tradinghow.com Open in urlscan Pro
2606:4700:3030::6815:23e7  Public Scan

Form analysis
6 forms found in the DOM

GET https://tradinghow.com/

<form action="https://tradinghow.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
  <input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
  <button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>

---

GET https://tradinghow.com/

<form action="https://tradinghow.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
  <input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
  <button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>

---

GET https://tradinghow.com/

<form action="https://tradinghow.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
  <input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
  <button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>

---

GET https://tradinghow.com/

<form action="https://tradinghow.com/" method="get" class="jeg_search_form" target="_top">
  <input name="s" class="jeg_search_input" placeholder="Search..." type="text" value="" autocomplete="off">
  <button aria-label="Search Button" type="submit" class="jeg_search_button btn"><i class="fa fa-search"></i></button>
</form>

---

POST #

<form action="#" data-type="login" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
  <h3>Welcome Back!</h3>
  <p>Login to your account below</p>
  <div class="form-message"></div>
  <p class="input_field">
    <input type="text" name="username" placeholder="Username" value="">
  </p>
  <p class="input_field">
    <input type="password" name="password" placeholder="Password" value="">
  </p>
  <p class="input_field remember_me">
    <input type="checkbox" id="remember_me" name="remember_me" value="true">
    <label for="remember_me">Remember Me</label>
  </p>
  <p class="submit">
    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="login_handler">
    <input type="hidden" name="jnews_nonce" value="a4faefcd8c">
    <input type="submit" name="jeg_login_button" class="button" value="Log In" data-process="Processing . . ." data-string="Log In">
  </p>
  <div class="bottom_links clearfix">
    <a href="#jeg_forgotform" class="jeg_popuplink forgot">Forgotten Password?</a>
  </div>
</form>

---

POST #

<form action="#" data-type="forgot" method="post" accept-charset="utf-8">
  <h3>Retrieve your password</h3>
  <p>Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.</p>
  <div class="form-message"></div>
  <p class="input_field">
    <input type="text" name="user_login" placeholder="Your email or username" value="">
  </p>
  <div class="g-recaptcha" data-sitekey=""></div>
  <p class="submit">
    <input type="hidden" name="action" value="forget_password_handler">
    <input type="hidden" name="jnews_nonce" value="a4faefcd8c">
    <input type="submit" name="jeg_login_button" class="button" value="Reset Password" data-process="Processing . . ." data-string="Reset Password">
  </p>
  <div class="bottom_links clearfix">
    <a href="#jeg_loginform" class="jeg_popuplink"><i class="fa fa-lock"></i> Log In</a>
  </div>
</form>

---

Text Content

No Result
View All Result

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

 * Login

 * Economy
 * Markets
 * Forex News
 * Investing
 * Stock Trading
 * Crypto


Subscribe
 * Economy
 * Markets
 * Forex News
 * Investing
 * Stock Trading
 * Crypto


No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result


Home Investing


WHAT WE’D DO DIFFERENTLY IF WE STARTED OVER TODAY

by Tradinghow
August 20, 2024
in Investing
A A
A A

Reset
0
152
SHARES
1.9k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter






2013 was a pivotal year for our hosts. Scott was fresh out of college and just
beginning his journey to financial independence, while Mindy and her husband
were well on their way to FIRE and had just launched their blog, 1,500 Days, to
document their progress. But if they were starting over today, would they change
anything?

Welcome back to the BiggerPockets Money podcast! In today’s episode, Scott and
Mindy are winding back the clock ten years and sharing what they would do
differently if they were beginning their FI journey in 2024. Spoiler alert: they
wouldn’t have changed very much regarding the fundamentals of frugality, saving
money, and investing. But, as you’re about to find out, they would make some
MAJOR tactical changes, and they even have a few regrets about not spending
money!

Whether you’re brand new to FIRE or are already on track for financial freedom,
you don’t want to miss this episode! You’ll learn about the real estate
investing strategy Scott would prioritize in 2024, the stock investments that
helped Mindy overshoot her FI number, and the lifestyle changes our hosts wish
they had made along the way!

