Which Path to Financial Independence Is Faster? Sell or Rent?

Summary

Podcast Summary: BiggerPockets Money Podcast

Episode Title: Which Path to Financial Independence Is Faster? Sell or Rent?
Date: December 26, 2025
Hosts: Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench
Guests: Alyssa and John

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Mindy and Scott dive into an increasingly common FIRE (financial independence, retire early) quandary: for those relocating, is it smarter (and faster for reaching FI) to keep your primary residence as a rental, or to sell and invest the proceeds? Alyssa and John, a financially successful couple contemplating a move from Connecticut to Florida, provide their numbers and personal context, sparking a nuanced analysis of finances, risk, lifestyle preferences, and long-term optimization.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Alyssa and John's Financial Background ([02:19]–[08:46])

• Started their investing journey after reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad (Alyssa about five years ago; John much longer).
• Investments span real estate (3 properties, including Airbnb), index funds, IRAs, and brokerage accounts.
• Both practice a high level of financial discipline, with incomes totaling ~$290,000 and a net worth of ~$1.9 million at ages 36 and 41.
• Currently, they have a substantial cash position (~$400K) due to the recent sale of a property and because they are unsure whether to buy or rent next.
• Despite the impressive numbers, Alyssa remarks:

  “I feel like it's not as much as it looks like. ... I don't know how else to describe it, but ... it doesn't feel like we're there yet.” ([08:18] - Alyssa)

2. Current Dilemma: Sell or Rent Their Primary Residence? ([09:27]–[23:31])

• Their Connecticut home has a low 2.5% interest rate and is nearly paid off (6.5 years remaining), estimated value $525K–$600K.

• Renting would garner an estimated $4,200–$4,500/month but brings management stress, CapEx concerns (impending HVAC, roof, water heater), and property management costs.

• Alyssa doesn’t love managing properties:

  “I have, like, the personality that if an issue comes up, I literally cannot relax until it's handled.” ([09:27] - Alyssa)

• John echoes the appeal of their attractive mortgage:

  “We have a 2.5% rate. We're never going to see those again probably in our lifetime. And we could have it paid off in another, you know, six and a half years.” ([18:29] - John)

• The couple is considering renting out their primary for a year as a “test drive” before making a permanent decision, to support flexibility as they try Florida living.

3. Market Context and Timing Strategy ([18:01]–[33:17])

• The Connecticut market is extremely hot—seller’s market, low inventory, bidding wars.

• Alyssa’s prior experience in Florida (“waited too long to sell and missed the top”) increases her urgency to maximize gains.

• Discussion on interest rates: Mindy predicts that lowering rates could intensify competition and spike prices, so timing the sale may be advantageous ([30:12]).

• Solid advice from Mindy:

  “Get a Connecticut agent, and get a Florida agent. Explain what you want to do … have them send you these listings so you can see what's going on.” ([32:05] - Mindy)

4. Decision Framework: Number Crunching vs. Lifestyle Optimization ([23:31]–[47:36])

• Scott observes that the financial difference between selling and renting may not be material to Alyssa and John’s already won “game”:

  “… you’re multi-millionaires … The game is like you’ve won. Let’s, let's finish the play.” ([40:29] - Scott)

• The couple’s passive income, investments, and future military pension all but guarantee FI regardless of this real estate decision.

• Scott and Mindy shift focus:

  “The game goes from how do I optimize my financial position, which is what you were struggling with the house, to how do I optimize my life in the context of this? And that's a different game.” ([47:36] - Scott)

• Alyssa’s main concern:

  “The whole point of this move is to kind of simplify our life … I don't want to deal with this.” ([34:41] - Alyssa)

5. Tying It Up: The Peace-of-Mind Variable ([46:08]–[47:36])

• Ultimately, the decision is framed less as a math problem and more as a lifestyle/cognitive-load problem.
• Even if the math slightly favors renting, the stress and distraction factor tip the scales toward selling for this couple’s goals.
• Alyssa’s key realization:

  “Even if financially it would work out that we make a little bit more by keeping it, I think just from a stress level … it just doesn't make sense ... Is that really optimizing?” ([46:08] - Alyssa)

---

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On their frugality and “missing out on life” anxiety:

  “We just wanted, like, another set of eyes on our numbers to be like, you guys can live a little bit more than you are.” ([03:12] - Alyssa)

• On real estate vs. investing in the stock market:

  “[If we sold] ... and we have absolutely no mortgage and we are putting an extra, what, $3,000 a month now into, like, a stock portfolio forever ... which one looks better in the long run? Or is it close to a wash?” ([24:59] - Alyssa)

• On clarity of priorities:

  “The game is so far and away won that we can begin optimizing for something else that is of much higher scale ... which is the overall life activity set.” ([48:26] - Scott)

---

Important Timestamps (MM:SS)

• 02:19–08:46: Alyssa & John share their detailed financial background, net worth, current accounts, and investing journey.
• 09:27–18:29: The sell vs. rent dilemma introduced; detailed discussion of property value, rental market, and their personalities.
• 18:56–23:31: Deep-dive into the numbers—potential sale price, CapEx, mortgage details, and market timing.
• 23:31–33:17: Lifestyle stress vs. math; debate about what moving, renting, or selling would feel like (and whether tenant/management headaches are worth it).
• 39:40–47:36: Final roundtable—Scott and Mindy both favor selling based on lifestyle and simplicity despite the allure of “maximizing.”
• 46:08–47:36: Wrap-up and mindset shift—true optimization may be about peace of mind and quality of life, not just return on investment.

---

Key Takeaways for Listeners

• Math matters, but lifestyle and stress matter more. Even the best rental scenario can be a net negative if it increases anxiety or distracts from what you genuinely want.
• Don’t let “math optimization” override life optimization. Once the “game is won” (adequate/surplus wealth), it's time to prioritize happiness, freedom, and simplicity.
• When in doubt, get informed and leave options open. Use local agents, gather data, rent before you buy, and don’t be afraid to pivot if your quality of life will improve—even at the expense of perfect ROI.
• Advantages of military benefits can radically de-risk early FI. John and Alyssa’s case is a model for those with pensions, disability, or other fixed income streams.

