384: Net Worth Of $2.0M - Couponing to Millions And A Paid Off House Before 40
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Yeah, yeah, we were that was one of our big goals at the time. So some people don't think you should pay off your house. But for us, IT was IT was kind of a big deal.

IT really changed the way that we felt we had a lot more peace and a lot of more security. And we just I just gave us a lot of momentum financially. I felt like, and when we first moved here and I wasn't working very much, I felt like a saving money was like my superpower.

And keep on was the way I was gonna make my millions. And so I really, I was really good. And I keep on, I we hardly spend anything like twenty five dollars per week for grocery. This was crazy.

Well, millionaire and future millionaire, listening to the millionaire, the show, we're still here. The stories and interviews of everyday millionaire will unveils their decisions, their strategies and their portable, not your host jays.

Mattson dis is episode three international ty four.

This is the podcast that takes you behind the scenes with self made millionaire to reveal the real stories, hard lessons and surprising truth about building. We are your host, Jason Daisy, and each week we are up into the journeys of individuals who have achieved financial independence. Whether you looking for inspiration, actionable advice or just a glimpse into the mindset of those who've made IT, you're in the right place. Get ready to learn how they did IT and how you can do. Our conversations are always candid and only edited to state family friendly just .

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off today yeah today's we good episode job and we get network of two million dollars started out coup pon, which I don't think we talk about very much on the podcast. But it's also one of those things that come from circle as and we describes IT as something at one point SHE thought was going to help her make her millions. But ultimately, he started changing some of her habits over time on that.

But it's a great story. They've got a diversity portfolio amongst investments in the market in some real state. In fact, you've got the house across the street that their children will be visiting when they come to visit, which is interesting story as well.

So gonna be great episode of them, if you you like, when the shows and a email millions unveiled at gmail that come always looking for new, great, entertaining guests who are millionaire. And we had episode four hundred coming up, and we still need to fined the four hundred million, four hundred episode now worth four hundred million or more. So without any for little light, let's get right in the episode with josh and Emily joshi.

Emily, do you wanted just give a slight your background and watch ta now.

Well we live in um arizona. We've lived here for about fifteen years now. Um i'm an occupational therapy, my husband's a mechanical engineer and we have four kids and in middle that awesome.

So occupational therapies in a mechanical engineer, I want to do that kind of interesting. But before we do and before we talk about having four kids and what you're doing with them, what your network today.

Um it's two million, fifty thousand and fifty thousand.

nice. So just cross the two million mark. Yeah congrats. And how is that broken up?

Og of the number since i'm the number person.

so please .

say eighty one thousand and cash right now we have our home so we own our home, all right, it's about five hundred thousand. We we also have a rental home, so that's worth about four hundred hundred and thirty six thousand. We still we do have more than john that still um that's about two hundred eighty seven k on the mortgage.

We have five twenty nine educational savings plans, so that's about one hundred thirty thousand. Just a couple broker accounts for a fifty four thousand doors. H H C accounts for thirteen one thousand various different retirement accounts for just over a million. That's IT.

So let's talk about this house being paid for first. How long would you pay that off?

We paid IT up in two thousand .

and eighteen. okay. And was that something that you are aggressively trying to pay off and and get to a point where you had a debt free home?

Yeah, yeah, we were. That was one of our big goals at the time. I know some people don't think you should pay off your house, but for us, IT was IT was kind of a big deal.

IT really changed the way that we felt we had a lot more peace and a lot of more security. And we just I just IT gave us a lot of momentum financially. I felt like so IT was a good thing in our case. Yeah.

so when you bought that house, did you put that on a fifteen year or thirty year mortgage?

Well, so we bought that house like two years before in two thousand sixteen, we we just moved across the town and we rolled the house money from the old, went into the new. And so and we put in on, I think at ten year, a fifteen at that time and we um yeah we were we were the first house paid a lot of IT off, but we still were IT was a fixed or upper and we were trying to fix that up and paid IT off at the same time and so IT was but yeah we were we were actively trying to pay that all.