Mindy:
Hindsight really is 2020. Today Scott and I are going to look back at how we
both would adjust our retirement planning. If we had to start all over today.
Spoiler alert, we might’ve done a few things differently. Hello, hello, hello
and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and
with me as always is my young at heart co-host, Scott Trench.

Scott:
Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here with beating heart of the BiggerPockets Money
podcast, Mindy Jensen. At BiggerPockets, we’ve got a goal of creating 1 million
millionaires. You are in the right place if you want to get your financial house
in order because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone,
no matter when or where you’re starting, including whether that’s today and from
scratch. Today we’re going to discuss if we started over our journeys today, how
we would do things differently in order to pursue financial independence, maybe
than the journeys that we undertook at the time. So this will include, I think,
setting off some ground rules for what that means, starting over exactly what
stage of life, those kinds of things, and we will discuss how we would approach
the fundamentals and how we would approach the tactics of our approach to
financial independence. And spoiler alert, I am betting that there will be no
changes to the fundamentals, but a lot of changes to the tactics that we’d
pursue in order to pursue fire.

Mindy:
Scott, I would like to take a step back and because maybe the audience hasn’t
tracked your every financial move, when did you first start saving for
retirement?

Scott:
That’s a great way to start this off. Yeah, so I started saving for retirement
in 2013, 2014. I started my job out of college late 2013, found Mr Money
mustache and just was very frugal and bought my first house hack in 2014.
Shortly after joining BiggerPockets as the then third employee, and I just kind
of had things snowball on all fronts. I continued to keep my expenses very low.
I invested in real estate in a booming market. I invested in stocks with
anything left over, and I steadily increased my income by finding as many
opportunities as possible. And then that has carried through, of course to today
where I’m now the CEO of BiggerPockets and have a sprawling real estate
portfolio and a big stock market index fund portfolio. Mindy, could you give us
the very high level overview of your story and the key themes that got you to
financial independence?

Mindy:
So what got us to financial independence are live-in flipping serial live-in
flipping and taking that money and moving it into the stock market when we would
sell a house. So to remind our listeners a live-in flip is when you move into a
property and you rehab it while living there as your primary residence, if you
own it for two of the last five years and live in it for two of the last five
years, you do not have to pay any taxes on the gain up to $250,000 per person on
title. So I am super excited about that portion of my journey because it is
something that I completely have control over, even when the real estate market
doesn’t allow me to have control, I still have control over my investment a
little bit more so than a traditional rental property in my opinion. Would love
to discuss that with anybody who wants to. But yeah, we did a lot of live-in
flipping. We did lots of frugality. I mean, people who listened to the show know
that I am not a spendy girl, and Carl, my husband, had a very high salary as a
software engineer. And we’ve heard from people who haven’t necessarily had high
salaries, but one of the best ways to get to financial independence is to have a
high salary.

Scott:
And then I also want to call out that you guys made some very lucrative
investments in certain technology stocks, specifically Amazon and Tesla, which I
believe a thousand decked or something ridiculous like that, and became a huge
percentage of your portfolio, right?

Mindy:
And Google, I should say this is not investment advice and you should definitely
not follow my path, but we were investing in these tech stocks, the FANG stocks
before a lot of other people were. We were part of Google’s IPO. We invested in
Tesla in 2012. We invested in Apple as soon as they announced the iPhone, which
was quite the game changer in the phone community. I’m not sure if you’ve ever
heard of the iPhone Scott. And the reason that we were able to invest in tech
stocks comfortably is because my husband does research all the time. He’s
constantly consuming information about tech stocks. So I do have something to
say about that a little bit later when we talk about what we might’ve done
differently. But we were able to reach financial independence in under 1500 days
after we of course started the blog called 1500 days and we’re halfway there to
begin with. We were lifelong casual savers.