---

Final Thoughts

This episode is a must-listen for advanced FIRE practitioners stuck at the intersection of “should” and “want,” especially those who are asset-rich and debating between optimizing investments or optimizing life. Alyssa and John's transparency illustrates not only the technical decisions of sell vs. rent, but the all-important emotional calculus of financial independence. As Scott sums up:

“How do I optimize my life in the context of this? And that's a different game.” ([47:36] - Scott)

---

Listen or read more resources at biggerpocketsmoney.com.

Transcript

[A]

Today's guests are relocating and they're faced with a critical decision. Do we keep our primary residence with the super low mortgage and turn it into a rental or sell it and be done? Today we're going to run the numbers to decide which one gets them to financial independence faster. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me, as always, is my key keeping his primary residence. Co host Scott Trench.

[B]

Thanks, Mindy. Great to be here. Looking forward to chatting with Ellison and John on the first Finance Friday in a while. We're so excited to be joined by these two today. Thank you so much for providing such a detailed breakout of your numbers in our new Finance Friday template and spotting an error in there. There's going to be a couple errors as we put out these new forms and stuff. So thank you for telling us about that calculation error and presenting your financials for us. Could you give us a little quick overview of how, how you got to where you are today and your background with money?

[C]

I would say this all kind of started for us when we read Rich Dad, Poor dad, like five, six years ago. John's been investing a lot longer than I have, so he had to get me on board with it. And I read that book and it kind of switch flipped for me. So I really got into it after that. Kind of started just by investing in. Actually, my first investment was in real estate. That felt a little bit more manageable for me than going into stocks. So we bought an Airbnb property in Florida. That same year I bought a second property, and then the year after that I bought a third property. And then from there I started to really get into it and see what investing could do so that I got into stocks between a few different IRAs, brokerage accounts, all of that. So it's been fun. Now we're kind of at the point that we like to gamify it and just see, like, what else we can do. We can take a few more risks with it, but it's been really fun for me.

[D]

It's been more of the slow and steady approach. I went into the Marine Corps right out of college as an officer and financial advisor said, hey, invest in a Roth, the TSP and everything. So I've just been doing, you know, automatic investments for the last two decades and it's, it's definitely paid off, you know, in the, in the low cost index funds and, you know, so we, you know, we can go through our numbers as we go through it, but we're at a good point now, and, you know, we definitely have some, some questions. We love the podcast, though. It's an honor to be on. Scott and Mindy, longtime listeners of Biggerpockets, the main podcast, and then BiggerPockets money. So glad to be on with you both.

[A]

Well, we're certainly happy to have you. Let's look at those numbers that you were so kind enough to share with us. I've got all of your numbers on our personal financial statement document, which you can [e-mail] resources if you would like to get a more holistic view of your own personal finances. But we're going to look at John and Alyssa. So we've got gross taxable income of $290,000, which is awesome. Yay. This is John's pay, Alyssa's pay, John's military reserve pay, John's military disability pay, and rental income of $12,000 a year. Expenses I'm seeing of $700 a month or $89,000 a year against that $289,000 in income. Where are you putting all of that extra $200,000 that you're not spending every year?

[C]

Yeah, so just like, kind of quick backstory on that. This is. I actually owned my own business for several years. I just kind of am giving that up now as we're looking to move out of the state. My income was a lot higher the past, like five or six years, so we've had quite a bit of disposable income. I personally was investing prob, like my take home into my stock portfolio. So John's the same. Like, we have a hard time spending money on things. So for us, I think that's one of the things we can talk about too. We just wanted, like, another set of eyes on our numbers to be like, you guys can live a little bit more than you are. Like, I get a lot of joy out of watching my investment accounts grow. And I don't feel like we are not doing the things that we want to do, but I also feel like maybe we could be doing more than we are, if that makes sense. So it's. But to answer your question, like, long story short, it's going into an investment.

[A]

Account, going over to your assets and liabilities tab. I am seeing a couple of cells that I am very curious about. So we have a total net worth of approximately $1.9 million, which is awesome. How old are you guys?

[C]

I'm 36, 41.

[A]

Okay. So that's a little bit Better than me when I was at that stage. I think that's probably twice what I was at at your stage. So you're winning. Yay. Where that money is located is $400,000 in cash. So we're going to talk about that.

[C]

So I have a very big cash position right now. I sold our Florida condo and I got back probably like $70,000 in cash. That was in September. And then I've had quite a bit of cash because we've been on the fence. We know we want to move next year, and with interest rates where they are, we're trying to decide whether we sell our house here in West Hartford. But we, we'd rent it at least for a year while we down there and just test things out. But I've been keeping a lot of cash because if we want to keep this as a rental, I don't really want to take on like a 7% interest rate on a home that's like 6 or $700,000. So I've been keeping a big cash position to buy down, like put more equity into the house, and then maybe you only have to finance like 2 or $300,000. So I've been keeping a lot of cash on the side for that. So that's mostly, I'd say 100k of that's probably John's and 300k is mine. We keep a lot of separate accounts. It just works for us. So that's mostly my cash. And I'm also like, I know it's a huge cash position, but I'm just like, I haven't been able to decide what to do about the house. So that's why I've been keeping it.

[A]

Okay. So I will allow that because it's a huge cash position with thought behind it. It's not just I don't know what to do with it, so I'm just keeping it in cash.

[C]

Yeah. And it's at least it's in a high yield savings account, so I'm getting 4% on it. So at least it's doing something. It's not great, but it's something well.

[A]

And if you're going to use it to buy a house, sticking it in the stock market is the wrong move because the stock market is incredibly volat right now, especially as we get towards the end of the year. But also just in general, stocks are up, Stocks are down huge amounts. So when you go to buy your house and stocks are down, that would really stink. Okay. So now that we've covered your cash, we have traditional accounts, IRAs, 401ks of 550. We have Roth accounts of 432, which is awesome. These are hundreds of thousands of dollars. $550,000, $432,000. Other retirement accounts, HSA, $55,000. Awesome. Assum A. You're just cash flowing and keeping your receipts. That's fantastic. Total retirement accounts just over $1 million. After tax stock portfolio, $425,000. Which means, Scott, they are not going to fall victim to the middle class trap, which is fantastic. Crypto of $6,000. I'll allow it. I don't love it, but I'll allow it. Crypto Gold and commodities. Sorry, that could be just gold. I have a little bit of gold too. After tax, liquid investments total $431,000. And your net liquid financial portf 1.4. But we also have an illiquid portfolio. $370,000 in investment real estate with debts of 178, 000. So 191, 000 in equity and estimated $12,000 a month in cash flow.