So you paid IT off in two years after you bought IT.

So correct yes, IT is wow.

So was the mortgage pretty small given than you'd kind of put a ton of equity and do what we bought? IT?

Yeah, yeah. IT was one hundred and nine thousand when we bought IT. IT was two hundred and nine thirty. Really needed a lot of work when we were buying IT. My husband to come in, make sure that there was one running faster and one running toilet so that .

we can move in IT was a for closure fixer aper.

for sure. Wow.

so relatively cheap because of that. And you know, put a lot of sweet actually into IT, so definitely worth a lot more.

Wow, so you you aggressively paid that off while you are .

remodelling IT too. yeah. wow.

And did you pay cash for that remodel as you were doing IT? Or did you take out a little extra funds at the time to try to get that done while you were first living in IT?

We cash load all remodeling.

I think we held back a little bit from the the first yeah, but we use cash for all of IT.

okay. So during that period time, did you turn off and if you're investing in the retirement accounts or anything else or shut down different things in kind of lifestyle and what not was IT, hey, this is the excess cash that we'd be saving anyway. We're just gonna in into the house at this point.

We just we just kept everything the same and we just work on the house. I did probably start working a little bit more at that time. Our Youngest was went in the kindergarten about that time well after.

In two thousand and seventeen, he went into kindergarten, so then I was able to work more. And he, anyway, so that brought in a lot more income that way. okay. So a little .

bit actually income plan away. This you get to a point where you feel like you've got a real nice piece of mind, I thought, did this rental come into this whole picture that has a mortgage still.

right? Well, well, we were. We were doing the dave razi thing for a long time.

And after we paid off the house, I kind of just was like, that's IT. That's all, that's all we can do. Now what I kind of felt like we didn't have a purpose.

We didn't have a chAllenge to work on and and I stumbled into, like the fire community. I like to learn a lot. I like to listen to podcast, and i'd listen to staking Benjamin. And they had a few the fire people come on, and I really enjoyed listening to them.

And every time one of them would come on and go read their works and and every time I read something to be like charge, you gotta a learn about this, you gotta read this anyway. And so i've kind of been listening to a lot of the fire stuff. And in my one of our good friends had just started into some reality real estate, too. And they were kind of paving the path and an example for us. And so when this um this house one to pursue across the street, but when to pursue and our neighbor of the street so bought IT turn IT into rental and I was kicking myself that I hadn't bought IT a man about a year later. I was kind of looking around and I found that the house was a person again and IT wasn't on like any um real estate places that was just like on well like sill or something that was something like that I didn't have like a router dealing and so anyway I went to approach our neighbor and asking what was going on and he said, yeah, i'm selling IT. I just want to get of IT so we jump ed on IT bottle that that I turned IT into a an airbnb and what year .

was this that you ended up .

purchasing? IT twenty twenty two.

Yeah, twenty twenty two.

And and you bought IT with a mortgage at that point, that free house. But you buy a mortgage or get a mortgage on the renal.

yes. So we can to have a funny story with apps.

We did twenty five percent down on on the mortgage.

So so well, everyone was freaking out about the um the stock market in covet. We were just throwing all kinds of cash into V T I. And IT grew quite well. And so we had one hundred thousand dollars sitting there in cash. We just throw at the the rental so we can .

so IT liquid out of V, T, I, to go put IT in the renal.

Yes, we did.

So walk me through the psychology of getting kind of that run up, but then going into the real estate market is an airbnb investor, short term running investor. Did you think that they're be more return there or kind of walk us through that because that's pretty interesting. Save up and go by the reno and now you've .

got a short term running? yes. So um what was kind of funny was we our kids are starting to get there in college to a man in college to a woman at home and middle school in high school. And our house that we bought isn't really very big house. So when they want to come home, it's not really a very big place to come home to um so we got all kind of squeezing here and then I was thinking, well, you know, someday they are gonna married whatever gonna when they come home for holidays and stuff like that.

