in my area (Utah, ....so we can all go waterskiing on a wednesday afternoon together, for example). Currently too many of my friends are too busy (M-F 8am to 5pm) to hang out with us.
As for my Wife and I....we plan on playing, traveling, spending more time with family, taking up new hobbies, etc. Besides.....I've found that It's becoming harder and harder to relate to people who haven't yet seen the light and plan on working for someone for the next 30 years.
I'm looking forward to hearing your comments.
(BTW.....I'd just like to say thanks to Joel, TCI, and everyone on here who's been a friend and a consultant as we've gone down this road. To all the skeptics......YES...it is possible to retire young!)
Dave.... Your an amazing man, you are one of the few investors that actually do what you say your going to do. Congrats. I hope I can be not to far behind ya. But look at me saying hope. How pathetic. lol Whats slowing me down from grabbing my second property is my 7- 5 job... I havent been to TCI in awhile and just happened upon your topic. This is a huge motivation for me, just what we needed. Thanks again Dave (hibby) email if you have time, wait, you have all the time in the world now. hahaha, j/k But I would love to hear what has happened in your life after selling your 24 unit in SLC. Laters...
December 31, 2004: The day I left the rat race. It still has to sink in. I read that book 4 years ago, played the game 3 years ago, started buying properties 1 year ago, and I am out of the rat race. Am I rich? Not yet, but tomorrow I don't have to do a thing if I don't want too.
hibby76, can you give us more info on your success story?
We aren't out of the rat race yet, but we are getting closer. Moving is a delay - but we both know that where we are moving to is going to help us out a lot. We recently realized that sometimes it is better to sell a property, even if it's making some money, if the sale can net you four or five new rentals.
Please do fill us all in on how you left the rat race.
My husband is a teacher, which makes disposable income for investing something that has to be done a little creatively.
I'm self-employed but can do what I enjoy at home, (no boss, no fixed hours, work at midnight or anytime I want during the day) and still be right here to run off and look at a property, or fix a rental. It works.
We'll get to the "retired" part in (we hope), five years or less.
Glad to know you did it at 28. I'm 28 now, my husband is 31. We'll meet you for waterskiing in Utah in a few years.
(oh - and YES, we do know what you mean by not being able to relate as well to people who plan on working for somebody else for the next 30 years. I have one friend who thinks we're crazy!)
I'm going to go very short on details, but here it is in a Nutshell.
Nov. 2002 - Decided Real Estate Investing was for me
Jan 2003 - Quit my job (my wife was still employed)
March 2003 - Found a distressed 24 unit apartment building with motivated sellers (for sale at about $.73 on the dollar)
July 2003 - Purchased the property with "no money down"
Note: I borrowed $100K from private lenders (mostly friends and family) and the seller carried the remaining portion. I refinanced and cashed them out (with interest) about 7 months later).
I'll also note that I've grown up around apartments. (My mom has 40 units, brother has 12, and various other family members have another 10 or so)
July 2004 - Recieved an offer out of the blue for the property (which now looked and was performing better)
Oct. 2004 - Propery Closed
Dec. 2004 - 1031 exchange period expired
Dec. 2004 - Got into some investing in the stock market that now gives us a healthy passive income.
Jan. 2005 - My wife quit her job.
My next goal is to grow that money aggressivly while I continue to pick up RE and gradually move my money from the market to RE.
I'll also note that we were able to live just fine on my wife's income after I quit. I'm not recommending this plan to everyone, as circumstances are different, however it worked well for us.
I'll also note that I was "unemployed" for about 2 years. This was not a very popular status in the minds of some friends and family and we took a certain amount of heat. I'll also note that we recieve NO heat now!
It is possible. I found some goals that I'd written down in about Nov. 2002 when I started down this road. In about 2 years I reached the 10 year goals that I'd made for myself.
It is possible, it is worth it, it is nice when you get there.
Good for you hibby!
Just make sure you keep yourself busy, motivated and healthy. You now you will have to deal with biggest enemy of all, TIME.
I recently had a friend of mine make a windfall in RE and he then quit his job. First of all, he didn't have any friends to hang out with because all of them were working. I saw a gradual degradation in his quality of life, eg: laziness, motivation. He then made some wrong moves by aggresively investing his money. He then got married and after some time he had an accident and broke his leg. Bottomline, his networth has decreased considerably.
I don't think this will happen to you as you seem to have a plan for the future. But I would still advice you not to sit back and retire young, but rather work harder with all the time you have now, for a bigger goal, which some of us may never reach.
Congrats again!
I hear so many people talking about someday, in 10 years, so little time and little money. I have said many of the same things in the past doing RE. I felt like I was not seeing progress quick enough. Then one day my wife and I got a phone call from one of our close friends and they wanted us to pray for this girl who had a very serious illness and was unable to work. We had a property that we had fixed up and had on the market. I told my wife that as soon as that property sold we would help that girl. In no time after that the property sold for asking price and we blessed that family. Since then I have come to the conclusion that you have to give back. Now, my wife and I give 15% of the profit away to people in need and minisrty. Also, since that time we have not had one deal go bad, not one property be on the market more than 30 days, life is good!!
My wife now sells RE when she wants and I invest and flip. It took us about 2 years to get out of the rat race but I can draw a line in the sand so to speak when things turned around for us. That was when we were willing to give back.
That is wonderful to hear and quite encouraging. I am 28 and literally just getting into REI. I want to make sure I do things right so I have been searching many different things on the internet. That is how I found this forum. Do any of you have suggestions for steps I might take or training I should receive?
Quote: My wife and I are both 28, unemployed,
hibby76 (Dave).
I have been out of the rate race since Aug 14, 1998. Rather than saying I am unemployed, I say I am "self-unemployed". On my tax return, however, I list my occupation as "retired".
Achieving financial independence is an awesome accomplishment! Congratulations!
I must say that if money were no object I wouldn’t have the slightest problem filling up my weekly schedule! I’d do all kinds of stuff like take up martial arts, get a personal trainer, travel, scuba dive, join a network marketing company lol etc!
I’m striving for the best of both worlds. I want the large lump sums and the monthly income. I’m not renting jack out though just owner financing. They say you know you have strong business when you can walk away for a year and come back to more money in the bank than you had before you left.
hibby76,
Your timeline is confusing. I understand that you bought a multi-unit and turned it around. Now, here is the part that needs a little clarification.
Quote:July 2004 - Received an offer out of the blue for the property (which now looked and was performing better)
Oct. 2004 - Property Closed
Dec. 2004 - 1031 exchange period expired If you went to settlement on Oct, your 45 day identification period might have expired in Dec depending upon the actual date of your closing, but the 180 day exchange period still had some time to run.
Could you clarify the events for me?
From your story, it also appears that you are not invested in real estate at the present time. Could you also tell us why you decided to stay out of the game?