I am a sleeper agent in life, my stealthy means to financial freedom
You know the term "sleeper" as in someone that is a secret agent and nobody around them knows? Now that may sound really bad since we associate the word sleeper with the word "cell" nowadays, as in a terrorist network...that is NOT what I mean! I mean it in terms of a spy who does nothing but is just there. No killing, no stealing, nothing bad, just a secret spy observing.
I feel like I am that in real life. My life may look boring on the outside now. It was very interesting when I was younger. I had a dog team, my parents were pilots and we had airplanes to travel to our home in the middle of the largest National Park in the country. I grew up with snowmachines, four-wheelers, gold mining and various other adventures. I was lucky to travel to Ireland with my Grandma to see where she was raised and to Mexico with her and my Mom and Aunt. We went to Hawaii. My husband and I were married in Hawaii. I had an interesting life!
Now I work a regular job in State Government. I have been here at the Alaska Department of Natural Resources for over 8 years. I have moved up through 5 different jobs in that time.
My husband and I rarely travel anywhere anymore. We are homebodies. We have three cats and an aquarium. Life seems pretty boring. We don't party, don't do anything remarkable. I was a student working on my graduate courses. He works for State Government now too in the Department of Public Safety. We are boring 30 somethings.
So when we suddenly bought a 4-plex income property and moved last month it was quite the change. I had been in the same rented house for 12 years! Now we are suddenly landlords with a three story property.
We were only able to do this because:
1) We had my husband's VA (veteran's) loan available so we could get it for no money down
2) We had both been in our boring (but secure) state jobs for 2 years to qualify,
3) We had decent credit and had not bought cars and toys that needed to be paid off, (though it was not nearly as high as I wanted)
4) We were boring and responsible and paid our bills on time and looked like a good risk for a mortgage!
5) We were not afraid to take a risk and start a new life!
Boring paid off! It was a combination of a boring life with big dreams and goals and not being afraid to jump into something brand new on a moment's notice!
My steady job in state government also means I am getting a large amount saved in retirement investments (no pensions anymore these days). Hopefully I will be really glad later in life that I stayed here where I can save a ton of money for retirement even though my paycheck is much lower than it would be in the private sector. I also have a flexible schedule and we get a lot of vacation days (about 4-5 weeks per year including holidays). This means more time to work on my websites and be a landlord.So, state job with good benefits,
Saving for retirement,
Time to work on website and rental property,
Second source of income from rentals,
This is all so boring but hopefully it will all pay off in the end! I will be the sleeper agent that nobody suspects of anything interesting but I will be successful in the end.
My plan is to save up while we are living in the 4-plex since we are living rent free and use that money as the down payment on another multi-plex next year. We used the VA loan for this one so we can use an FHA loan for the next one and only pay 3.5% down. Then we will live in that one for a year or two and be able to save enough to get a real house or nice duplex!With multiple rentals and my website up and running, I hope we will have enough that we could quit our jobs if we wanted and live in another country for awhile or at least travel!
Then I will have accomplished my goals of financial freedom!
Jessica
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Jessica, good things have happened in your life - that's great. Thanks for sharing your story. My husband and I try to be fiscally responsible but it's hard. I've been looking for an online opportunity to build up and work towards making successful in order to try to have some residual income. I love it here at WA and am working hard towards success. Thanks for sharing your story!
Thanks Julie. I keep reminding myself of all this when I feel discouraged. I have been sick lately and not making any sales either so I have to focus on the positive!
Yes, it is VERY hard. I totally understand. For so many years we felt tied down and it seemed impossible to ever be free of debt. We still aren't but we are making progress! We learned in this process of buying the 4-plex that sometimes you need to think of debt in an entirely different way. My husband wanted to have no debt, pay everything off. It turns out it is a good thing we didn't focus on that exclusively. We would have plodded along for decades trying to do that and not been able to get in a better place. This way we were able to ignore the debt and get this building so that we can live rent free and therefore save money much faster and pay off debt faster. The faster you can accumulate some properties like this, the better off you will be for the rest of your lives. I learned about this way of thinking just in the last few months.
Thanks Julie!