So I have been asking the kids, I like, but how do you want our holidays to look like when you come home? And I was like, we could go rent in airbnb or we could, uh, buy a bigger house or you know, just kind of going through all the stuff because I was like, we have the means to do any of these things. So we just kind of want to know what your input is. And as we were walking around, I said all we could just buy house on our our street and you guys could just live in the street in the stand, the rental across the street whenever you come to visit and because we're like, yeah we'd like bad idea, we'll just stay in the rental all so um and I was literally just like a couple of weeks after we had that conversation with the kids that this house when up brazil and I was like, oh shoot, I wasn't quite ready to buy a an airbnb right now but it's ready, ross the street and I really anyway, we like the idea that I was right across the street and IT would be easier .

to manage that way so I was like a sign so this .

is the house for the kids to stay out when they can visit. But for now it's whoever wants to visit my home correctly right?

So that got some selfish besides financial reasons. It's got himself fish like lucky.

lucky kids. They don't get to come home to their child home, going to come home to the house across the street.

I like IT. We imagine them like over there, like letting the kids take enough. But oh, let's covered to grandmas. It's grandma's house.

You know that 那 声 那 so .

do .

you manage IT yourselves then？

Now we do have a managing company, but just does a lot of the communication. And all they .

do is the listings and .

they do the listings。 And anyway, we do all the cleaning. The kids are involved in the cleaning, so we have like a little sheet.

The shows you know how much you can earn if you do certain jobs. And and my second daughter, SHE, was really a some taken care of IT. SHE was very detail oriented capture, running really smoothly. And then he went on college.

I just pass on the cleaning fee and from, you know L, B, B, cleaning food to them for cleaning so they don't get paid pretty well for for that. So good and center for them. And in a .

castle on, yeah .

right? Yes.

nice. So nice. Nice look, cat flow .

and IT pays for itself.

Okay, cool. So let's let's .

shift gears here.

Spend a bunch of time on on the real estate piece that jol have done, and it's really unique. I mean, we don't have that many that come on have paid for house. And then that also went took on debt after the fact on real estate.

But I want to get into the the retirement in the market investments. Talk to us a little bit about the mindset. When did you start doing some of those? And have you always kind of makes them out well?

So Andrew was always doing some kind of um investing through work. We used to live in michigan and he anyway he was doing something and I wasn't really that involved and I was like what and then um when we moved to tooth um to arizona, then we I have felt like we were kind of just like IT a neutral point with our finances. We were probably like net worth of zero at that point.

We didn't have a whole lot of that and we didn't really have a whole lot of investments. But then at that point, we just um we I had kinda gotten into the day ramsey step at that point. And so then we start doing like the ten and fifteen percent in his work.

And then what we are doing that we started saving for the five twenty nine years. And then what I realized that, that we didn't have to always say for five, twenty nine years, we didn't always have to have a mortgage, that we could actually like stop doing those at some point. And so that's when IT IT got pretty exciting that we could like finish some of these things in mark off our listing anyway. But the stuff through his work was always going about ten to fifteen percent. And then after we paid off the house, that's when we kind of started throwing what extra we had into like V T, I.

And are you still putting money into V, T, I or any other market investments outside of essentially retirement or tax advantaged accounts?

Yeah well, we contribute max what we gan to rough areas every year plus my fork and we're doing and downs and our brokers account. But yeah, right now we have a set withdraw amount every make every two weeks make a pid of contributions just going insert into meti. Basically.

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be in today's is there point either change that or consider slowing that down or increase lifestyle or anything like that.

right? I know we're both big savers, and so we're having kind of a we're trying to learn how to spend and give those are two things that we are working on. I yes.

but but yes, we we are planning to, to well, i'm open to reduce my work time. So that would be basically slowing down our investments just because we will not be so that much income. And we are working on our lifestyle so we can spend a little bit more on on vacations and drive little Better cars. And you .

it's a tough switch, right? You kind of I feel like that picking away where you know maybe you consider, maybe you don't, but know you have a lot of people, sometimes they come on this podcast that get to get to this point in their sixties and they really can't turn IT at all like I just so many years of trying to like build up that base, safe, safe, safe, safe, safe. And then like why I don't know how to spend, i've never flexed that muscle.

