Where did all the successful married couples go? Where are all the role model families that we can look to for guidance and mentorship? Personally, I have no idea if those families actually existed outside of television. I know that all the financially independent people I watch are young and single or young and married. Where are all the older, married, and with kids’ crowd? Did they get married, have kids, give up, and settle? Kristina and I consider ourselves a standard couple living in America. We just want what’s best for our kids and to live a peaceful life outside on a ranch. We thought that our life was going to naturally progress that way. We worked our butts off as employees and we followed the mantra of work hard, save money, climb the corporate ladder, and everything will be okay. Well, it’s not okay. We did all those things, and surprisingly the stress levels never subsided. The paychecks were never enough to allow for true future planning. To make matters worse, the idea of our children going through the same grind started to wear on us as well. However, through divine intervention, we started down a different path. A path focused on setting us free from the grind of the workplace. A path where our family is the only destination. My dream is to be on a beach somewhere, with the entirety of my family, enjoying our time together and at the same time being paid passive income from multiple sources. How do we plan to achieve this goal? Well… Before I get into our plan, I want to give a little relationship backstory. I find it hard to absorb what people are telling me without knowing who they truly are and what they have been through. You probably feel the same. So let’s get into a short retelling of our history together. If you want to know more about us, check out this series (here).
Kris and I met in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan in February of 2004. I was on assignment there with the US Marine Corps. We married in February 2006. We had our first child, Daniel, in 2006, and our second boy, Andrew, in 2011. I have stayed in the Marine Corps our entire marriage. We have been assigned in California, South Carolina, Japan (x3), and Florida. Along the way, we have purchased and kept 3 homes; 1 in Arizona and 2 in Florida. For brevity’s sake, this is the super abbreviated story. I believe you all want to get to the meat of the discussion, financial independence.
After 20 years in the Marine Corps, I was promoted to the highest enlisted rank and my pay jumped up significantly. My pay was roughly $110,000 a year. Kris, over the years, had worked her way up from working as a cashier for $6.90/hour to $20/hour as an HR assistant. Life was supposed to work it’s self out. Money was good, but we didn’t have enough to truly enjoy the things we valued. For instance, if I wanted to treat Kris to a fancy hotel and dinner, for maybe $500; it would come at a significant loss to something else in our budget. Kris and I are not very materialistic. In fact, I drive a 2012 Ford Focus that I bought for $7,000 in 2017. On top of this, Kris’s family still lives overseas. When we travel there, it costs a lot of money. Even making $140,000 a year, something needed to improve for us to truly get ahead.
As we were planning our trip to Turkey in 2019, we knew we had to make more income. I was offered a job as an after-hours instructor for military science. It was only 5 hours a week but it paid $35 an hour. So roughly $700 a month. Not bad. But we wanted more, not of greed, but for stress relief. We had a beautiful spare bedroom just sitting there collecting dust, so we decided to rent it out for $500 a month. And that is when everything changed for us. The minute you get your first taste of passive income, you will wonder why everything can’t be this easy. Yes, roommates can be annoying. However, when you look at your bank account, and there is actually money there at the end of the month, roommates don’t seem as annoying.
When we went to Turkey in the summer of 2019, I was very curious as to how much it would cost to relocate there permanently. I discovered that it would be around $2,000 a month to live there full time, and that would be an extremely comfortable life. However, I wanted to know how to live there and not use my military retirement. I even thought, naively, that I could put enough money in a savings account to live off of the interest. Yeah right, that was not going to happen on 2% interest rates. As I kept digging for solutions, I stumbled upon the words “passive income”. It was a magical word that I had never heard before. I researched for 4-5 hours a day, trying to see how to build a passive income portfolio. It was my new mission in life. That was in June 2019.
Upon returning to the States, we starting to crack down on spending and focus on investing. I always invested in TSP (military version of a 401k), but we wanted to build a true investment account. We started with $700 in June 2019, and that has grown to more than $55,000 in December 2020. More important is how we grew our cash flow. Today our cash flow, which is the difference between our income and our expenses, is more than $9,000 a month. This allows us to invest $5,000-$6,000 a month. And 2021 looks to be an even better year. It is amazing how fast you can achieve your goals when you truly focus on them. It also comes with a change in mindset.
So what is our end goal? How much do we need to invest before we can achieve financial independence and retire? Our plan is not based on a certain amount in our investment account. In fact, Kris and I are already financially independent. When I retire, we should receive about $7,000 in military pension and disability. I am at 22 years in the Marines, so I can retire anytime I choose. However, we have bigger plans. Our plan is to split our retirement income into 4 different sections (or sources). They are military pension, investments, rental income, and businesses. I call my plan the retirement 4-50 plan, which stands for 4 sources of retirement income, to retire at age 50. I am currently turning 40 in 2 months. I want to receive $6,000 from each source of income. Then, I will say that my mission is complete. I am currently getting my blog and YouTube channels off the ground, along with a Facebook group. Our rental income and investments are coming along as well. You can follow out progress with this series (here). Currently, we don’t really mind working, so there is no hurry to retire anytime soon. Our kids are living in the house (age 14 and 10)- so they are still close. But as my oldest leaves the house, we may want to follow him where ever he ends up. We are dead serious about keeping our family together.