Scott:
And Mindy, let’s start the conversation from there. So what I’ll do is I’ll go
back to set for life the beginning of my journey, which is someone who’s
starting from scratch, no debt, no assets, median income, right? Perfectly
average from the beginning of that and say, what changes from my journey to 2024
starting today and how does that approach begin, right? If I’m starting my job
now in 20, 24, 7, 20 13, 11 years ago, and let’s start your journey from that
when you started 1500 days point and you said, okay, here, we’re going to finish
out the play here from this portfolio and let’s talk about what we would do
differently there. Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?

Mindy:
I’ll go first because what I would’ve done differently is focus more on index
funds. So we first 1500 days the website with a net worth of $586,043 I think. I
dunno why he’s got that $43 in there, but full transparency. So we started about
halfway, a little over halfway to our financial independence goal, and this was
when we discovered Mr. Money mustache and discovered the concept of financial
independence. How

Scott:
Old were your girls at that point?

Mindy:
Our girls in 2013 were six and four.

Scott:
Okay, so this is probably like a lot of BiggerPockets money listeners, let’s
call it seven 50 to adjust for inflation. So you’re starting from seven 50 in
2024 with two girls, a good high paying job and $750,000 in cash, which you can
distribute across retirement accounts or whatever as you wish. What do you do?
Go

Mindy:
Well, I would first max out my 4 0 1 Ks, any 4 0 1 Ks that we had access to, I
would max out the Roth IRAs if we were allowed to. And remember, there are
income limits for your contributions for Roth IRAs. I don’t think we would’ve
maxed them out at that time. I wasn’t working. I was a stay-at-home mom and I
think Carl’s salary was such that we could contribute to the Roth IRAs. Here’s
something I didn’t do. I was a stay-at-home mom for eight years and I did not
contribute to my Roth IRA for those eight years because I wasn’t aware that
there was a spousal IRA. So that’s something I would definitely do differently.
Taking that 750,000, I would max out my HSA because the HSA is triple tax
leveraged, tax-free going in tax-free growth and tax-free when you pull it out
for qualified medical purchases of course. And my family is in this really great
position where we don’t need a lot of healthcare. We need more of a catastrophic
plan. So I would absolutely have a high deductible plan. Let’s see. That is,
let’s call this 50 or $60,000 that I’ve gotten rid of and now I have another
$690,000 that’s going into a brokerage account.

Scott:
And what are you investing in? What are the stocks that you’re investing in this
or is it still the fangs right now? Even after the big dropoff this week, it’s
the first week of August here with the big selloff and a lot of tech stocks, the

Mindy:
Big sell off, it was the biggest sell off. I want to quote Morgan Housley. He’s
like, this is the biggest sell off since that last sell off that you can’t
remember. It was not a huge selloff. And at my age, I have been through multiple
of these big selloffs. I was a sophomore in high school during 1987 when that
huge drop happened. I happened to have an economics class, so we spent an awful
lot of time talking about that. That was a 500 point drop and today’s was a
thousand point drop or yesterday’s was a thousand point drop, but it was 20% in
1987 and yesterday was like, what, 3% or something.

Scott:
Well, if you could forgive me for calling it a big drop, would you still be
investing in FANG stocks today with your 750,000?

Mindy:
Not all of it. We had not traditionally invested in index funds, and that’s
something that we’re starting to now. I would probably put out of that 690,000
ish that I have left over, I would probably put 600 into index funds and I’d
probably use the 90 to play in the FANG and individual stocks because it’s not
such an enormous part of my investment portfolio. I would not put $690,000 into
an individual stocks Before we get into how we’d adjust our retirement
strategies today, a word from our sponsors,

Scott:
Welcome back. Okay, and what about live in flips? So remember, I think my
understanding of your journey is that you crushed the play from that five 80 to,
what is it, millions of dollars in net worth over the next, can I say the number
that’s on your site? Sure. The 5 million plus net worth that you guys have today
because of the combo of live-in flips and the stock market returns well, the
income actually didn’t continue flowing in after a few years because Carl
retired, I think from the software engineering role fairly shortly there. But so
it was those two items, the FANG stocks and the live-in flips, that really
seemed to be a huge driver for your portfolio. And it sounds like you would do
some of that, but really wait much more to index funds. Would you still pursue a
live-in flip strategy here in 2024, and you are very close to the market as a
very active real estate agent. Do you see those opportunities for live-in flips
in the same way that they were available to you in the last 10 years?