[C]

That's per year.

[A]

Per year?

[B]

Oh yeah.

[C]

No, it's like a thousand.

[A]

Oh, so we'll talk about real estate too. $12,000 a year in real estate. Well, let's look at those numbers in a bit. So you've got a primary residence of 575 with a mortgage of 153. 155. So you'll be at 419 with home equity vehicles are 48,000, other is 15,000 and beneficiary and other accounts like 529 or DAFS is 12,000 for a grand total of 1.9. Well, you guys are doing okay. What on earth can Scott and I help you with?

[B]

This position is obviously really strong. You guys got to know you're doing great at the highest level from a financial standpoint here. But you know, when I look at these numbers and I see 1.9 million in net worth, 1.5 in kind of these traditional investment accounts, and 200 in rental property equity with 12 grand in cash flow. It's got to feel like the portfolio is not doing much for you, even though it's a big number and growing. Is that at all how you feel about it? To some extent, yeah.

[C]

Yeah. For some reason it's like, I know these are great numbers and you know, you always see like I follow a lot of financial people on Instagram and things and you'll always see like what the average net worth is. And I know we're well above it. And we're not lagging lavish spenders. We don't live a lavish lifestyle either. But it just. I. I don't know. I feel like it's not as much as it looks like. I don't. I don't know how else to describe it, but I think you kind of hit the nail on the head that I'm like, yeah, it's a great portfolio, but it doesn't feel like we're there yet.

[D]

I just want to make sure we're clear that. Yeah, that maybe we messed up that sell. The cash flow on real estate is about a thousand months. So 12,000 per year. If that was meant to be per month. Yeah, that's not. That would have changed things drastically.

[C]

But yeah, if I was making 12 grand a month in real estate, I think I would feel okay.

[B]

12 grand is meaningless in the context of $290,000 in household income. Right. You've put in some numbers here. I'm glad you put in. Hey, the annoyance factor is a one on one of the properties, but it's still like, if you're earning like, this is an enormous household income and that's so small today, it could be changes in the future. That's got to be kind of head scratching a little bit sometimes of, hey, why, why are we in this when it's. It's such a tiny part of our portfolio.

[C]

That's what we are really strugg is where we live right now. We have a 2.5% interest rate on our primary home, and it will be paid off in like, six and a half years. But we do want to move next year. I manage our properties. I don't love managing properties. I have, like, the personality that if an issue comes up, I literally cannot relax until it's handled. And I can't be like, oh, let me just call somebody and get it done. Like, it stresses me out and, like, is all consuming for me when there's an issue. And I'm at the point, like, that's why I'm giving up my business. Like, we have a daughter who's three, and I'm kind of just at a point that I'm like, okay, I know we've done pretty well. I don't have to, like, have the stress of running a business. I don't really need the stress of managing tenants anymore. I have a different job now. That's, like, doesn't ask a whole lot of me. It's pretty low stress. But I took a pay cut. But that was okay, given where we were. I want to work a little bit. Like I do enjoy like working, but I don't want a ton of stress with it. But we just like I want to see numbers to see like does it make a whole lot of sense or difference in our portfolio if we keep this house, rent it for the foreseeable future and then use all of like our cash to buy a new home and finance the rest and then basically like once we pay that off, we put money into the stock market? Or does it make more sense for us to sell our primary home buy completely, like don't have a mortgage at all when we buy a new property next year, get rid of the stress of this house and then we would take everything else that we would be making and like we do have the discipline to put it into the stock market. Like it's not like we'd go out and spend the difference. So I just really want to see like if one way or the other makes a drastic difference in our overall like net worth in the long term.

[A]

And now a quick word from our show sponsor. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds you a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.combpm and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.combpm paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice price. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures My husband and I have multiple investment accounts across several different companies. Throw in vehicles, investment properties and private equity holdings and it can be difficult to get a good idea of our actual net worth. And frankly, between the kids, work and just life in general, I don't have time to be logging into 47 different places. So I just didn't. Scott walked me through setting up my Monarch account and suddenly everything was easy. It's all in one spot so I can check in quickly. Just like everything else on Monarch, the dashboard is customizable so I can see at a glance what's most important to me and dive deeper when I need to. Feel organized and confident in your finances with Monarch, an all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean interface on your laptop or your phone. And right now, just for our listeners, Monarch is offering 50% off your first year with code pocketsonarch.com don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use code pockets monarch.com in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first [e-mail] with.

[B]

The code Pockets When I evaluate debt funds, I look for things like first position loans, personal guarantees, deep experience by the fund operator, low fund leverage, fast liquidity and consistent returns. These are some of the reasons why I'm excited to partner with Pine Financial Group. Their Fund 6 offers investors exposure to real estate credit, largely for construction and rehab, largely here in Colorado. With loans originated by an experienced originator. With over $1 billion in origination volume, 75% of their borrowers have been repeat customers over 17 years. They offer investors an 8% preferred return paid monthly and a 70.30lpgp split of everything over 10% paid annually. The lockup period is nine months with liquidity available within 90 days. After that nine month commitment, the fund is open to accredited investors only. The fund's minimum investment is typically $100,000, but Pine Financial is able to reduce that minimum for some investors and have agreed to do so for Biggerpockets Money listeners to a minimum of $25,000. Full disclosure I am personally invested in this fund through my self directed ira and of course Pine Financial is sponsoring this message and our podcast. If you'd like to invest or check out their Prospectus, go to biggerpocketsmoney.com pine today that's biggerpocketsmoney.com pine Please note that returns are not guaranteed and may vary based on fund performance.

[A]

All right, welcome back to the show.

[B]

While Alyssa was going I was just putting in like this home as a primary. I say hey let's, let's try it right here. Let's just put it the sheet and see how would you guys categorize this this property as a rental if I immediately converted it to a rental in your personal financial statement and how would you, what would you put in for these estimates? Basically on it.

[C]

Yeah. So line where it says Seminole Circle, that is our primary residence.

[B]

Oh, sorry. Okay, so we do have this right here.