How do I do IT? How do I get, you know, you think you have this. Big, big, big, big, beautiful tomorrow that you're saving for, but then you get there sixty years, some of the ones that have come on their sixties, like I I don't know how to do this, right? And so i'm always curious as well with millionaire like especially nearby where you kind of like IT seems like you kind of tip kids are starting leave the house you house across the street already.

You've got a lot of these plans in place. We're kind of the next phase. How is that mindset shifting to what the next phases? But as you shared, you maybe slowing down work.

So what does that look like? Do you cut back your hours, you take a different job? Or how is that kind of transition there right now?

The plan is to cut back my hours because we can still get full benefits at at twenty hours a week. So plan is to go maybe not quite to twenty, but twenty seven or something. Wow, that's the idea.

Least always stop kids at home. We can. I can have more time with them. So that's the idea right now.

But he always is working and doesn't have to be called the fiction al work. For him to be working something, to do things, is always got a project to work on.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Not gonna watching football or anything, anytime.

So do you have a target at worth or or income that you want to be able to peel off your investments down the road at all?

Well, when I was in the five, you know, look, reading a lot about the fight, we figured out that I was the certain number. So we've been working towards of that and .

then we haven't .

got got there. But and were and I don't know, I think I think we're kind of focused on lets learn how to spend and give a little bit more right now and not be so hyper focused on reaching that number and enjoy your time with their family.

Yeah for sure. So I want to talk about a couple of things. One about the career trajectories that you both have taken talked me about kind of that career path and the investment that you've made in, in what you've done and what you've chose you know from an occupation .

ent point well so I I chose my occupation because I felt like I was really flexible. I could either work on the weekends or I could work during the we days and so um it's one I work has change based off of how the kids are doing like or were they are at in their life.

So when I had a newborn that I was working saturdays just saturday morning, when josh could be at home with the kids and as they got older, like I said earlier that you know when the Younger start going to uh school, then I started working during the week and um so i'm not full time. I P R N at a few different places so I can pretty much say yes or no. I K when I want to work and so I just try to always be there for when the kids are home and a judge contact for himself.

Yeah, so I, well well, I got a masters degree in mechanical energy. So when basic graduated just after we were married, I guess we've been married for two years, so then I just went went to work in the motive industry for eight years. And when we were in michigan and then moved to two sons, arizona.

So we've been here fifteen years, cents. So just kept going in engineering. So it's been a good clear path for me. I think I really enjoying IT and some yeah it's been been successful enough for us .

is engineering something that you were kind of on a track to do from when you were kid playing with things, thinking of things. You're like how did that come to be?

Yeah, absolutely no. IT was since I was a little .

yes yeah, everyone. So you are destined to be an engineer. Mechanical for sure.

He he is the very typical engineer. Yes.

not so nearly or introvert ed IT as as you know .

the stereotype of he he definitely loves spread sheet. I sure love that he loves his spreadsheet because, boy, we have used to spread sheet.

awesome. So one one thing that you know you mentioned, you have a few kids and and summer starting to leave the house. What have you done? What kind of approach of you take in and educating them with money and money decisions over the years? And he may be even still the.

Well, our kids of things were poor. Fortunately I was pretty frugal um maybe even a cheap and sometimes and our oldest child's very, very frugal.

And um so when he was growing up, we try to let her go do activities like camps and stuff like that, and we would just have her pay for half of IT and we would pay for half a bit and so he would like go sell bread or SHE got a job when he was sixteen um as a lifeguard and and SHE would pay for her half of whatever activities that he wanted to deal. And so we've could kept that going with them. The have plan. And then as they're gone on to college, we've been kind of keeping that up and they've also chosen to do church missions. And so we've pretty much done the same thing there like you pay half and will pay half will meet you half way is kind of what what are .

thing as and then um you have any plan and paid for not other college expenses also. So theyve been you working and saving when they before they hit that points they can pay for there's going um and we basic cover tuition form and then they've also earned least the partial scholarships to help amount there. So that helped offset some of their cost. But so far theyve been very successful at that cover in college.