Mindy:
I do with a little bit of an asterisk. So right now we have very high interest
rates and by very high, I mean like six and a half percent. They’re not super,
super high. But I got a text message from my favorite lender yesterday saying,
Hey, if you have clients that are sitting on the fence, tell them to start
jumping back in. Now I predict September is going to have a 0.5 rate cut, and
they’re already saying there’s going to be three rate cuts this year. So I would
absolutely be doing live-in flips because I always need a place to live. So if
the market doesn’t change, if the Fed says, you know what, we’re not going to do
anything and the market just tanks, I still need a place to live so I can always
live in the house that’s flipped. I just now live in a nice house instead of an
in construction house.
But if I have just moved in here, I’m absolutely buying a garbage house and
making it better because there’s so much upside. The house that I’m sitting in
right now, having taken advantage of the last few years when prices went way up,
I am going to have to pay taxes on the gain because I’m going to realize such a
big gain. So there’s just a lot of to be made in real estate. Scott, I don’t see
myself not doing a live and flip. If I was starting right now, how about you
Scott? Would you live and flip?

Scott:
Would I live and flip? Well, look, let’s set the scene here. It’s 2024 and I’m
getting started as a median income earner. So I was earning about $48,000 a year
when I started my journey, let’s call it $65,000 a year. Now adjusting for
inflation there. So I’m earning $65,000 and I have no assets and I have no
liabilities. Maybe like two or $3,000 my bank account left over from summer jobs
in college. How do I proceed to financial independence? Well, I would attack the
same themes, the same fundamentals, but I would use probably different tactics.
So let’s start with fundamentals, right? It starts with low expenses. The big
three expenses remain unchanged for Americans across the decades. They are
transportation, housing, and food. So if anything, the biking to work and
driving a paid off economy vehicle are even more powerful in 2024 than they were
in 20 14, 20 13, 20 14 when I was getting started because that of that inflation
factor, gas is even more relatively expensive today than it was at that point in
time.
And so a bicycle is about the same cost. I could probably buy the bike that I
rode to work for many years for three, 400 bucks today just like I did at that
point in time. So if anything, that would be even a further emphasis on that,
making my own food, those types of things. And then the housing piece, renting
with a roommate or keeping that expense low in the first year, obvious move that
is timeless. But once we get that first year of runway, the first $25,000
accumulated. So I think it starts with the frugality component and accumulating
cash and getting some flexibility into my life. No changes fundamentally to what
I would’ve done in that first year as I start racking up that cash and I would
still rack it up in cash. My journey is fundamentally different from yours,
Mindy, because if I was starting over as a college graduate with no family and
no obligations and those types of things, I would not be maxing my HSA, I would
not be maxing my 401k, I would not be maxing my Roth IRAI would be accumulating
liquidity because I think that that 25, 30, $40,000 for someone at that point in
their life is so much more valuable outside the retirement accounts for things
like a live and flip, a house hack, a small business venture, those types of
things.
I wouldn’t do that forever, but for one, two or three years, I might emphasize
that more than putting it into the retirement accounts because I’ll have the
next 35 years to catch up to the retirement accounts. This is not for blowing
it, but this is for taking a few calculated bets. So I would’ve still done that
as well. Fundamentally might’ve taken a match if I was getting a really good
match from an employer and that’s it. Everything else is cash in the bank
account. Okay, so from there, what do I do with this 25, 30, $40,000? Well, I
would not have bought the same duplex that I bought in 2014 as a house hack.
That duplex I purchased for $240,000. My mortgage was a bank 1550 between
principal interest, taxes, insurance and PMI with a 5% down payment. And my
rents, if I rented it out and did not live in it would have been 2200.
So there’s a spread there of 600 bucks, probably break even or better even at
high leverage on that property on day one. If I sold that property today to
somebody for $550,000, which would be a bargain for them, they would have a
3,600 principal and interest payment alone in that same situation, and the rents
would be $3,200 in aggregate. So it just wouldn’t have worked the same way. So I
would’ve had to find a new tactic to make the house hacking work. I might have
gone with the live and flip. I really like the A DU strategy. Colorado has
recently introduced some laws that make a DU permitting much more favorable, and
I’d be definitely looking for a lot of opportunity there. I think there’s a lot
of creative folks who are able to do that. That’s essentially a live-in flip,
right? You’re moving into a property and building an A DU Outback on there,
which drives the value up.
Fundamentally, there’s a lot of similarities between that. I would’ve really
liked that approach and I might’ve coupled that with a short-term rental or rent
by the room strategy because the owner occupant advantages of a short-term
rental strategy are very favorable. So I think that would’ve been a really good
risk adjusted bet That would be one of the best risk adjusted bets I think I
would be making in today’s environment if I was getting started over, started
over. And I think that there’s a lot of really good opportunity to add value to
drive cash flow from a strategy like that. And I think that there’s an off
chance that legally they’ll allow folks to separate those parcels and sell off
the A DU and the house as separate items within the next few years. I wouldn’t
bet on it, but I would certainly factor that upside as a possibility into my
analysis on a project like that.
So that’s probably how I would attack the housing problem of that being such a
huge expense in my life on there. And then once I got that settled, I would do
the exact same thing that I did, which is look for an opportunity at work,
whether joining a startup, becoming a real estate agent, becoming a mortgage
broker, buying a small business. I love the stuff that Cody Sanchez and Alex
Ozzi are talking about nowadays. I love those items. I would definitely be doing
the exact same thing I did 10 years ago looking for that opportunity, whatever
it was for me, of course, that was BiggerPockets. I had the opportunity to join
BiggerPockets as the then third employee. I’d absolutely be looking for an
opportunity, something like that in a field that I was passionate about. And
then once I got bearings under me and kind of got my career going in the
direction I wanted to, had those things, then I would absolutely do the exact
same approach that I’ve been doing for the last 10 years, which is regular
investment in boring old fashioned long-term rentals. I’d be using a much bigger
down payment than I did back then maybe to make sure I got positive cashflow.
But I’d still be buying long-term buy and hold real estate here in Denver,
Colorado, and I’d still be buying long-term index funds, and that’s exactly what
I’m doing today. So long-winded answer. But that’s I think the biggest piece is
around how I would’ve gotten started with housing because if you just have to
play it a little differently to make it work as a house hack,

