{How Did She Afford That?} How Meg went from a shopping addiction to achieving financial independence in 6 years

This episode concludes the "How Does She Afford That" series where I interviewed creative entrepreneurs who have found nontraditional paths to financial success. It is the final installment of the series for 2023, but there’s the possibility of revisiting it in the future. Tune in as I interview Meg Nordman, author of "Have Yourself a Minimalist Christmas" and host of the Journey to Freedom podcast. Meg shares her incredible journey from being a self-identified shopaholic to achieving financial independence and retiring early in just six years. You will learn how Meg and her husband paid off their debts, invested in rental properties, and made smart financial decisions to reach their financial goals. We also discuss the power of minimalism and sustainability in their financial journey. Discover how you can build wealth and find financial freedom by changing your mindset and embracing a minimalist lifestyle!

Key Highlights

[00:04:05] Introducing Meg Nordman

[00:10:53] Meg's shift in mindset towards minimalism and how it helped her save money and prioritize her time with her children.

[00:19:19] Husband's income as a mechanic and their lifestyle costs during the saving phase.

[00:27:09] Cash flow from vacation rentals and how it allowed her husband to retire from his job.

[00:30:12] Meg's experience living in Costa Rica and the challenges.

[00:36:31] Current savings goals and plans for future investments in real estate.

[00:40:53] How to connect with Meg

Notable Quotes

• "The best day to invest was yesterday."
• "The definition of luxury definitely changed."
• "What is enough? Pondering enoughness."
• "Skill stacking: continually adding to the toolkit."
• "You can learn anything in this amazing information age."
• "I can do anything."
• "Opt out of cultural norms and still have a joyful holiday."
• "Follow your own path and live off the income from rental properties."
• "Find opportunities through networking and word of mouth."
• "Create a life that prioritizes time freedom and intentional living."

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Connect with Whitney:

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Instagram: @holisticmoney

Email: Info@holistic-money.com

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the Holistic Money Podcast. I'm your host, certified financial planner and money mindset coach, Whitney Morrison. Over the past seven years, I've taken myself from credit card debt and no savings to a seven figure net worth. I did this without a budget or a restrictive money plan, but instead smart, sustainable wealth building strategies combined with changing my relationship with money. In this podcast, you'll learn the ins and outs of my no budget philosophy, practical wealth building strategies, and key mindset shifts to make it happen. There is no shortage of information out there to tell you what to do with money, but teaching you how to think and feel about money, that's my secret sauce. If you've been waiting for a podcast that gives you actionable strategies to not only build wealth, but also feel really good while you're doing it, then you're in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome back to the holistic money podcast. This is part five. In the, how does she afford that series where I'm interviewing creative entrepreneurs who have taken a non-traditional path to their lives and who have built money-making businesses that align with their passions and their values. The point of this series is to find people that are living out of the box lives different from the standard narrative. That most of us have been taught and interview them to understand how are they practically and financially. Making their lives work. This is the last and final episode and the, how does she afford that series for 2023? It's something I'll definitely pick up again, probably at the end of 20, 24. Maybe I'll do this series once a year, just interviewing people. I know you all have loved these interviews. And truthfully, I have found them to be so fun as well. But we're approaching the end of the year. And as many of you may know, some of you may not. I am 39 weeks pregnant. So I am wrapping up my work for the year. I plan to take about a month off from the podcast. As soon as the baby comes, that will be an announcement that comes out letting you all know about this. So you know what to expect. But then beginning, January, I'm launching a really cool series that I'm so excited about. It's called behind closed wallets. Where I'm going to be interviewing. Individuals and couples anonymously to help them work through any kind of financial issues that they're going through. Like maybe you just got laid off or you're working to pay off substantial debt, or you've experienced financial infidelity either on the receiving end or on the delivering end. Or maybe you just want general advice on managing your money so you can more effectively hit your financial goals. Regardless in this series, I'm going to be giving holistic money coaching, some tough love when necessary. And expert financial advice. I guarantee you that in this series, you're going to see yourself. And so many people that I am coaching and you're going to learn so much about money in the process This is something that you'd like to participate in anonymously. You can go to my website and fill out the application to be featured in this series. Now. For our last episode. In the, how to shoot for that series. I am interviewing Meg Nordmann. She is the author of have yourself a minimalist Christmas. And hosts of the journey to freedom podcast. In this episode, you're going to learn how Meg went from a self-identified shopaholic to meeting her husband. To then achieving financial independence and retiring early in just six years. You're going to hear the story of how Meg and her husband met, how they paid off their debt, how they ended up buying a few rental properties and then how they moved to the Costa Rican jungle to officially retire. And did I mention that they're both in their forties with three young kids, we're going to be diving into their financials, their savings goals. How much they were actually spending to hit financial freedom at such a young age. As well as how mag relies on sustainability and minimalism as guiding principles in their financial journey to get to where they are today. This episode truly illustrates how you can do so much with just a little you're going to love it let's dive in Meg Norman, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks so much for having me. I am so excited to have you here today because you have lived quite the life. You started your career in digital marketing, and then you decided to become a stay at home mom and had your own series of financial events that led you to only having 200 in your savings account with your first baby to now, six years later. You and your husband have achieved full financial freedom. And this is something that so many people aspire to achieve in their life. So today we're going to dive in because the world wants to know how in the hell did you make this happen? Yes. I'm happy. I'm happy to share everything. It's definitely been a journey. Uh, I know that word might be overused, but it, I can't think of a better way to describe it. And for those of you watching, if you see a little bald head, I have, um, a little newborn baby here. It's probably going to be cooing at some point. Yeah. Gosh, where to begin? I ended up in publishing in the art world, and then in the arts patron world, and it was very much high society, and I was briefly married in that world. I had an art gallery event to go to every night, a media event, um, a country music hall of fame event, something like that, and I only had shoes that were at minimum 200, and I had a new dress for everything because I was always in the social pages of the magazines, and it was a really weird world, and I was only in it for about a Three years, but it was an odd chapter in my life and I was at such a high rate of consumption, especially with fashion and things. I wanted like all the pretty things I wanted the pretty house and I, I thought I wanted all that. I needed a Mercedes, you know, it was just, um, it wasn't me. I realized it and I left and initiated leaving that world and ended up in the West and I got into digital marketing. And right about this time is when my husband, Jeremy, enters the picture. And I was starting from scratch all over again. He came over, actually, to help me put my new IKEA furniture together in my new apartment. Um, just as a friend, you know? Just as a friend, how any good love story starts, just as a friend, I'll help you with that IKEA furniture. The next thing I know, he was moving out there and so now we've decided to, um, Start a life together and, uh, have children together and, uh, he sat down and looked at my finances with me and no one had ever done this and looked at the new car that I'd gotten. Uh, post divorce and looked at that payment and then it required the most expensive insurance to go with it