[C]

It's honestly hard to say. We live right now. It is the number one real estate market in the country, Harford County. And so like granted our house would, we'd probably put it up for like 525, 550. Everything here is going a day on market, 100k over asking. So it's hard to know exactly what we would get. I personally think we could probably get almost close to six, but we were playing it a little bit safe that we'd list like 525, 550 rental. Right now I think we somewhere between like 4200 and 4500. Just given what I've seen on Zillow that's up for rent. But again there's like nothing, there's no inventory here. And like the intangibles of our house, like it's a busy metro, but we live on like a quiet circle, walking distance to the schools, we back up to a golf course. Like so there's some intangibles there that could put us on the higher side, but we went more conservative. So 4200 is probably what we'd be able to get from it. Keeping in mind too, for the first year I would find our tenants and manage from afar, but then I have to put property management on every single one of these properties, which is going to take 10% off the top of everything because I'm not going to be here to manage it and do like tenant turnover and stuff.

[B]

Okay, well I like these numbers as a rental in here, so I can see why this is a hard choice for you. Right. This is $4200 as your conservative approximation of near term rent on a $525,000 asset is a great deal. Like I would, I would buy that if that was off, if that was for sale here in Denver, Colorado. With that rent to price ratio, your property taxes are likely much higher relative to the property's value than they are here in Colorado. Insurance is probably similar. I don't think there's a lot of natural disasters in Connecticut out there. I think it's like that's one of the appeals of the Northeast there. But so I imagine that this is, that this is actually, you know, I don't know what this number is going to be like for Capex vacancy management. That's pretty optimistic, right? Because if you have one month of vacancy, you're going to be out 42, you know, more than that. So I think there's a little bit, you know, maybe more conservative. But this is not a bad rental. Like this is a cash flowing rental. The way that you just described it here and makes, makes some sense.

[C]

I think the part we struggle with. So they're all older homes up here too because it's the northeast. So it's a 1956 cape. We've done a really good job of maintaining it. But we also know like that our H Vac is definitely, it's on borrowed time right now. So like we're going to have an H Vac repair roof. The roof would probably be the next five years, seven years. And then we also know our water heater is probably on borrowed time too. So we have a good amount of capex coming up in the next five to seven years. Which essentially I'm like, I don't know that I want to rent it and deal with the headache of it just to put everything into capex. Whereas if we sell it right now, it's such a competitive market, we don't need to fix that stuff. Like somebody buying it will fix it.

[B]

So that's what can go wrong. What can go right here on the rent side?

[C]

Oh, that rent could just keep going up. So the other part about the northeast and West Harvard specifically, there are no new builds unless you're buying a condo. Like there is no space to put up a new home. So if you want to live here, you're buying what's built. Like we don't have to worry about somebody building a whole new development of single family homes. So I think that it will stay a competitive market for at least the foreseeable future.

[D]

And what I was going to say too, with our primary homes, we bought it in 2017, 4% 30 year fixed rate. We refinanced in 2020 when the rates dropped. So we got a 2.5 and it took out a 12 year. So in 2032 it will be completely paid off, you know. And so that's the hard part is it's well, we have a 2.5% rate. We're never going to see those again probably in our lifetime. And we could have it paid off in another, you know, six and a half years. So yeah, even though it's an old house, there's a lot saying, hey, keep hold on to it. Right?

[C]

Yeah, it's just hard to figure out what to do.

[B]

What's the gain?

[C]

What'd you buy it for 325.

[D]

325 in 2017. So it's appreciated.

[C]

You know, I think it would go for more than 525, too, if we sold it. That's just like a conservative estimate.

[A]

I like conservative estimates because if you list it for 525 and sell it for 6, you just have an extra $75,000. But if you're counting on the 6, and then your numbers don't work because you didn't get it. I love shooting for the stars with what you're renting it for, because you could also just sell it. I love, love the idea of renting it for a year to test out your new location. Have you ever been to your new location or lived there or, like, why would you move?

[C]

So it's where I had the Airbnb in Florida, so we've visited there quite a bit. We really like the area. I am so over Connecticut winters. Like, I want to be in the sun. I want to be near the beach. Like, I want to live in a golf cart community and take my kid to school on a golf cart. Like, I just am not into the Northeast anymore. And what kept us here for so long is. Cause this is where I had my business anchored and I had all my connections here. But I've, like, decided this was the last year I'm running it. And he works fully remote, so.

[D]

Right. We moved to Connecticut originally. My corporate job was here. We moved here in 2017. So I'm pretty much fully remote now. I travel a little bit. But yeah, like she said, besides the weather, the other two factors are the taxes in Connecticut just keep going up. Whereas, like, you know, we like the tax structure in Florida a little bit more. And to be honest, the politics in Connecticut. Right. We're. We're bigger fans of the, of the Florida politics, too. So there's part of that is why we want to make the move. And like, like we said, we don't want to buy there right away. We could always test it out for a year or two by renting, and then if we realize that's not for us, we can move back to the Northeast. Connecticut may not be the place to move back to if we decide to move back.

[C]

Yeah, it's never been our home, so it was like we came here for jobs. It's not like we grew up here. Our family is not in the state, so it was for work. And now that we have the opportunity to go somewhere else, like, at first, when the housing market did what it did, we're like, oh, I guess we're here forever because we have a 2.5% interest rate. We're never leaving. But now I'm like, we have this money. Like I want to live somewhere where there's more things that I enjoy doing.

[A]

Okay. So the annoyance factor on this property is a 2.

[C]

We can't necessarily say what the annoyance factor would be yet. I'm just anticipating like knowing how many years we've lived in the house. There are little quirks with it because it is an older house. House that I'm just envisioning getting phone calls, being like, oh the. I can't even picture what it would be. But there are quirks because it's an older home.

[D]

Yeah. Plumbing issue or you know, just things, you know, cabinets, you know, appliances. But yeah, those are things we would build into the Capex estimates. And like Scott pointed out that $500 is probably very. We probably need to make that a much higher number.

[B]

But you're also being conservative here on the rent, right? Like you, you think you can get more than that for rent next year, Right?

[C]

Right. I think we probably could, yeah.

[B]

I'll run the numbers on the Salvers keep calculator and send that to you as a follow up here. We'll rediscuss that on the show briefly after we run them. But I think that my bias is going to be very heavily keep the thing for at least a year or two, but make a decision really well informed at the 18 month mark to hey, are we really going to keep this and abandon that tax free capital gain or is this a sell? Like is it not quite coming up to those expectations? But I, I think there's a real possibility in 2026 and 2027 that this country sees pretty strong rent growth. I don't know how that's going to affect Connecticut. I don't know that market that well. But I like places that are not seeing a lot of supply. And I think that the prolonged higher interest rates and the fact that all of their net deliveries across the country have slowed here in 2025 is a reasonable case for rent growth going into the next two years. That could be a good ride over there, especially since this property is worth more to you than it is to almost anybody else given the financing that's on it.

