2019 was a year of traveling, learning and taking action!
It was a year where I took big steps toward achieving real independence. Not just financial independence, but the whole package.
In thinking about a “2019 year in review post”, I figured I would focus on the slightly crooked path I took to get to this point. I’m hoping that this will be more inspiring if not downright helpful.
If you aspire to move on to an early retirement or perhaps a second career….or if you’re like me and you know you wanted to move on to something else but wasn’t quite clear, then this post is for you.
A Little Background
At the end of 2018, my wife and I were hovering around the 25x annual expenses mark, the point where most people declare FI. Even so, both of us were not totally convinced we were ready to leave our 9 to 5 world from a financial standpoint. Nor did we have a clear plan on what would occupy our time.
I realized that I’d run my course reading FI blogs, doing Google searches, not taking enough action. I knew I needed answers beyond just internet searches. New information from new sources needed to enter into the equation.
Fast forward to the end of 2019 and I have a blog, a real estate investment company and a lot more information than I had at the beginning of the year.
This post goes through the steps I took to get here.
Step 1 – Forging Finance
The first thing was to create this blog. The idea was simple, start getting my own thoughts and ideas about FI on a blog of my own. I quickly decided not to focus on writing so many posts per week or month, just write what comes naturally based on my experience and don’t pontificate about “you should do”….
In hindsight this was a great first step. Probably 75% of what I’ve written since January 2019 has not even made it to the blog and most of it never will. However, going through the process of writing has been very helpful to draw out thoughts and ideas. Ideas I thought I could expand into huge posts were summed up in a few paragraphs. Ideas I thought were one and done and well thought out ended up taking a life of their own in multiple posts. The beauty of writing things down is that you can organize these thoughts in ways you couldn’t have otherwise.
Then there’s the benefit of having created something from nothing. I can now say from experience that there’s a lot of momentum built up after going through the process of learning how to build a webpage, start writing, and then get your writing out there for the world to see. Prior to this year I’d only daydreamed about starting a blog, I know the “someday” mindset all too well. I have a lot of respect for the other bloggers out there, even if they aren’t that well written, at least there a person behind them that is willing to take action and put themselves out there.
I did decide to monetize the blog by placing Google ads. I made a whopping $3.69 for the entire year! Most of that came off the heals of my Chautauqua post that was shared by JL Collins and Millennial Revolution (thanks, Jim, Christie and Bryce!).
I don’t have high aspirations of taking the blog into the money-making stratosphere like more popular FI blogs, instead I keep blogging because I like it.
It wasn’t long after I started blogging that I realized attending one of the FI meet ups was the next natural thing to do. As I wrote here, no one in my inner circle really knew about FI or FI/RE. By getting to an actual event I knew I could network with other like minded people and learn new things. I choose the FI Chautauqua after seeing JL Collins interviewed at Google headquarters.
Step 2 – FI Chautauqua
I attended two live events in 2019, but the UK Chautauqua is the one I want to focus on here. This is the main part of what I mean by “getting out from just Google searches on the internet”.
I wrote about my Chautauqua experience here. Reflecting back several months later, I can say that meeting the other attendees was the highlight of this event. There is still an active connection among many that attended.
Attending the FI Chautauqua in England is what ultimately set me off in the direction I’m in now, which I’ll write about in Step 3.
Chautauqua ended up being “proof of concept”. In other words, FI is a real thing and real people are doing it. Chautauqua also showed that FI is a state of mind and a way of life. You can glean this from reading blogs, but there’s something about attending an event in person and actually meeting people that drives the point home.
There was a wealth (literally) of information at this event. I got great advice from some of the Chautauqua hosts. Alan Donegan spoke about starting your own business. Carl Jensen was more specific and gave some great ideas about starting a co-working space. Then Bryce of Millennial-Revolution gave blogging advice (which I highly value but haven’t used…).
Of course, I can’t forget the one most intreaguing business idea I received.
During Chautauqua we had a sort of mastermind session wherein we’d sit in a group of about 7 or 8 people. Each person would state a problem and the others would offer up solutions by writing the solution on a sticky note. At the end, you’d have a stack of sticky notes and a bunch of suggestions.
Great idea and it worked. My problem…I want a “side hustle” to help pick up some income and make it easier (give me more confidence) on quitting my 9 to 5 job.
One of the sticky notes had just one word…Land. It was from the one attendee that had quit his job and gone full time into real estate investing. While everyone else was talking up Vanguard index funds (not a bad thing really) he was the only one that was raising his hand saying “ Hey folks, there’s another way to go about it”.
I later sat down with him and did a deep dive into his land investing strategy. It was pretty impressive. He recommended a couple of podcasts which I listed to on the way back to the US. By the time I landed I was pretty much hooked.
