Really interested in meeting others who have taken this path and done so with a large or budding family. I have five kids and we've made some pretty big sacrifices to move towards financial freedom and full-time real estate investing (not there yet). I applaud all of you who have been able to get into REI as a single or couple, but would love to hear from anyone with a larger family and how you've done it. What was your strategy? What sacrifices have you made? I know it's possible as we're currently making it happen, but would love to learn more from others. Thanks and looking forward to connecting.
Rental Property Investor · Hendersonville, NC · Member since 2016 · 446 posts · 412 votes
6y
Great question, should be an interesting thread. Personally, I have 2 kids. We started with a live-in flip of sorts before kids, but didn't finish until after the first one. I remember having no kitchen, a microwave/fridge/coffee pot and that was it for a couple months with a newborn. Once we started getting rentals, our date night without kids consisted of going to REIA meetings most of the time.
That's great Ryan - thanks for the response! Christoper - are you guys close to having any kids? When my wife and I did our first fix and flip back in 2006, we were just starting out and we lived in a portion of the house while we fixed up the other half. My wife has stories of washing dishes using a large tub, and taking cold showers with water borrowed from our neighbor's hose, during the time our water was off to redo the plumbing! We lost everything a few years later as we got too too speculative in 2008. So when we started climbing back up the hill almost a decade later, we made the commitment to house-hack/fix and flip with a duplex. We squeezed a family of 5 into a 1400 sq/ft duplex - but the other side paid all our expenses (PITI) plus some of the utilities. My kids all have memories of dad coming home after work, only to head to a new project where we would do the construction ourselves from 6pm until midnight. The positive thing is that the older kids have a great work ethic, know the value of money and buying assets, and that duplex has catapulted us towards financial freedom. For me - it's all been worth it.