561: What Happens if High Expenses Extinguish Your FIRE?

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets

Investing, Education, Business

4.6 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2024

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You did it; you achieved FIRE! After over a decade of hard work, you’ve reached financial independence and can retire early. You’re making more money than you spend from passive income, work-optional, and life is good. But your dreams are starting to change. Maybe you want to spend more on experiences, build your dream house, or move to a higher-cost-of-living area. Now, your expenses are starting to creep up, and your FIRE is about to burn out. What do you do, and is it wrong to return to work? Caitlin Muldoon has had to ask herself these questions. After grinding for fifteen years, she finally reached her FIRE goal—$10,000 per month in passive income. In her current lifestyle, she’s saving money every month, but as she moves into her dream house and expenses start to rise, her passive income may not be enough. Does this mean that Caitlin is no longer financially independent? Today, Caitlin is sharing her full FIRE story with us. How she went from one house hack and a HELOC to a six-figure generating real estate portfolio, the struggles she had with leaving her job, realizing that her expenses would jump after her husband quit, and why retiring early isn’t always the end goal. Support today’s show sponsor, BAM Capital, your path to generational wealth with premier real estate investment opportunities! In This Episode We Cover What to do if rising living expenses are about to extinguish your FIRE Turning your primary residence into a passive income-generating portfolio by using HELOCs How intentionally saving money can massively propel your wealth and get you to FIRE much sooner Why you DON’T need to quit your job, even after you reach your FIRE number Advice for anyone who wants to build a rental property portfolio with today’s high interest rates And So Much More! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group Network with Other Investors on The Path to FIRE Through the BiggerPockets Forums Finance Review Guest Onboarding Join BiggerPockets for FREE Mindy on BiggerPockets Scott on BiggerPockets Listen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One Place Apply to Be a Guest on The Money Show Podcast Talent Search! Find an Investor-Friendly Agent in Your Area Find Investor-Friendly Lenders BiggerPockets Money Group BiggerPockets Forums Market Finder Rising Femme Wealth See Mindy and Scott at BPCON2024 in Cancun! Do You Know Your FIRE Number? Here’s What That Means 00:00 intro 01:56 Starting Salary and First Home 04:01 Rental Investing and Finding FIRE 07:13 Thoughts of Quitting 08:05 Real Estate Portfolio Timeline 13:58 Savings Rate and Reinvesting 15:47 Using HELOC to Buy Rentals 20:31 Achieving FIRE, But... 24:07 Rising Lifestyle Expenses? 31:55 Advice for FIRE 36:32 Connect with Caitlin! Check out more resources from this show on BiggerPockets.com and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/money-561 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you've achieved financial independence and have left your W2, but then your lifestyle and expenses change, does that mean that you've really fired?
0:09.0	We're going to find out in today's episode.
0:12.0	Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money
0:14.0	podcast. My name is Mindy Johnson and with me as always is my still working his W2 because he likes it, co-host
0:21.7	Scott Trich.
0:22.6	Oh, dang, Mindy, I would come up with a fun pun
0:27.0	for that type of intro, but it's just too taxing
0:30.7	to come up with one on that particular item there.
0:33.2	All right, today we're going to discuss
0:35.7	how Caitlin built, I think, a fairly traditional portfolio
0:40.2	in real estate, very aggressive, very smart approach.
0:42.5	We're going to dive into those details for sure and walk through,
0:45.3	but the story kind of hinges around buying a lot of real estate in 2016, 2017, 2018,
0:50.4	having a great run making smart decisions.
0:52.4	A lot of things that maybe a lot of bigger pockets folks did in the 20 teens
0:57.3	But then we're going to talk about how she fired in 2021
1:01.5	unfired aired shortly thereafter, moved her family to a high cost of living area and are we
1:09.4	still fire?
1:10.4	How do we think about a portfolio that got there, that got the job done in the last couple of years when we want more today?
1:17.5	And I think it's a really interesting philosophical discussion and I think today's episode is going to go through all the things, the very beginning of the journey, the grind, the buildup, the achievement of fire and the burning question that I think a lot of people have as they're pursuing fires will it be enough what
1:34.0	happens if I want more what happens if my expenses go up so really
1:37.5	fantastic guest today you're gonna love it all right today's show is going to be
	...

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