Step 3 – Land
This was the biggest thing to come out of 2019…my own real estate investment company.
I knew I wanted something to generate income outside of my 9 to 5. I always wanted to get involved with physical real estate (as opposed to just REITs or micro loans). However, it took a very particular, niche business model to get me (land investing) that was the missing piece.
I also wanted to diversify our wealth away from just “the market”. It’s a natural progression once you’ve paid off all debt, are fully vested in your retirement accounts and generating excess cash. …but what about the risk of REI? You put down lots of money, fix up a house, only to find out you bought it at too high a price, or your fix up costs were too excessive.
The land investing business model was that “aha moment” where I finally clearly saw something that can replace my 9 to 5 income.
Land investing is by far the easiest way I’ve seen to invest in physical real estate. It works quickly, the results are reproducable, the margins are high, and the risk is low.
On the flip side, it requires a few thousand dollars in up front costs (my startup costs were high), and lots of time. The time piece was actually easy for me because I thoroughly enjoyed the process. REI isn’t a grind for me, it’s interesting.
I held off on posting about REI until I completed my first deal. I knew I had to do a thorough test of this business model before I go posting about it (duh!).
In September I jumped in head first spending all my spare time learning the business while getting it started. I purchased training materials and attended a live event in Southern California. I also suspended blogging on Forging Finance!
In October I closed my first deal, a 10 acre property I purchased for $27,500 and then sold for $47,000. I’ll write more about why I went this route in another post. This deal paid all my start up costs and operating expenses to that point, and made me a nice profit.
Land investing makes the perfect entry point ot investing in physical real estate. You can pick and choose how big you want your deals to be. The system I follow shows how you can purchase parcels of land for just a few hundred dollars, and then sell for 2 to 3 times what you paid for it.
You can also do many deals in a short period of time depending on how aggressive you want to be. Again, you get to dial in your own pace.
A house flipper may buy a house, fix it up and sell it. Even if you are super fast, it’ll take a few months to complete a deal this way. It’s also a long time to recoup your investment assuming you bought at the right price and didn’t go overboard on renovations. With land, I can do several individual land deals over the same amount of time and with less risk.
Step 3.1
This is more inline with the third step, but I quit my job in August 2019. I spent almost 20 years with the same firm and decided to take an offer with another, smaller, company starting in September 2019.
I made the move for several reasons that I won’t . First off, I knew I was stagnant in htat last company. My pay and benefits were great. I liked many of the people I worked with, but I wasn’tlearning or growing. It was mentally drainng. I didn’t realize how draining until I left. It was like a shot of adreneline. I took two weeks off between jobs and l completely filld up those two weeks.
I call it re-found tenacity. There was something about that freedom away from work that had me thinking more creatively, more physically active, and just overall getting more things done.
What a Year
When I began 2019, I knew I wanted change but didn’t know exactly where I wanted to be or how to even go about it. I kept coming to that phrase, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. I had a feeling that blogging wasn’t the end all be all and I even knew that it may be short lived. I decided to jump in anyway and it led me to where I am.
I can credit my achievements on the following:
- Spouse – My wife let me run with things this year. I started the blog, went to Chautauqua by myself, then started the business. She gave me space. We are not always in sync when it comes to FI or retirement, but she knew I needed to run around and seek answers, and she let me.
- Take action – start something, could be a blog, a business, a sport. Just move. Do something and see where it leads you.
- Pay to play – for me, getting out from behind the computer and attending real live events made all the difference. The financial benefit will be paying out for years to come. I’ll attend other live events, but it was the first one that really made the difference. Stop reading another people’s stuff and get out there and attend something like this.
- Open mindset – in my ladder climbing days I’d say no to a lot of things. I’d quickly identify a distraction, whether it was a family event, a spam email, anything. I’d shut it down. If you want to change and grow though, you have to let new information in from somewhere. An open mindset is where it all begins.
- Re-found tenacity – My last job was mentally draining. I had no idea how draining until I left there. When I quit that job in August, I had two weeks with no job. On day one, I sensed it was going to be a big two weeks and I wrote down everything I wanted to accomplish. It was a lot. I ran through those two weeks and accomplished most of my list. It felt great! I had that go get ‘em attitude that carried me through my early corporate years that was missing.
The main take away from this post is to take action. Even if it doesn’t seem directly related to what your end game is, taking action builds momentum and leads to other good things.
Looking Forward to 2020
Real estate investing is taking center stage in 2020. Blogging will be close behind, but eventually I think I’ll look into another medium like Youtube or a podcast.
I’m going to continue with land investing but, similar to how i started 2019, I know that this will lead to something else even though I can’t see it with perfect clarity yet. I’m going to use my 2019 experience to keep forging ahead!