When you ask people why they got in real estate the answer is almost always to be free. Money is what allows you to be free, but for me it's not the primary goal. Being able to design my lifestyle is.
Looking back at my 10 years in real estate how I manage money has changed a lot. Early one a divorce wiped me out financially; I was left with a nice home I could not sell, a new house/horse farm that was not drywalled yet and I could not move in, the construction debt from the work and a huge monthly payment to my ex to support her lifestyle in CA. I never defaulted on anything, but I remember one month I had literally no money to buy feed and basically lived of spaghetti and bananas despite an executive income. I had to pinch every penny and did a lot of the work on my first properties myself.
The following years everything I had went into growing my portfolio, money I had, money I borrowed and every wake minute I had. I would start early at the office, try to get out at 5 and then be excited about another 5 hours I had left in the day to work on the rentals. We grew a lot, I met my amazing wife and after watching me for a couple years she started investing herself. She is a teacher and drove a Honda and I had a company vehicle, we worked hard and we invested most of what we made, but we also made sure that we could enjoy life. And we never took cash flow from our business to pay for our life, that's what active income is for.
Almost four years ago I quit my corporate job after almost 20 years and went full time real estate. Like a kid in the candy store I was so excited about having all my time to spend on what I love most - real estate! It was an amazing feeling, although cutting my W2 felt like jumping from a bridge. And that drove me to work really hard to build my career as a real estate broker, but I also played around with general contracting high end properties, building new construction and of course managing and growing the portfolio. And also giving back; countless hours to help others to get started, because I remembered all to well how hard it was for me to find a good agent (took me years) or anyone who could help me (before BP!). I would work 7 days a week (as an agent you don't get off on the weekends) and were burning the candle on both ends running from meetings to job sites and back.
So my goal for this year is to log a little less hours, lower my stress level a bit and make more time for the things I enjoy outside of work. I just got back from a skiing trip to my home country Austria and next week for spring break we will be in Mexico on the beach. Two more trips planned for this summer. And on Thursday we will be attending a beginners class in sailing - I am excited to make finally some recreational use of Lake Michigan!
So we are spending our money on experiences and a little bit on nice things. But every dollar we earn passive goes back into RE. And every dollar we make active get's stretched as much as we can. We have no consumer debt. We drive nice cars, but they are paid for. We shop at Costco, we cook mostly at home, we usually don't have more than one drink when we are out and heck - we even fly Spirit to Mexico (I know..). Looking forward what motivates me financially is being able to help my family, being in the position to give back is a huge motivation for me.
For every book I read about real estate and business I try to read one about life and happiness and often it comes down to the freedom to have choices. And my wife keeps reminding me about what I told her way back why i got into REI in the first place..