[C]

I think that's just been the hardest part of figuring out what we do. And then also I think we'd have to factor in, let's say I did rent it for 4200 for the first year. If like, I'll do the tenant screening and I'll get somebody in here and I'll manage it from afar. But if we choose to keep it after that and they want to move out and we have to turn it over, I have to get property management on it. I just, I can't come back and do all of that stuff. So that would just be something to factor into. But we've said the same thing that like, okay, let's maybe try it for a year or two, but then if we, we are wanting to unload it at that point, it would have to be there just to not have to have the capital gains tax on it. Because I'm like, if we're going to keep it for more than two years and I'm keeping it for like 10 or 15 years, I'm not going to sell it after year three and then be like, oh well, we just have to pay a bunch of tax on the property.

[B]

Now I have two issues I'm grappling with in this analysis because yeah, like you could say, oh, it's negative cash flow with a $3,100 mortgage payment plus property management plus more conservative assumptions on this. But that's not fair because you're comparing this mortgage payment to it, not its peers. These other mortgage payments in other properties are I imagine, 30 year fixed rate mortgages. And that is not the case on this property. You're using a very, you're using accelerated amortization schedule which is giving you a artificially low view. This probably can be paid off in six years. This is one of those scenarios where the decision for this house is not in the next five or six years going to give you that flexibility. And I don't like those decisions because it's not going to put money into your pocket in a really noticeable way. And that's not why I get into real estate personally. But you also have this unique, awesome financing at two and a half percent and the opportunity to pay this thing off. And at that point that, then all of a sudden the cash flow explodes. That's like replacing John, your disability pay. Almost as soon as that thing's paid off and at $89,000 in total spend, you have that property paid off and you have this disability pay. Wow, that there's a lot of options there that covering that spread adjusted for inflation is not going to be very scary for you guys as a household I think at that point. So, so that's one of the, that's one of the reasons why I can look at this and say, no, you're not going to cash flow very much during the next couple of years. But there's a real case to be had for keeping this property, even with the. The gain being excluded.

[C]

Okay. Yeah. And I think that's really what we were hoping to have somebody else, like, help us figure out is it's like, let's say we did sell it, and then we have absolutely no mortgage and we are putting an extra, what, $3,000 a month now into, like, a stock portfolio forever. Like, how. Like, which one looks better in the long run? Or is it close to a wash? Like, this is like a weekly conversation of, like, what do we do here? Which one makes more sense?

[B]

Like, I can see why this is really hard. This is like one of the. I think this. I think when we model it out at the numbers, it's going to be very hard for this one for a seller's keep, because. Because of what you got there. Go ahead, Mindy.

[A]

In the beginning, where she was telling her story, I heard her say, and I even wrote it down, I don't love managing properties. And is your primary residence a good rental? Yes, it is. We've already discussed that. But you don't love managing properties. You have quote, unquote, extra money every year that you're not spending. You're just putting into the stock market. If you don't have any ties to this location and you don't want to live there, why would you hold on to it for a year? Just in case. It sounds like if you move to Florida and it doesn't work out, you'll find a different location to test. You won't go back to Connecticut, right?

[C]

Yeah, I think that's probably pretty accurate. I think just for peace of mind, we know we're going to rent in Florida for the first year, that we weren't going to need that money in year one anyway. So we figured, why not just rent it for a year instead of just selling it and just see how that one year goes while we're also renting? Not that we would come back here, but then after a year, if it's not going well with rental, or if we are like, Florida's not it and we're not sure where else we want to go. Like, we could come back for a year or two while we figure out our next plan. It was just more to still own something of our own, just in case we needed a fallback plan. If Florida didn't work out after, like, a year of us renting down there, I don't think this is where we're ultimately going to end up, but it would just be like a landing pad if we didn't want to like stay in Florida.

[B]

Let me approach this from a different angle, given that Mindy's great comment there. That is right. You said you don't really love being a landlord here. Let's say we sell the place, we take our 300 and let's call it $20,000 in equity after sales costs. We add that to the pile of $413,000 in cash and you use some of that to buy a home outright in the new area. You could do this today or you could do this in a year, as long as it's within that window for the tax or capital gain. So I think there's an argument for, hey, you might want to just use the weight on this and hold it for a little bit while you're. You look for that next wherever you want to live next, and you swap that out. Well, if we go back to your income and expenses and we see, hey, you're spending 8,90 grand a year, but if your rent and mortgage payment went to zero, you use that to pay off the house. That's the same flexibility, feeling output, you know, as the paid off rental producing, you know, something around $30,000 a year in cash flow. So now we have to earn $52,000 a year minus another 100 bucks a month for golf cart service. That goes a long way with your reserve pay and your military disability pay alone, John, you could literally take several years if you made that move and not work or if it float a little bit in part time with your cash position still having plenty of cushion even after that set of moves and buying a paid off house of the same value. I also think that the argument for that would be in Connecticut, I imagine you're finding a pretty neutral market would be my guess. It's not really a buyer's market. It's not really a seller's market to the same extent like we're seeing a buyer's market here in Denver. Is that true at all?

[C]

It's a seller's market here for sure.

[B]

Oh, it's a seller's market. So it's just straight. It's a great time to sell in there.

[C]

There is no inventory and there's a lot of demand for wanting to come here. So everything is still in bidding wars, like going over asking, which is the other reason that I'm like, do I strike now while it's still like very. Because I kind of got burned in Florida. Like I could have sold my Airbnb like a year and a half before I did and made way more money off of it. But instead it took me nine months to sell it and I barely made a profit. So I'm like, I don't want to end up in that position again while we have still a very hot seller's market here in Harford County. Do I do that while I know I can still go over and I don't have to make any concessions on the house. Like, I'm not going to be asked to fix any of these things because somebody else will come along and scoop it up if, if the current buyer chooses to back out. So that's like the other part that we're like, we know we will probably go over asking and we're kind of in the driver's seat still in this market.