Mindy:
Absolutely. I mean, house prices are high right now and interest rates are high,
which leads to a high monthly payment, which leads to way less cashflow. But I
still believe that, like you said, Scott, I’m an active real estate agent. I am
in houses all the time and I’m still seeing a lot of really dumpy houses that
have a lot of room to rehab and get them back on the market either as a quick
flip or as the live and flip if I’m going to skip the tax payments. And that’s
mainly the kind of flipping I do. Although I do have another house around the
corner that is currently a medium term rental, that’s also a great strategy.
It’s one of the strategies that you can use to kind of get around the short-term
rental laws. I am still renting fairly short-term, but I am renting 30 days at a
time in this property that I will eventually move into. We just rehabbed it
before people moved in. But yeah, I think that your strategy is a great way to
think about it too. I don’t want to own a small business personally. I don’t
want to do the work I am in my early fifties and getting a little bit lazy,
Scott,

Scott:
And look, I’m going back to what I would’ve done if I was getting started from
that position over here. If I was getting started again as a 33-year-old today
with my wife and child, I might be doing things differently yet again of that
approach. So I mean, it is all relative to your starting position. I think it’s
just the tactics that change, again for me in each of those phases, or if I was
getting started over today as a median income earner at the starting line here,
but as a married man with a baby, I’d probably do something very different from
the approach I just described. Alright, one last quick ad break before we give
you a roadmap for starting to save for retirement in today’s market.

Mindy:
Let’s get back into it. So were there any specific investment vehicles that you
wish you would’ve prioritized more?

