A Way Out - Ditching The 9-5 Before Your 20's Are Over

I was a janitor at Walt Disney World.

Knowing that my only prospect of upward movement was a $1.30 raise for throwing a rag over my mid-section and calling myself Tarzan, I jumped at the first opportunity to trade-in my pan and broom for a shiny computer and airconditioned office.

As fate would have it, I closed the door to one hell and accidentally opened another.

Instead of chasing around soggy dippers and sweeping up popcorn, my life became totally centered around the pinging and dinging of a computer. Very quickly, I realized that I didn’t fit into the 9-5 mold that well-intentioned friends, family, and teachers had pushed me towards.

Picking up diapers and pushing condom ads to dudes with ED just wasn’t going to cut it.

Just as importantly, I was not going to sell my soul and become a YouTube Star, create an Only-Fans for lonely old ladies, or rob a bank.

My mother had raised me better.

I needed to find another way to make massive amounts of money.

I don’t know very many people that don’t have the dream of setting their own schedule, traveling the world, and making massive amounts of money. But how are we supposed to go about living ‘the dream’ when we have bills to pay and a degree (or no degree) that dictates the rest of our lives?

As a 24-year-old that has been short on funds and long on bills most of his life, I’ve found that real estate is the most realistic route to freedom.

Start by forgetting everything you’ve been told about money.

Ever wonder why the rich get rich and the poor stay poor? The rich think about money differently, while the poor lean on what they were taught by their parents… Who don’t make any money.

Because of this, we have to re-train our brains.

I started by saving money and reading books and I recommend doing the same. The easiest place to start is the 10% rule - for every paycheck you get, take at least 10% out and put it in a savings account that is untouchable under any circumstances. The other 90% is strictly for groceries and sarms.

After you’ve built up a stack of cash, it’s time to invest it in something.

For my business partner and I, that first investment was an FHA First Time Home Buyer 3.5% down loan. With this loan, we purchased a duplex in the Hollywood Hills that was worth three quarters of a million dollars using a $40,000 down payment. A year later, we were cash-flowing $1,000 a month and had made the property worth close to a million dollars.

In fact, we’re currently in the process of taking the equity we’ve created and using it to buy even more properties that make us even more money.

This is called the stack method.

With the stack method, you’re able to start small and progressively grow the number of units you own by ‘stacking’ them, one after another.

For example, with $20,000 you decide to buy a three-bedroom, single family home in an up-and-coming-area for $250,000 using an FHA 3.5% down loan.

Of the $20,000, you use $12,000 for the down-payment and closing costs. With the remaining $8,000 you spruce the place up with some fresh paint, new fixtures, and some DIY landscaping. All the while, you convince two of your friends to move in and rent out the other two bedrooms for $850 per-month.

After six months, you refinance the property and dive into the numbers:

• The new appraisal comes back at $315,000. In other words, you now have roughly 20% equity in the property or $65,000 in a piggy bank.

• With monthly payments of roughly $1,700 and total rent coming in at $1,700, you make no payments on the property and essentially live “rent free.”

While you’re busy counting your cash, an opportunity falls in your lap.

A family friend decides to sell their condo in a touristy area for $75,000. Seeing an Airbnb cash cow, you take $15,000 out of the piggy bank you’ve been diligently filling for the past year and use it as a 20% down payment on the property.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that the monthly payments are $500, and the condo is filled 20 nights per-month at an average rate of $75, bringing your total monthly income to $1,500.

That’s $1,000 in your pocket every month.

Another year goes by, and you level up to a fourplex.

With $15,000 of the $27,000 you were able to save from your job and rental income, you purchase the fourplex for $400,000 with another FHA 3.5% down loan.

Thankfully this one doesn’t need much work so all you have to do is place tenants in the three vacant units.

With monthly payments of about $2,500, and rents at $900 per unit, you again have no monthly living expenses. At the same time, you continue the ‘rent-by-the-room’ strategy on the single-family home that was purchased two years prior. With the additional $850 of income every month, your monthly cashflow comes to around $1,850.

Quitting the 9-5

One more year goes by and you’re able to save about $50,000 (between your job, cashflow, and the extra $12,000 from the year prior). You also decided to sell your single-family home which netted a $50,000 profit, making your total cash on-hand $100,000.

After some searching, you find a motivated seller with a 15-unit apartment complex that is mis-managed and agree to the following terms:

• Purchase price of $750,000 with a 10% down payment

• The other 10% of the down-payment will be financed by the seller

• You get a loan financed by a bank for the remaining 80% of the purchase price

After taking over the complex, getting new management, and putting your leftover $25,000 to work, you’re able to bring the monthly expenses down and the monthly income up. With each unit renting at $850, or $12,750 total, your total expenses are:

• Payments to the seller - $1,500/month for 5 years

• Payments to the bank - $2,850 for 30 years

• Monthly taxes - $625

• Monthly maintenance - $335

• Monthly capital expenditures - $500

• Monthly insurance - $400

• Monthly property management - $1,275

• Miscellaneous - $200

In total, monthly expenses come to $7,775 (rounded up for convenience).

But wait, there’s more.

You also decide to move out of the triplex, meaning an additional $900 is being funneled into your checking account every month, bringing your total monthly income to $5,875.

That covers monthly rent for a baller apartment in any major city, monthly payments on a Tesla, and gives you a $2,000 cushion for monthly degenerate expenses.

If you’re the type of person who doesn’t let the money talk, let me put it like this - with five hours of work (or less) per-week you’d be able to maintain your income, leaving plenty of time for sleep, family and friends, traveling the world, playing video games, working on your dream house, or getting lost in a Metaverse strip club.

If it sounds like it’s that easy, it is.

Yes, there will be some legwork. Yes, there will be some risk. And yes, there will be some sacrifice.

But the first loan will close. The first tenant check will clear. And the first dollar you throw at the Metaverse strip club will be well earned.