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Kind Of A Big Deal

December 6, 2017

Last January my husband set a goal to reach $30,000 per month in passive income through rental real estate by the end of the year. I thought he must have been on drugs at the time but last week we closed a purchase that put us exactly at that number! We went to dinner after the closing to celebrate and I still kind of can’t believe it.

A few years ago, Clayton and I came up with the concept of the “freedom number.” It is the amount of money we wanted to secure in passive income so that we would not need paycheck jobs to live our lives. Our freedom number at the time was $11,000 per month. This would allow us to pay the bills and afford a few fun outings. It was the minimum. If we wanted to thrive beyond the minimum, we would have to aim higher.

By the end of 2016, we had secured about $20,000 in passive income by owning close to 30 rental properties. That is when Clayton set the goal of $30,000 per month. I thought he was nuts! It took us five years to get to $20,000 per month. How would we do 50% more in just one year?

Somehow we did!

We talked about the specifics of this deal in a recent episode of our podcast. It was an off-market pack of 10 single family homes sold by a veteran landlord, ready to live out his days at his 2nd home in France with his lovely wife. Talk about a real estate success story!

This deal puts us at a wonderful – although slightly scary – precipice in our lives. We can truly do anything we want with our careers now!

In the months since Clayton left Fox & Friends, I’ve had people stop me and tell me how sad they are not to see my husband on the news any more.

“I know, isn’t it great!?” I respond.

This is not the response they are looking for. They don’t care that our lives have changed for the better. They only care that my husband is conspicuously missing from their morning media diet.

I get that though. Clayton and I are broadcasters and writers by trade. We have a business that helps other investors get started with real estate but we want to hone our focus on sharing our experience of family wealth building with others.

I had this epiphany recently: We did not employ any one trick to get to our freedom number. We employed ALL the tricks! We took our balance sheet and we exploited it, line by line. We can teach you that!

I haven’t been great at sharing on this blog or my newsletter in 2017. That will be professional goal numero uno for me in 2018. I hope you’ll continue on this journey with me and share your experience and goals in the comments. I’m all eyes and ears!

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