Scott:
No. For me, yeah, I forwent a year or two of Roth IRA contributions or 401k
maximizations. But there was the house hacks and the liquidity that gave me the
opportunity to do stuff outside of those accounts. And so I think that that
really enabled me to feel confident in changing jobs and joining a more
unpredictable startup, for example, at that point in time. And that the returns
there are just nowhere close to what I would’ve gotten from having them in the
retirement accounts. So I feel very comfortable with that approach. And then
Mindy, my regrets are in hindsight’s 2020, I would’ve invested in Tesla if I had
known that it would go up so much, I would’ve picked those types of things. But
no, I’m very happy with the textbook PHI approach more or less that I took with
the index fund and house hacking, serial house hacking approach. So that’s
worked really well for me and I would probably do it again, but again, I would
probably have that shift to more of a live and flip with probably hunting for
value in that A DU construction space. I

Mindy:
Like that you brought up the A DU construction space. So we are in a nationwide
housing shortage based on a couple of studies that I have seen we’re either 4
million to 8 million housing unit short. So the A DU laws are starting to pop up
in many states, and I opened up my crystal ball and predict that they will
continue to pop up in more and more states as a way to try and alleviate the
housing crunch that we have. And if I was a single person, I would be by the
house that allowed for short-term rentals. If I couldn’t find one anywhere near
me, I would buy the house that allowed for medium-term rentals. So minimum 30
day stays, build the A DU and move into the A DU in the backyard while renting
out the larger house to generate more income to help cover the mortgage expense
completely and also hopefully generate some additional income after I would get
married. Then of course maybe things would change.

Scott:
That’s absolutely how I would invest as well getting started today.

Mindy:
Yeah, the moving it to the A DU after you build it, because you don’t need a lot
of space as a single person, and you can rent out the front house for a whole
lot more than you can. The A DU. Scott, I know how I’m going to answer this
question, so I’m going to throw it to you first. In the context of pursuing
financial independence, are there any lifestyle changes or spending habits that
you wish you would’ve adopted earlier? I

Scott:
Probably would’ve lightened up a little bit earlier in my journey there, but for
the most part, I’ve lived the lifestyle that I want to live for the last seven
to 10 years, and I did not find that the pursuit of PHI really interfered with
my ability to live my best life. Yes, I lived in a dumpy duplex for a long time,
but I also, that didn’t inhibit me from spending great quality time with my
friends, playing rugby, doing all the things that I really love to do. So I
don’t really feel too much in the way of regret for much of that. The regrets
are more the occasional missed trip because it was too expensive with friends.
That would’ve been a great lifetime memory. I just met up with some of my
fraternity brothers at a wedding this past weekend, and I was very bummed that I
had dropped the fantasy football league because of the then a hundred dollar
buy-in 10, 12 years ago. With that, that would’ve been a small price to pay to
continue to keep more in touch with some friends. But it’s like those kinds of
little things. There are a couple of those that bugg me, but for the most part,
no, I am very happy with the trade-offs that I made in pursuit of phi.

Mindy:
Well, I wish that I could say the same, Scott. I have reached a level of
financial independence that is way more than we had originally targeted, but we
stomped towards our financial independence number and forwent a lot of things.
We definitely didn’t go out with friends as frequently as we could have because
we were working on our houses or we were, oh, I already went out to dinner this
month, so I’m not going to go out again. And looking back, would that have
changed our financial life? Not really to have Friday night with your friends
every Friday night with your friends, is it going to change the trajectory of
getting your house completed? And it’s not going to change your financial future
unless you’re going to thousand dollar dinners with your friends and you’re
making $24,000 a year. That’s going to be a little bit too much.
And maybe you should pull back on that a little bit. But we didn’t spend any
money besides putting it into our houses. And every once in a while, taking a
vacation this year, I have taken a three week vacation and a two week vacation,
and those are the longest vacations I have had. But I could have afforded to
take a longer vacation before we did a lot of weekends. I remember when I was
pregnant with my first daughter, we flew from Chicago to Hawaii, a nine hour
flight, stay there for the weekend, and then flew back. What’s the point of
that? I got two days in Hawaii. You’re not even used to the time zone, and then
you’re back in your old time zone again, which I guess is great for working, but
it was such a silly trip. I could have afforded a whole week in Hawaii. It
wasn’t going to be a lavish week, but we could have had a much longer time. That
was our babymoon, and it was like two days. So we really didn’t exercise our
spending muscle. And now it is so ingrained in us to be frugal to question every
expense that it has become harder for us to spend, and our spending absolutely
does not align with our net worth.