Excellent points, Jessica. My husband and I struggle with debt as well. I have this "thing" about it - I absolutely HATE being in debt. I don't mind having a house payment - but I don't like paying credit card bills, car payments, etc. It's hard to get by sometimes without those things though. I know we live beyond our means, we really need to sit down together and go over our income and the outgoing bills and try to find places where we can trim down. We do have a rental property with tenants, but it just pays the mortgage for itself. It's not a money maker...yet. It will be, there is about 10 years left on the mortgage, but that's one thing that we're trying to get paid off early. We still have about 13 years on our main home's mortgage, and my husband retires in 8 years. So for these next 8 years, we really need to work hard at getting that mortgage paid down because our income is going to drop drastically when he retires. One of the reasons I spend most of my free time on WA!
We don't plan to worry about paying off the property. Of course we are not near retirement! Instead of paying down the mortgage or other debt entirely we will be saving that money as a down payment for another income property. I guess that only works if the property produces extra revenue on top of paying the mortgage though.
That is why we bought such a huge (4 units) place. It has the highest profit margin and was in good shape so it doesn't need a ton of repairs. The broker and realtor we used have their own real estate investment group here. They do so well, they both get paid to travel out of state and train others. They explained the concept of leveraging your money in this way so the focus is not on paying off debt but getting the most income coming in as early as possible. Every circumstance is a little different though. I guess for us this is what makes the most sense now. We were shocked we could buy this since we had so much credit card debt! My husband HATES that! I am so glad we figured this out though instead of struggling like we were. They have a special program where they get us extra money at closing to pay off debt too! We were able to pay off a credit card with a check directly from the bank where we have our mortgage! It was amazing. So we got into the property with no money down, live rent free now so we save a ton from our paychecks and we got a credit card paid off! Now we are in a position to keep our debt down since we will have more to pay on the credit cards every month. I still have trouble explaining it to others. It sounds so strange!
Could it be possible for you to buy a duplex and rent out your house? If you did you could probably save money. You could use the FHA loan (it doesn't have to actually be your "first" house). My parents used an FHA loan when they moved and bought a tri-plex. My Dad passed away but Mom is still able to live there rent free in a very nice owner's unit while the other two pay the mortgage and then some.
Sorry if this is a crazy idea...I know that is difficult with pets, plants etc!
Not a crazy idea at all. My husband and I have actually talked about investing in more real estate. We haven't thought about the duplex, triplex or four-plex idea though. That's something to think about. Topic of conversation! So happy for you guys that it's working out so well.
I figure the hard part is done already...I have the good job so I am saving for retirement...the whole time, compound interest thing...
I have the website, I have WA, now I just need to keep at it.
I have the first income property that is allowing us to live basically rent free and save money for the first time in our lives (other than the retirement accounts for work).
I just need to stay the course I hope.
Thanks Becky!!! I appreciate your support. I have to keep telling myself these things when I have no sales!
Don't focus on that; it will kill your purpose! The Universe is listening! Concentrate my friend, concentrate and refocus!
Becky :)
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More important than anything else, you and your husband have goals! But how about adding something a bit "crazy" to it? Every two years or so?
Me and my wife do that. The last we did was traveling for one month all around the black sea by mobile home. It was quite some adventure as in most places nobody could talk English, German or French. My wife speaks Russian too. So when traveling through Russia and the Ukraine it was pretty helpful. And that month of adventure costs us about $2500. Souvenirs not included! :)
Wow! That sounds interesting!
We have a TON of dream trips...the Mediterranean was actually our dream honeymoon...could't afford it yet though! Italy for him since he is obsessed with Roman history (he was a history major in college), and Greece for both of us for the history. Italy in general for the food etc. France for the food, Portugal since he Mom's side of the family if of Portugese descent, Ireland (I have been but he hasn't and really wants to), Scotland, Croatia (looks gorgeous), Central America like Costa Rica, South America...he wants to go to Argentina, I want to go to Chile, Bolivia, Brazil...and we want to adopt a child from Columbia! We actually are serious about that and now I think we might be able to make that happen as we can finally save money and work toward getting a house.
We want to go back to Hawaii also. I want to show him the Big Island and Kauai. He has already been to Nepal and hiked in the Himalayas and lived in Iraq in the war. So between our schooling in History (him) and Anthropology (me), and our independent natures we are both interested in travel!
The only continent I haven't been is South America. But all other nations you mention, I've been. I can only recommend them to you. Well, to your place, Alaska I didn't make it either. Except for an emergency landing on the way from Asia (Taiwan) to Canada (Vancouver and Montreal) in 2002.
Wow! You are very well traveled! I do love Alaska.