You did it; you achieved FIRE! After over a decade of hard work, you’ve reached financial independence and can retire early. You’re making more money than you spend from passive income, work-optional, and life is good. But your dreams are starting to change. Maybe you want to spend more on experiences, build your dream house, or move to a higher-cost-of-living area. Now, your expenses are starting to creep up, and your FIRE is about to burn out. What do you do, and is it wrong to return to work?
Caitlin Muldoon has had to ask herself these questions. After grinding for fifteen years, she finally reached her FIRE goal—$10,000 per month in passive income. In her current lifestyle, she’s saving money every month, but as she moves into her dream house and expenses start to rise, her passive income may not be enough. Does this mean that Caitlin is no longer financially independent?
Today, Caitlin is sharing her full FIRE story with us. How she went from one house hack and a HELOC to a six-figure generating real estate portfolio, the struggles she had with leaving her job, realizing that her expenses would jump after her husband quit, and why retiring early isn’t always the end goal.
Mindy:
If you think you’ve achieved financial independence and have left your W2, but then your lifestyle and expenses change, does that mean that you’ve really fired? We’re going to find out in today’s episode. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my still working his W2 because he likes it. Co-host, Scott Trench.
Scott:
Oh dang, Mindy. I would come up with a fun pun for that type of intro, but it’s just too taxing to come up with one on that particular item there. Alright, today we’re going to discuss how Caitlin built, I think a fairly traditional portfolio in real estate. Very aggressive, very smart approach. We’re going to dive into those details for sure and walk through. But the…