Oh, and also when they were really little before, likely had the rental and all that stuff. And we still do IT today, we had saturday chores. And so I was like, I was supposed to be the kids work for an hour doing whatever chores we have around house, like cleaning the bathrooms are, vacuum the floors, you know, those kind of things and we would pay on three dollars each for a whole hour of a work.

And uh, so IT wasn't really a whole lot and and but I gave enough like have the money to go do little things and stuff if they wanted to buy like our son, he would always go would go to target and he would always want to buy a lego kit. And so all of many would spent on lego kit for the first you know few years of doing that. But we didn't want you to be very much because we wanted them to feel like they still needed to go out and earn money. And so each one of them met, sixteen, has been proactive and getting a job out in the community to earn their money for college, such missions.

And we also sit him up with bank accounts that are early age so that they could manage their own money, have a debt card to you, start practicing with how to use money properly in. That's been good for them.

Sorry.

how old were they when you started some .

of these conversations and some of these habits action he was ten checking .

they they have listened to a lot of podcast and they ask a lot of questions. They're getting a little two personal to .

listen right and I .

know what to figure this one now um but we also when they turn sixteen um we realized so we don't have them buy their own car. We buy a car and let them use IT and are um oldest the first thing he did with our car was h go .

crash IT minor .

a minor crash. And so we were like, well, we got to go get this fix anyway. So after that, we learned that we needed to have like a thousand dollar deposit from the child to cover any of these crashes, you know, whatever is up to our deductable or whatever.

And so we, uh, so we started that in our second dollars. Like, that's great. You can hold a thousand dollars of my money.

Just, can you put IT in, which I A like, at least mean something. And so we did that. And so SHE hasard in a rough B, T, I. And so and are all the starter is to and our six, our third daughters just starting to drive on our own and so we ve got to go get her a rough b ti.

That's funny. Yes, our oldest daughter.

she's worried about investing in. And like you got ta get through college first, you worry about that one and you need yeah due too much in near a long term investments in the .

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Well, what's a rap up with some rapid fire questions? What's the most expensive of pants or shoes to protect?

Maybe a hundred books. I like to wear outer as, but we get on at the discount store in your dog.

Kay, what about the most expensive meal out that you paid for?

We're not very good at spending money. He guys, one hundred bikes, navy. I don't know.

What about the most expensive vacation or experience.

So we have been spending a little bit more on vacations since covered vacation. Ally, during covered is an awesome. I found some great deals on stuff, and we we've gone to quite a few. We want to florida we went to south dakota after our first daughter got off permission. We took a family trip to um for the recall and that will cost about six thousand .

seven thousand .

dollars for six of us OK .

I have not bad and we did .

take a an anniversary trip then we went down to continue. I think that one was like four five thousand somewhere around there, four thousand probably.

Kay, what's still on the bucket list that you're still on to the or .

or or places you want .

to go germany and I want .

to go drive in germany so you can go over a hundred, just kind of taxes. We drive .

over one hundred frequently.

That is between our parcel .

and who knows what? There's not a lot. So you go one hundred and still feel like you're gone anywhere.

Well, that is on my bucket list. Texas is on my bucket list. New york is on my bucket list, close to rec on my buck list. I would like to go see some places or older daughter went to hung on.

So I think I would be fun to go with her over to asia, some place where you can kind of shows how things are going go over there and and you spent some time in australia and I think that would be found to go learning. See how is that? We have ventured out of the U. S.

Very much. Oh um what's A Q S learn from childhood?

My my parents were very hard workers. They they um yeah be trustworthy and work hard, put in a good days work.

Kay, what's something that you've spent way too much money on but you don't regret?

Well, we have a money mistake. IT doesn't quite for that question.