Now, to the biggest question- what are YOUR plans for retirement? How do you plan to remove yourself from the rat race? If you do not know, do not worry. The fact that you clicked on this link means that you are already thinking of a bigger future. Changing your mindset from that of an employee to that of an EMPLOYER is probably the hardest mindset change in existence. We are bred, trained, and encouraged to become employees. Even business school is developed to make students into high-level corporation employees. Imagine a world where all your hard work goes into building something for yourself and your family. This is the world I am entering. I am here on a Saturday morning, in Japan, writing an article for my blog and my Facebook group. Besides being with family, there is nothing I would rather be doing. I am creating a foundation that my children can later build upon. They can read these words and understand how their parents bought their freedom from the rat race.
Becoming financially independent is not for everyone. It will take hard work and education. Most of the work and education will take place on your off time, after your day job. As you start your journey, your friends will not support your withdraw from the world of consumerism and employee-ship. You will find that you will have more money in your pocket but fewer things you want to buy. I used to buy 5-10 videogames a month at $60 a pop. Now it takes me a month to decide on one $60 game. I know now that I can buy an asset, like 2 shares of AT&T, for that $60. Those two shares of AT&T will produce me $4 (a year) of passive income for my entire life. That doesn’t sound like much, but that is two Monster energy drinks a year. My videogame can’t do that for me. Once your mindset changes to buying assets, it is hard to see the world as you used to see it.
Reading books and mentorship are also essential parts of your financial independence journey. Reading is a gateway to success. As you read other people’s success stories, you will skip time and space, and learn what took them many years to learn. As you read more books, more lives will be absorbed into your own knowledge database. Then as you set out on your journey, you will be able to take the parts of their lives that best fit into your lifestyle and build your own world. For instance, you may read a book on becoming a real estate mogul but you may only want to own 3 homes. Maybe you want to buy a $1 million mansion with 10 rooms, and rent each of those rooms out- that way you can have complete control. That sounds like a nightmare, but it is your life and your choice. The only person that holds you back in life; is you. I never found a mentor that had everything I wanted. That is a spouse (with a long-standing marriage), kids, financial independence, and a quiet lifestyle. I do see some multiple-millionaires with these things, but that is not my goal. I do not want to own 50 apartment buildings. I have had enough stress in my life. I have already deployed to Afghanistan while my wife was pregnant. I have already missed the birth of my second child. I WILL NOT miss the birth of my grandchildren. Since I couldn’t find a mentor, I decided to start my own group, Military Family Investing (you don’t have to be in the military). This is a group where we can come together as regular people who just want to get ahead.
I attached a screenshot of one of my many accounts. This is not to brag, actually the opposite. It is the 19th of the month (December 2020) and I have $400 in my checking accounts and $300 in my savings account. I have nothing left to buy from this money. It is just sitting there. I have another $330 coming in on the 22nd from my instructor job. And we have $800 coming in from one of our rental rooms. 2 years ago, things weren’t so rosy. We were comfortable, but we definitely didn’t have money “laying around”. I look back and I feel embarrassed that I wasn’t as in control of my finances as I am now. But I have to let my embarrassment go. I thought that there was naturally going to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Once I made more money, everything was going to be okay. I would be rescued. I was wrong. ON ONE IS GOING TO RESCUE YOU. The only way to get on top is by building the knowledge and discipline to create wealth. I cannot tell you how good it feels to be able to dig yourself out of a hole and actually prosper. Better yet, to do it with the person that you love. Our journey has made us an even better, stronger couple because we are hyper-focused on building the future that we envision together. Our kids are starting to understand the future that we are building and they are getting exciting as well. They know that they will be part of our future.
Does financial independence sound like something that you would like to strive for? Don’t worry, you don’t have to make a decision now. You just have to keep an open mind. America is not built on the foundation of saving and investing. It’s built on consumerism. American wants you to spend, spend, and spend some more. Consider joining on Facebook Group or following our Facebook page, links below. I know that Kris and I are looking for like-minded people. It is getting harder to spend time in a world of consumers and spenders. Please leave a comment below if you enjoyed this article, I know that it was pretty long, but I truly enjoy telling our story. We are just two poor kids that are slowly figuring out how to be successful in this world. Join us on our journey.
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Disclosure: I am not a financial advisor or money manager, and any knowledge is given as guidance and not direct actionable investment advice. I am an Amazon Affiliate. Please research any investment vehicles that are being considered. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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