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If you’ve ever read this blog, or talked to me in real life, you know I was not a fan of real estate
I can’t stand to be in debt. A mortgage would only tie us down. I had no desire to be a landlord. So what happened?
Well, you know how every Boomer in America is like “Nobody wants to work anymore!”?
It’s not that I don’t like working
It’s just that I don’t want anyone to tell me when, where, and how I have to, ever again.
Covid found Greg unemployed by the airline industry, and me overemployed, and very well-compensated, by seasonal, crisis, and travel nurse contracts.
Covid kicked my ass physically, emotionally, and especially mentally, and I think neither Greg nor I have quite dealt with the after-effects yet. I went from a human with a few anxieties, to just another anxious human. Greg went from a complete idiot (in the best way possible) to a slight idiot, sometimes.
We had another baby (girl!) in August 2021, and of course that made going back to work a lot harder for me. But I did, when she was just two months old, because I found a travel nurse assignment in Salt Lake City, UT, making $137/hour.
Make hay while the sun shines
Because I worked nine months (in a row!), 2020 was the first year we ever made over $100k. Then in 2021 and 2022, I was making over $22,000/month. Not every month, because well, you know me, but enough. Way more than enough.
By continuing to max out my 401k, Greg’s HSA, and both our IRAs, then putting everything else we didn’t need to pay our bills into our brokerage account, I watched our net worth more than double from $350k in Dec 2019 to over $700k in Dec 2021.
Around $200k of that was cash, and around $500k was invested 100% in stock index funds, my favorite way to invest. Of that $500k, around $135k was in our taxable brokerage account. Greg turned 43 in February 2022, so we were looking at 17-21 years until traditional retirement age and the ability to pull from our retirement accounts.
Only… I didn’t want to work another 17-21 months, let alone years
Using the 4% retirement rule, and Dave Ramsey’s investment calculator, I realized in spite of the $500k we had invested, even to get to traditional retirement age, we would have to work enough to pay all our bills plus invest another $3k/month, every month, for the next seventeen years.
To get to that retirement number, I took our annual expenses ($97,500/year) and multiplied by 25.
$97,500 x 25 = $2,437,500
or
$2,437,500 x .04 (4%) = $97,500
To retire early, we’d obviously have to work even harder to invest even more. Which is the exact opposite of who we are as humans. We’re The Hardly Warckens, not The Warck Four Times as Muchens.
I knew covid money wouldn’t last forever
Even though it should. We should all be paid like Shohei Ohtani. That guy hits a ball with a stick, we save other humans’ lives.
But what if…
We didn’t work longer and harder, and pile money into our savings and investments…
What if we used the money we had already saved to buy an income-generating asset instead? One that could cover our annual expenses. One that could make it where I wouldn’t have to work anymore, unless I wanted to.
Hello… real estate
Now my oldest brother had been doing it for years and was always pestering me to get into it too. Like, what did he know?! So annoying.
A lot. A lot, a lot, as it turns out.
Using his guidance, biggerpockets.com, and a bunch of books and podcasts (podcasts, podcasts, so many podcasts), I formulated a plan(s) to get us into real estate investing and me out of nursing forever.
I’ll get into the how in another post, but I wanted to share why, after being opposed to it for so many years, we suddenly changed our minds about investing in real estate.
Because I don’t want to work another 17 years
At least as a nurse. I’m ready to get back to hospitality, where I really shine. We recently stopped at the Wilmot Welcome Center & Rest Area along I-29 in South Dakota and I was like YES. This is the type of job I want for the rest of my life. “Welcome! Let me tell you about all the great things we’ve got going on here!” The woman behind the counter had been a nurse for 40 years, and this was her retirement gig. Two days a week, four months a year. Yes yes yes. Only like, yesterday, not in 17 years.
Because I don’t want all our money dependent upon the stock market
The #1 rule of investing is buy low, sell high. I don’t want to *have to* sell, even 4%, during years the stock market is down.
Because I never want to *have to* work
Some folks’ plan is to go get a job during years the stock market is down, and live off their paychecks instead of their investments. But I know my nature. I’m a real cranky bitch if I have to go to work when I don’t want to. And like, what if we have plans that year? African safari, solar eclipse in Australia, cruise to Antarctica. Sorry, life, I have to go get a job. Barf.
Because I’m looking for less:
And more:
THAT’S WHY
Stay tuned to find out exactly how we started buying real estate. And for follow up posts laying out this new early retirement plan, mistakes we’ve made, things we’ve done well, and the fun we’ve had/will have along the way. You can also follow us on Insta @thehardlywarckens.
Recommended real estate resources:
Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast
Bigger Pockets Real Estate Rookie podcast
Real Estate Investing with Coach Carson podcast
Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat: The BRRRR Rental Property Investment Strategy Made Simple by David M Greene