Scott:
Yeah, I’ve had no problem increasing my spending in the last few years as our
baby was born and we got a new house and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I
probably need to go back to working on that frugality bone a little bit more
here. This is probably just a temporary thing with the new move. But yeah, we’ll
get back into a much more sustainable pattern there. And yes, I still drive the
Corolla and all that, but

Mindy:
I still have my Honda element that I’ve had since I bought it brand new in 2003,
and it’s a great car. But yeah, I could have my husband, everybody knows that
Carl loves Tesla. We just bought the Tesla in October. We could have bought it
anytime in the last 10 years. And he kept saying, no, no, no. We’ve got two cars
that work. We’ve got two cars that work. And on the one hand, yes, we’ve got two
cars that work. We shouldn’t just be frivolous about this, but he really loves
that car. I can’t even say how much he loves that car. So it was a great
purchase and we should have done it earlier.

Scott:
Awesome. Well, I love the fact that for the most part, not much would change
about your journey there. And I think that most of the queues are timeless.
Again, only the tactics change you. What about different types of properties?
Maybe for those live-in flips, you might have just spread, moved toward a little
bit closer to the textbook index fund portfolio, but not even all the way. And
that’s really all that would change for me. I mean, the PHI journey is so simple
at its core, as we talked about on a recent episode here, but it’s so hard,
right? It’s maintaining a huge gap between income and expenses, working really
hard or developing a very valuable skill, and then staying at it for years while
living way below your means. And you can invest really in anything in order to
get to financial independence. Some will get you there a little faster than
others, and it’s anybody’s guess what asset class that will be over the next 10
to 20 years.
But I’ll tell you what, I’m skeptical of the volatility of Bitcoin. I would not
bank a major chunk of my wealth on cryptocurrency in simple. Interest in lending
is not a good way to get to financial independence. I mean, unless you’re able
to arbitrage notes and flip them for value, collecting simple interest is highly
tax inefficient and not a good way for someone to get started or to aggressively
pursue financial independence. It may be a good option for you when you’re close
to financial independence and want to reduce volatility and begin living off
your portfolio, but it’s not a good way to grow wealth. And that leaves you with
stocks, real estate and businesses. You can also get creative with various forms
of alternative assets inside hustles. Sure, if you can go after those, go for
’em, of course. But I mean from there it’s like what’s the right option there?
My choice. Your choice. A lot of folks listening to this will be both or all
three for real estate stocks and then plus maybe some business, some private
business investments. That’s it though. There’s, there’s no fundamental
differences. They will stay the same for the next 50 to a hundred years, I
think, at least the way I’ll view ’em, which ones you invest in, how you do it,
that will obviously vary with the times.

Mindy:
Yes. And I want to point out that just because we’re saying real estate doesn’t
mean you have to invest in real estate. Not everybody wants to, and that’s fine.
I like a diversified portfolio. I want to have some real estate, I want to have
some stocks. I want to have zero Bitcoin, which is what I’m going to continue
with. That’s where I’m at now, and that’s where I will continue to be. Although
if I can go back to 2006, I might pick up a couple of Bitcoins because then that
would be a lot of money. But I believe strongly in the financial future of
America, which is why I believe in their stock market and their real estate
market. And I don’t believe at all in the financial future of Bitcoin. So if
anybody wants to lecture me on that email, somebody [email protected],

Scott:
You could just go on to my 40 minute rant against Bitcoin that I posted there
and see all of the Bitcoin people who are making sure they take screenshots to
tell me how wrong I am in 10, 20 years with it. But since I posted that for the
record, it’s down like 10, 15 grand. And

Mindy:
If I’m wrong about Bitcoin, that’s okay. I’m still in the stock market. I’m
still in real estate. I’ve still got small businesses locally. There’s a lot of
other things. You don’t have to be invested in everything. So if there’s
something that we are saying and you’re like, Ooh, I would never, then don’t
find another way to invest, but the way to get wealthy is to be investing in
growing assets.