and, um, looked at my school loans that I had and, and credit card debt and things like that and helped me come up with a plan. Granted, this plan was two people, so it's very helpful, obviously, whenever you're able to combine finances. But, um, he was a mechanic, and I was working for a tech startup, and I was making the most money. And we decided to take all of my paycheck, um, which was horrifying to me at first. I, I did not like the plan, but 100 percent of my paycheck went to my debts. And we started with the things that had the highest interest and worked our way down and we lived solely off of his check as, um, a blue collar mechanic and kept our, um, living expenses down low and the very first thing was to sell the new car and get the money back that we could from that and go and get it. An old used car for 4, 000 and pay for that in cash, and then we were able to just have the lowest insurance, the 50 a month kind of insurance. So that kind of helped snowball and, um, and then once we tackled my debt, we were able to tackle his, he still had a mortgage on a house in another state, and we paid that off. So we were completely Financially. Uh, debt free and it was just very strategic and very methodical and now we moved to Florida because it was very much a life. Lifestyle design, um, conscious thing where I realized I could quit my tech job and then be hired on as a contractor to do the exact same job and have that freedom. I read Tim Ferriss is for our work week. Have you ever read that book? Oh, yeah. The last interview I had, uh, she actually started. The interview saying the same thing, Robert Kiyosaki's cashflow quadrant and for our work week and the combination of those two books took her on a completely different path with money. Yeah, yeah, I was just, um, that book changed my life when I started to see things through that lens and I, yeah, I was shocked when it worked when I slid my two weeks notice across the desk and then also slid across a contract to hire me on, but just. Let me be a contractor remote and they said, sure. And I was just dumbfounded that this worked. So I didn't have to go into the office and be in a cubicle anymore. And now I had freedom to choose where I wanted to live. And he was a surfer and we were in the desert. He was going to go crazy and we wanted to be in the jungle, but Florida was close enough, you know, so we headed to St. Augustine beach, Florida. And, uh, purely chose that off of Google images. I became a stay at home mom and for the next year I was working, uh, remotely off my computer and then after those contracts ended was purely a stay at home mom. But when we got there, I was like eight months pregnant with my first child and I remember having 200 in the bank because we had just, you know, he had to quit his job. He went and broke his ankle skateboarding. So, he couldn't work until his ankle was healed. And so, uh, we were literally limping along and I had 200 and I couldn't afford a baby crib and I was emotional and hormonal and crying. But at least we were out of debt. At least we had that one long term rental check coming in and this was the Previous home that he had owned that we'd turned into a long term rental and in Florida, right? That was the one that He had in Florida Um, it was, it's in Alabama, his house, actually. Yeah. Oh, Alabama. Okay. You moved to Florida. So this is a huge life change for you because like you said, you didn't own a pair of shoes that were under 200 and then you meet this man who has a very different relationship with money than you do and you two start to build a vision for a very different future than you had expected. How was this process for you? Oh, gosh. Well, I had grown up very, very poor, so I knew how to be poor. It was such a different thing to at least feel like I had money during that one chapter, but I still had a consumption problem. Even if my budget was now shrunk to... Let's say a hundred bucks a month as a spending budget for myself, it would be spent, no problem. I may not be going to designer boutiques anymore, now I'm going to Goodwill, but I, I couldn't stop the consumption. And I didn't have a spending budget, looking back at it, there was a lot of tension as newlyweds and him very frugal, much more financially savvy, much more of a minimalist, and now all of a sudden. Here's me, who can't let go of anything, and I'm coming home every day with another dress, and yes, I may have spent a dollar or five dollars at Goodwill or a thrift shop, but I couldn't stop bringing in the stuff, and we were like a leaking bucket, you know, I was just, I was the leak, I was constantly leaking, and and, and, and, Now we had a new house, so I need new throw pillows, and you know, God forbid I walk into Target, you know, and there's new seasonal throw pillows. So it was things like that. It wasn't, um, large purchases, but I was a leaky bucket. And so, two months later, I have this baby, um, I was very, you know, blessed to have so many friends and family give me things, especially, you know, here I was, upset that I couldn't afford a crib, right? So I certainly wasn't one to complain. That I was getting all these wonderful gifts for baby items, but about a year into motherhood on top of having an identity crisis from being a very successful, uh, career woman to now a mom that was just like breastfeeding constantly and I felt like I had. I just could not handle this identity change. It was really hard for me. I was feeling very overwhelmed by this stuff, and that was when everything changed for me. When I realized that I wasn't getting to spend time with my child that I'd wanted so badly, because I was just in this constant bent over position, just picking up toys, picking up toys, picking up toys, picking up clothes. Bent over the dishwasher, bent over the sink, bent over the laundry machine. And I just was just cleaning constantly. It never ended. And I know you've got listeners that are just laughing because this seems to be the only reality of motherhood and or. Being a stay at home mom or a housekeeper or a parent. So I suddenly realized that if I just had less things it would take less time to clean up and I would have more time to spend with my child and this seems so simple, but it was just this massive aha moment. So I started I to anything I could about minimalism because I needed the constant encouragement to teach me how to let go of things because I held on to absolutely everything. So I started letting go and I started letting go of children's toys. I started letting go of my insane amount of clothes and all of my high heels and all of the vases and all of the throw pillows. And anyway, I got down to, you know, When we were eventually like a family of four, we had four plates. 