[B]

Well, great. So that's a good argument of selling in a seller's market and buying in a buyer's market. That's a really great arbitrage opportunity. Florida is real. Like, it's just, it is just devastation right now. It would be nice to sell, you know, after that horrible experience to actually buy into that environment to some degree. And I will say the argument there is, even though your debt is awesome on this property, it's relatively small at 155,000 compared to your asset base of 3 million here. If you did forego it, it would not be the end of the world. It would not, it would not be this like monumental decision that would fundamentally change your timeline there. That's the other argument in front. See, I'm now joining you on the flip flopping in the matter of minutes on what to do with this property. I don't like it is hard. It's really hard with this, with this one because it's actually a good rental in a lot of ways.

[A]

Well, let's throw another wrinkle in there, Scott. The current administration wants to see rate cuts and I truly believe that when rates start with a five, we're going to have an all out bidding war everywhere. We still have a nationwide housing shortage. You said people are moving to your location and there's a housing shortage and all you can get new is a condo. It doesn't matter that this is an old house. It's not like it's the only old house in the, in the city. There's lots of other old houses. So it's like it's a thing. Whatever you ultimately decide to do and next spring is going to be a hotter. Wait, when are you talking about moving?

[C]

So we'd probably be moving next summer, July. I think regardless, it's going to rent for a year unless something drastic changes and we're like, there's no way we can, like, pass up on the opportunity to sell it. So if we were to sell, I think it would probably be spring 2027.

[A]

Okay, so spring 2027. I don't think a rate cut is the right idea right now. I think that because we have such a shortage of housing, people will jump back in and cause inflation to its spike. But nobody's asking me my thoughts on the monetary policy for the United States. However, I can see a position where rates get cut, inflation goes up, and then rates have to go back up again. You said you might move in. You move sooner. If he's totally remote and you're getting a different job.

[C]

We could. Yeah. So my job, I was a wedding and event planner. So, like, I'm booking 18 months out. So I do have a client. Like, I do have two clients for next season already. And I kind of was hoping to only have to fly back for one of them. But, like, if push comes to shove, I could fly back for both. But so we were kind of hoping like July that so. Just so I could be here for June, because I have. I have a client, but it's not like a must do. It was just like, that worked out nicely for us.

[A]

Okay, so here's a scenario then. I would get an agent in each location, get a Connecticut agent, and get a Florida agent. Explain what you want to do. I want to take advantage of what's going on in the market. Can you keep me posted? Like, send me listings for the location, the Connecticut location that are similar to yours. Because let's say you've got a four bed, three bath house with an attached garage and a quarter acre. You want that kind of stuff being sent to you, because that's what people are looking for when they're looking at your house, too. So have them send you these listings so you can see what's going on. Oh, I thought I could get 525, but really they're selling right at 525. Maybe it's not such a big deal. Or I thought I could get 525 and everything's going for 650. Maybe I just want to cut and run and go down to Florida. Because your Florida agent keeps sending you price cut after price cut after price cut, and you are never going to get the top of the market for your Connecticut house and the of the market for the Florida house. But you could make a more informed decision based on what's actually happening instead of, you know, oh, maybe I'll get. I'll be able to get a really great deal in Florida and then just see, like, do you know what area of Florida you want?

[C]

Yeah, we do, but there's several different neighborhoods. So that's why we wanted to rent, because we just want to make sure, like, we like the feel of the neighborhood, we like the community. So we definitely want to rent first because. Because we didn't do that when we moved here. And luckily we picked a really great town. But we had said if we had moved here, we would have preferred to have rent because we do like some of the neighboring towns that just offer a little bit more bang for your buck, a little bit more property than what we got here in West Harford. But again, like, we picked great town, so we will see a great return on the investment that we made. But just for quality of life, we want to make sure we're picking the neighborhood that feels like the best fit for us.

[A]

Yeah. As somebody who moved and two weeks later looked at my husband and said, do you want to move out?

[C]

Out?

[A]

And we had bought a house. Renting is a really great option. We put that house back on the market three months after we bought it and it sat for a year because it looks like there's something wrong with the house when you put it right back on the market. So absolutely, rent. That's a great idea. I am older than you and want to declutter my life, so I would lean towards, like, keeping an eye on the Connecticut market, but selling when you can, making peace with the fact that you got a great return on your investment and your done with a property that you don't want to own anymore because you don't like to be managing properties even with all of the money that you could make monthly. I would just sell it to be done.

[C]

In my gut, that's what I feel because I just know, like, he laughs because he knows, like, I'm going to be the one fielding the phone calls from the tenant and then he's going to be the one hearing me being annoyed about it. So he's like, I like. And I'll be the one dealing with it. And I'm like, the whole point of this move is to kind of like, simplify our life a little bit. Like, be in an area that we can like, be outside, be at the beach. Like, I really want to like put my time and energy into creating like a community down there of like great friends for our daughter and for us that I'm like, I don't want to deal with this. And I also like this is just minor and my brain works. But I'm like, I hate the idea of paying a property manager to do nothing like 11 months out of the year and then like just come turn it over like one time or answer one phone call and then they're still going to call me me say hey, I need you to cut a check to fix this. And I'm like oh, like so I don't know that I want to put a property manager in it and be just I don't know. But I also like if it was drastically going to improve our financial position over the course of 10 to 15 years, I would tolerate it. But if it's like going to be almost a wash of having no mortgage and investing the difference, then I would prefer to not have the headache take.

[B]

All right, we're going to relocate for a few minutes and we'll be right back after this.

[A]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor supply suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds you a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.combpm and earn an uncanny capped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.combpm paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Incorporated member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Asset is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures My husband and I have multiple investment accounts across several different companies. Throw in vehicles, investment properties and private equity holdings and it can be difficult to get a good idea of our actual net worth. And frankly, between the kids, work and just life in general, I don't have time to be logging into 47 different places. So I just didn't. Scott walked me through setting up my Monarch account and suddenly everything was easy. It's all in one spot so I can check in quickly. Just like everything else on Monarch, the dashboard is customizable so I can see at a glance what's most important to me and dive deeper when I need to Feel organized and confident in your finances with Monarch, an all in one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one one clean interface on your laptop or your phone. And right now, just for our listeners, Monarch is offering 50% off your first year with code pockets monarch.com don't let financial opportunities slip through the cracks. Use code [e-mail] in your browser for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first [e-mail] with.

