Financially Free - Not Quite

[Florence Sullivan]

Investing last 3 years and able to cover 60% of expenses… for now

We had bought our 1st apartment building in 2016 and was just something we invested in as passive income while working our W2 job. We had future plans, travel, etc. Then in 2019, I got laid off in September and had a stroke in October with mental and physical challenges and my spouse was the majority caregiver left us with limited income.

All of our plans had to change! We didn’t really know what to do or what’s next. We had some savings and thought we’d be okay but we plan on living a long time, the economy changed, OMG what do we do.

Expenses are not of a 25 year old, they are significant. After having a family, more ins, cars, mortgage, etc. This is our reality.

We decided to dive further into RE. Since then, we bought 3 more apartment buildings and some private RE loans. Sounds good so far but it covers about 60% of our bills. I know it has been discussed not to rely on cash flow, but in our case, we have to.

The 1 major thing I didn’t plan for is the ups and downs of cashflow from real estate. How do you save for the downs when you're so dependent on monthly cashflow?? Also, no house hacking, we are too old to have someone else live in our house. I have a line item in our budget to put savings away but the reality is we’re not at that point… yet.

Love BiggerPockets, it’s helped. One area we haven’t seen, is how someone succeeding with our similar scenario.

Update to come…