But what was the money mistake that could .

feel the bill one time? So this fixed the upper house. We were trying to get um some really nice cabinet, but we were trying to do the cheap way. And anyway, we found our perfect cabinet and we found somebody that would buy him for us. But um so we went through IT on we were we were gonna them by IT, we were gonna stall him.

And uh so we gave this contractor the whole check, the check for all the money and um then we didn't hear from from for like three or four months and I was like started like trying to column he was going on and they kept making up these silly excuses and I was like, um did we just lose our money? Did what happened? Um we do my contact to our similar liar friends and liar friends is like, you know, you might have just lost that money and so anything way after a while finally they came up and they said, well, we actually don't have your money and we don't have the cabinet.

We and so IT took a little bit of time, but finally they they ended up finding some cabins. I guess we've a little too trusting and and no, we didn't realized you shouldn't give him all the money at one way. We should also given them like three force .

or half something like that. OK, how did you make your first book? Or what was your .

first time I washed dishes in college? I grew .

up in a farming town, so basic mode laws in the old toorak on a farm, yes.

So that was a farming town means you started moving loans when you were probably like what three, and then started working on the farm at six.

almost not quite because we on the farm. So he was like, no other people's lions like ten, you know, when you are just O K, O K.

He did have a few underground labor, child labor laws, but I know what is like. The farm communities start start Young. He start driving cars. And truth, when you like twelve, please, back in the .

nineties.

nineties. Kay, ah, what was? What was your high school college? G P. A.

in about three thousand.

Mine was a four point of my colt win. Might have been a little bit lower. I almost got sim law or something like that. But I missed you by like one a minus OK.

What habit has changed the most? You became a millionaire.

Hey, I don't keep on anymore. No, no.

I wanted hear the story on that.

You know, I when we first moved here and I wasn't working very much, I felt like a saving money was like my superpower and cuba. I was the way I was gonna make my millions, and so I really, I was really good. And my keep, honey, we hardly spend anything like twenty five dollars per week for grocery. This was crazy.

And you just stop that right? When you became a millionaire shortly there after.

I still make sure I have a few digital keep s cat at the gross start, but I don't do paper deep ones anymore. I I kind of stop that yeah, was probably about that time when I was probably what changed to more was when I started working more. I was like, do you know what is not worth my hour to do that when I can make more than that when I go to work? So yeah.

yeah. Understanding able, even ten thousand dollars shopping spray. Were you spending IT?

I would probably go on a vacation.

I don't know, I need more than ten thousand.

says.

The final one.

yeah, dreams really big.

You know how boy toys are there if they cost more? Yeah.

I tell my wife, I don't really like a lot of things. And what's they have zero s on him. So what's what's the top choice we need the budget of one hundred thousand? Or what do we need?

Well, I just find the mountain bike. So the car is next.

And so, yes, OK, 我 看到 bited IT .

the epic。

Okay, I used to write one of us. You used to be the bike of the year two thousand twelve .

when I had IT amazing bike.

They go there.

you that's my thing. We go back in every week here and and we can do IT all year around. So that's definite work .

as a good investment ah what's a closely help belief that you once had that you recently change your mind on.

uh, the credit card thing? So when, uh, we were following deep ramsey, we cut up and closed all of our accounts and then except for my one store credit card, that I didn't really consider a credit card because that was a store card anyway. So when we went to go buy, our rental judge didn't have a credit scores so we had to um get the loan on only my name. So anyway, after that we say we've going to go get a costco card. There's something so he could build up his credit or had .

a good current score before. Then I went to zero when we, we didn't any dead .

anymore because we had to paid, we had to paid off everything. So yeah.

yeah. Any ask for advice for somebody who just start out on a journey?

I went, say, dream big, living yourself, work card, go learn as much as you can. Right now, there's so much information out there that you could just take back on so many people what they .

learned and done. Network of just over two million dollars, two million and fifty thousand years from today.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

thanks. Listen to the millionaire unveiled podcast with jail mattsson. For more stories, investment opportunities and information, check out our b site millionaire when you will hear from another day in air.