Scott:
That’s right. Alright, Mindy, should we get out of here?

Mindy:
I would love to. As a reminder, we do have a website. If you do think that real
estate is the way to go to biggerpockets.com and you can learn so much in our
forums, our blog, we’ve got multiple podcasts and we would love to hear from
you. So please go [email protected]. You can make a free account today. Alright,
Scott, that wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. You of
course are the Scott Trench and I am Mindy Jensen saying later, skater
BiggerPockets money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench. This episode
was produced by Eric Knutsen, copywriting by Calico Content, post-production by
Exodus Media and Chris Micen. Thanks for listening.

 

Help us reach new listeners on iTunes by leaving us a rating and review! It
takes just 30 seconds. Thanks! We really appreciate it!

Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets
partner yourself? Check out our sponsor page!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not
necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.



Source link









 * Trending
 * Comments
 * Latest


THE EVOLVING INTERNATIONAL CANNABIS LANDSCAPE

March 20, 2024


UK FACES TWO DECADES OF NO EARNINGS GROWTH AND MORE AUSTERITY

July 29, 2023


EMIRATES STEEL DROPS INTEREST IN THYSSENKRUPP STEEL UNIT

July 27, 2023


LEARN HOW TO TRADE. FOR BEGINNERS

July 29, 2023


HIGH STREET RETAILERS PIN HOPES ON DISCOUNT SPLURGE IN BLACK FRIDAY FEVER

0


UK FACES TWO DECADES OF NO EARNINGS GROWTH AND MORE AUSTERITY

0


LEARN HOW TO TRADE. FOR BEGINNERS

0


TRADING FOR BEGINNERS

0


WHAT WE’D DO DIFFERENTLY IF WE STARTED OVER TODAY

August 20, 2024


SARASWATI SAREE DEPOT IPO: SUBSCRIPTION OF 107.52 TIMES, LISTING ON BSE AND NSE
TODAY

August 20, 2024


MORGAN STANLEY IS FIRST WALL STREET GIANT TO LET ADVISORS RECOMMEND BITCOIN ETFS

August 20, 2024


FUNDS GO LONG YEN FOR FIRST TIME IN FOUR YEAR: MCGEEVER BY REUTERS

August 20, 2024





RECENT NEWS


WHAT WE’D DO DIFFERENTLY IF WE STARTED OVER TODAY

August 20, 2024


SARASWATI SAREE DEPOT IPO: SUBSCRIPTION OF 107.52 TIMES, LISTING ON BSE AND NSE
TODAY

August 20, 2024


CATEGORIES

 * Business
 * Crypto
 * Economy
 * Forex News
 * Investing
 * Markets
 * More
 * Stock Trading
 * Trading for beginners


SITE NAVIGATION

 * Home
 * Contact Us
 * Stock Trading
 * Markets
 * Investing
 * Other Links
 * Privacy & Policy

We bring you the fastest breaking news on Trading, forex, and finance submitted
from credible and reliable news sources around the world.

© 2023 Tradinghow Useful forex analysis and financial news, submitted credible
news sources around the world from tradinghow.


No Result
View All Result
 * Contact Us
 * Home
 * Economy
 * Crypto
 * Investing
 * Markets
 * Forex News
 * Stock Trading

© 2023 Tradinghow Useful forex analysis and financial news, submitted credible
news sources around the world from tradinghow.


WELCOME BACK!

Login to your account below







Remember Me



Forgotten Password?


RETRIEVE YOUR PASSWORD

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.









Log In