[B]

The code Pockets When I evaluate debt funds, I look for things like first position loans, personal guarantees, deep experience by the fund operator, low fund leverage, fast liquidity and consistent returns. These are some of the reasons why I'm excited to partner with Pine Financial Group. Their Fund 6 offers investors exposure to real estate credit, largely for construction and rehab, largely here in Colorado. With loans originated by an experienced originator. With over $1 billion in origination volume, 75% of their borrowers have been repeat customers over 17 years. They offer investors an 8% preferred return paid monthly and a 73% 30 LP GP split of everything over 10% paid annually. The lockup period is nine months with liquidity available within 90 days. After that nine month commitment, the fund is open to accredited investors only. The fund's minimum investment is typically $100,000, but Pine Financial is able to reduce that minimum for some investors and have agreed to do so for BiggerPockets Money listeners to a minimum of $25,000. Full disclosure I am personally invested in this fund fund through my self directed ira and of course Pine Financial is sponsoring this message and our podcast. If you'd like to invest or check out their Prospectus, go to biggerpocketsmoney.com pine today that's biggerpocketsmoney.com pine Please note that returns are not guaranteed and may vary based on fund performance. Thanks for sticking with us.

[A]

Okay, picture if you will, your daughter's fourth birthday in Florida and you have to go deal with a roof leak and a water heater leak and the furnace is out and you're like all I want to do is be at this party and all I have to do is all this stress you have $200,000 a year that you're not spending that you're currently earning. I say ditch the house because you don't like doing it. You don't want the stress and it's long distance and you, I don't want play property managers either. And there are some really great property managers out there that are worth their money but you're not going to find them.

[C]

Sorry Mindy, I'm right there. Like I have very high standards so I get like I have a hard time hiring people to do things because I'm like, oh, I know I could do this better.

[A]

We're the same person.

[B]

I think I'm now, I'm now flip flopping again back to selling the house here. And I think it's because of the lack of materiality to your position position here. What are we actually looking at here? We're looking at a couple that is really successful financially. You're multi millionaires. You're coast by several times over if you Never contribute another dollar to your retirement accounts. You have $30,000 in inflation adjusted passive income for life with the disability pay, you are still getting military reserve pay. John, we didn't talk about this but you're eligible for basically a full pay pension that I believe is inflation adjusted as well at age 60. Right. So whatever retirement needed here, we're done, right? Like we're all done with, you know, from, from that perspective, your largest expense, literally a third of your expending is your how your mortgage payment here. And the only reason that's so high is because you've done it, you're paying it on an accelerated basis. So once that's gone, you spend 60 grand a year. Even in your new golf cart community, you know, here Florida is going to be not a major cost of living increase over Connecticut. Kit, I think the game is like you've won. Let's, let's finish the play. Overall with your financial position, there's no point in this position of having these two. So I'm calling rinky dink rentals here that are tiny and that have a combined 200k in equity less than 10% of your total net worth. It's not your business. You don't, you don't care about this. You're not, you're not really interested in it. And why would you add another rental in your home when you have this tax advantage advantage, you can sell that and the other two properties as the time emerges over the next year or two, pocket that equity and put it into your financial position and then you can move into a more diversified portfolio and the game is so far over at that point. You can work if you want to, to pile on things or fund nice trips or increase spending, or you can just literally both chill and continue to pay for childcare so you can have adult time on a full time or part time basis in the indefinite future. Like, that's where I'm. I think that's, I think that without like really thinking through the rest of the situation, I think that's, that's so overwhelming now in favor of selling the property. It's not really about the finances. Like we really drive it, dive into it and what is the best financial outcome for that property. There's a potential to keep it, there's a potential to sell it. But in the context of what we just said there, this is a like, hey, this is a really good chance to just like reset the financial position and have so much cash flow coming in relative to your spending on a monthly basis that it feels good all of a sudden. It feels like your position is actually what you've built all these years is actually working for you to support the life you want.

[D]

We've been thinking similar, Scott, to Mindy's point before about renting as a good idea for a year. Obviously with Florida being such a buyer's market still we didn't want to buy and see equity go down right away either. So that's other thing. We rent for a year, maybe there's a rate decrease, prices still go down and maybe we catch it. We're not going to time it perfectly, but maybe waiting a year is better. But yeah, certainly me still working full time corporate. I plan on doing that for several more years still. Part of it is I work in aerospace and defense and there's always a risk of layoffs too. But it's a nice peace of mind. Just like you were saying, Scott, if I was to get laid off or choose to leave in a month or two or this year, year, we're still fine. We're, we're fine for several, you know, we're both going to work part time anyway. So yeah, it's more of like how do we simplify our lives and to that point maybe selling the properties. Right. They're not generating a lot of cash flow. Maybe that is the best play.

[B]

Right.

[C]

I just to like add to that really quick, John is going to keep his corporate job at least for another couple years. But then like, like I've already cut my job down and cut my income down and I think in the next like 5ish years, like John wants to also leave corporate and just do something that it's going to pay less but that he likes doing, whether it's, it's like personal training or like Florida wildlife, like something that he likes.

[D]

I'm not on a laptop, so I.

[C]

Think it would just like have nice peace of mind like if our household income got cut in half or even like more than that to just know like, all right, our house is paid off and we don't have any other like properties. Because I also, I'm always like a worst case scenario. I'm like, what if we put somebody in our house here and they're horrible tenants and they're not paying and I have to evict them and John left his corporate job and like I kind of spot and I'm like, I don't want to have to deal with that kind of thing, stress.

[B]

I would say that renting for a year does not preclude you from selling the home immediately. Right. Like then you just say we're going to pocket 200g in tax free capital gains plus, you know, the, the recovery of our original equity on, on this minus seller fees. Right. We're, there's going to be a large cash flow inflow. So even if you just set aside 40 grand of that to be your, hey, this is going to be pay for rent for the next year. You just mentally do that. Like that's great. Like then you can, you can buy the house after a year if you, if you decide, hey, that's going to be like our permanent place. Probably still into a buyer's market. If we get into really philosophically like which market's going to outperform over the next 30 years, I would bet you it's going to be Connecticut over Florida. I think Florida's got really tough challenges with insurance and those types of things. But that's not what this is about. This is about having a wonderful lifestyle for the next 10 to 20 years or where you want your kids to grow up and paying that off. And so the game is one. And I think that after a year you buy your, you buy your plug place regardless of what you do with the place that you're living in now. I think at that point, John, I'm glad you want to continue working, that's great. But I think that if you have $50,000 in expenses and 18 grand just with military reserve and disability and some of this other stuff going on, the pull the call of the wild or if you will, with that new job is going to come a little sooner than you might expect if you actually create that position of flexibility and sit on it for a year, too.

[C]

This has been great. I think you guys kind of solidified that, like, we're gonna get rid of this house just with everything, with what our goals are. I think it just doesn't make sense to, even if financially it would work out, that we make a little bit more by keeping it, I think just from a stress level and what we're looking for out of our life. It's like, like you said, Mindy, if we're solely living to just optimize, but it's bringing on a headache and it's stressing me out, then is that really optimizing, like, dollar amount? It's optimizing, but, like, emotionally, socially, like, is it moving us forward or is it just like another drain that I don't want to deal with?

[B]

And again, I keep coming back to that. Likely you do not feel rich because your numbers are not as big as, like, the Chubby Fire or Fat Fire community, but you are, because your spending power in practice is there. The timing will be, will be different with that pension when that comes in, but, like, that's a real asset. That's a several million dollars dollar, when it begins retirement asset. That changes the game and puts you well into the ability to live a chubby, if not fat, fire lifestyle pretty soon. If not chubby for sure now, and fat in the next couple of years, depending on how things go. And certainly at retirement age, unless something goes horribly, horribly wrong. That's something just. I think that's the big change. And now the game that, if you agree with that, the game goes from how do I optimize my financial position, which is what you were struggling with the House house, to how do I optimize my life in the context of this? And that's a different game. And it'll be. That'll be a mindset shift there.

[C]

That's really where we're at, is how do we optimize our life? That's been really helpful.

[B]

And now I stopped moving on the house because of that, that framing.

[A]

Alyssa and John, thank you so much for being so transparent with your numbers. This was really, really fun, and I know people listening got a lot out of it. So thank you for your time and we'll talk to you soon.

[C]

Bye.

[D]

Thanks, guys.

[A]

All right, Scott, that was Alyssa and John, and this was a really fun. On Finance Friday, I believe that Alyssa and John are in a similar position to a lot of people in our community. Maybe they got into real estate because that was the thing to do 10 years ago and they don't like it. Or maybe they're like, oh, I'm really having a hard time identifying with my net worth. I heard a lot of my own story in theirs too. But I really love the conclusions we came to them. What did you think, Scott?

[B]

I had so much fun. It's fun because my style, right? And it gets me into trouble all the time. The time. But I always start with a hypothesis and then I iterate. And so I was so wildly wrong in my first hypothesis because they came in asking about the primary residence and we're okay, well, what's the right move with the primary residence? But there may be a mathematically optimal move for the primary residence. But in the context of this situation, we kind of was able to zoom out and say, guys, like, why are we optimizing for a couple of dollars here on the ROI of what to do with this primary residence when the game is so far and away one that we can begin optimizing for something else that is of much higher scale or much more important here, which is the overall all life activity set. And we can kind of declare game over with a couple of key moves here. And what I thought is so strong about their position, of course is yes, we have a great net worth and good asset location and clear intentionality about building wealth. We've got good income, but we've really got these fixed income streams in the disability, the reserve pay pay that will go continue for at least a couple more years and then the military pension. And that's like the military guys is such a powerful way to achieve financial independence. For those who are doing it right and smart and have done a career in the military, they feel like they're underpaid in many ways. They are a lot of military folks underpaid for many years in these circumstances. But if you play your cards right and are smart about it and serve long enough, you create athletes assets that are really valuable in the context of the financial independence journey. Like we noticed we didn't talk about health care.

[C]

Right?

[B]

That's not a conversation in this particular case. Right. It wasn't even mentioned because of the benefits that we get. And so I think that there's a lot of really cool advantages there. And I wish more military folks would really internalize this because the world is their oyster in so many ways. If they're able to take advantage of those benefits and then pile on on the basics of a financial independence journey on top of it. So they're going to be golden. And I hope that the next two years are kind of the internalization of, wow, we made it and we can really design our day however we want. And if we want to build more wealth, we can do that in a way that's congruent with what we want. Two thirds of biggerpocket's money listeners are at least passively interested in starting a business after financial independence. That's perfectly fine for these folks. They can do it all. They can move to Florida, Florida, have what they want with that golf cart community, continue to build wealth if they so choose entrepreneurially, and continue to begin passing wealth in a major way to the next generation. I truly believe that's, that's entirely possible for them in every direction. And I think that there's a good chunk of people out there in the fire community who are in the same boat and just haven't internalized it yet completely. I'm very lucky to be in that same camp to a large degree. And I'm still going through that process saying here in this, in the course of this year, it's fun to see it and it's a wonderful outcome in it and it's now a process to, to really just enjoy and expand on that, that opportunity.

[A]

Scott, you hit the nail on the head. You said you think there's a lot of people in our community who are in a similar position but just haven't internalized it yet. I encourage everybody to go to biggerpocketsmoney.com resources and download the personal financial statement, fill it out and see where your finances are. It gives such a holistic view of where you are at at. Conversely, you can go to Monarch Money if you don't have a Monarch account. You can get 50% off your first year by using the code pockets when you sign up and you connect all of your accounts and it's more of a real time look at your financial situation. And if you have not filled out the personal financial statement yet, that is day one of our 31 day challenge. You can sign up for the email challenge that Scott and I have put together. 31 days of emails that send to you to give you a great, great starting point for where you can go with your finances, gives you a holistic look at your finances and then sends you on paths to make them even better. You can sign up for that at biggerpockets. Money.com 31d a y s All right. I think that's enough promoting of all of our we have a new website, biggerpocketsmoney.com go check it out. We have a lot of things for you. And we will continue to be adding new things all the time. Time. Because Scott is leaning into his inner nerd and becoming a programmer as well. So he is constantly looking for more things to put up there. And hey, if you're looking for a document or a spreadsheet that you want Scott to do his spreadsheet magic on, send him an email. Scott BiggerPockets money.com All right. Now I think we should get out of here. Scott.

[B]

All right, let's do it.

[A]

That wraps up this episode of the Bigger Pockets Money podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen. Saying top, top lollipop.