4 bowls, 4 spoons. Ya know, everybody, everybody has one towel. Uh, there is only one set of sheets. You take off the sheets, you wash them, and you put them back on. Um, and so, really, massively, uh, this took years by the way. It was a process to get to this point, but... Uh, years to become an actual minimalist, and I did have this abundance of time now, and I was able to be present with my children the way that I wanted to be, and I was able to now write a book, go on a PR journey with that, join an orchestra, um, you know, just bike to the beach with my children, start a podcast, um, there was all these things that I had zero time to do when I was overwhelmed with this stuff. And bringing in the constant stuff. Um, so, all that to say, to go back now, I... The minimalism, like the letting go of the things cured me of the need to constantly buy new things because I'd just been analyzing all this crap, this clutter, this stuff that I had spent hard earned money on that was not adding any value to my life. It was actually taking away from my life. Um, so I was finally able to cure myself of the shopaholic problem and now we could save. And I can kind of get more to the meat of the story, but, um, once we were able to save, I mean, it was a huge deal. Once we hit 10, 000 in savings, like, we couldn't believe it, we were just like, oh, here we go. And eventually it became like this 10, 000, um, like milestone that we were constantly trying to achieve together. And, and it really was a joint thing because he was the sole income bringer, if that's the right word. The maker, uh, he's bringing in the income and I, my job was to not spend it and to be content with my life the way it was, to be very intentional with anything that we did spend money on. And um, so I totally had just like a mindset makeover and we got to, I think we saved 70, 000 and uh, plus a cushion. Like an emergency savings and everything and we bought a beach condo in St. Augustine, which is a year round tourist town and Originally, we were thinking long term rental because that's all we knew was our one long term rental But then we were able to look around and see What other people were doing around us and we interviewed people that were doing it and asked them to share their numbers or at least their percentages with us and, um, really did the math on it and we're like, this is pretty amazing. It's way more money than a long term rental would bring. So let's give it a shot. And it was very terrifying because it was so hard for us to save that first bit of capital. And, uh, but we did it and we got this ugly eighties condo that literally had not been updated since 1984. Even the throw pillows, I mean everything. And, um, we had very little money left over after, uh, putting that money on it. So on a very small budget, mostly paint. We renovated this condo and It started cash flowing. It started booking right away. It was amazing. It was terrifying at first. And then we were so it was 100 percent occupancy. Um, so that did amazing. We immediately recouped our money. We started making even more. Um, so within 2 years we had like another 70, 000 saved. Um, and an even bigger cash cushion. And I found a cute little cottage that was an ugly duckling. It was absolutely horrid, but I had the vision. I saw it. I saw the location was just amazing. As far as the tourist town goes, you could not ask for a better location. And so we got it, um, for just under 300 grand. The condo had been, I want to say like 220, 000. So again, and this was. Uh, when the market started going up, it was just before the pandemic. So the market, if you're looking at the graph, it just gone up enough, like enough of an uptick to, for normal people at this point in history to think we're at the top of the market. And we literally said, we are stupid for buying at the top of the market. Like this is so dumb and everybody been saying, oh, there's a recession coming. There's a recession coming and this is going to happen. Nobody knew what was going to happen, but i'm so glad that we invested when we did. Um, what's the saying? Uh, something like the best day to invest was yesterday. You know, um, and to not try to time the market, including the real estate market. So the first 70, 000 that you saved, how much money was your husband making at that time? I'm curious, just like how much your lifestyle costs versus how much money he was making. Because I think a lot of people have this idea that they need to be making a lot of money to be able to save 70, 000. And you mentioned that your husband was blue collar. He was a mechanic. So do you remember how much he was making and how much you all were spending? To be able to get to that 70, 000. Yeah, I'm going to estimate he was making about 90, 000. Uh, I remember the, one of the last years he made 120, 000 and that is not necessarily normal numbers for a mechanic. Um, he worked for a Toyota dealership and he, Unfortunately, he worked from like 6 in the morning till 6 in the evening. He didn't take lunch breaks. He ate a peanut butter and jelly, like, standing up under the lift under a vehicle while working. And, uh, the way that they're paid is per job. And so he was very, very organized. I mean, he had, like, these little carts that pull out and his tools. He is the most OCD, like, organized mechanic you've ever seen. so maybe the guy in the bay next to him was making 50 grand a year, but he was hustling hard. He calls, he called it a money grab. He said, this is our money grab and he was just working as hard as he could and grabbing all the money and just, um, and so that was, we're currently in another money grab chapter. So he had his money grab and it was only for four years of working that hard, but the point for us, we had a very clear vision. was for him to be able to spend time with the children while they were little. And right now, this is our third, the one that I'm holding in our list. And he's marveling at infancy because he's like, I missed all this. I missed all of these cool little things that he's watching this one do because I had to work so hard, uh, in that. chapter. And most people do. Most people, whether it's blue collar or white collar, most people are having to outsource their living and send their children to preschool and send their kids to school and go into work. Um, and they do that until they're, you know, 67 years old. And Uh, they're missing a lot of this and he's like, I just, I don't want to miss any more than I have to. So he, it was a very, he wanted to retire by age 40. We achieved it, uh, ahead of schedule, but he was like, by 40, by golly, I am spending time with my family. And so, yeah, it wasn't a whole lot of money, but we found a rental that we were paying a thousand a month. She increased every year, so I think we were at about 1200 a month. By the time we left, six years later, uh, the same rental, of course, now is getting over 1, 800 a month, last I heard. So, um, we were able to find, it was not beautiful living, so I went from a beautiful house with a shiny new Mercedes, once upon a time, to now I was in a duplex, from the 70s, with a rusty chain link fence, and I had an old 1990... Seven forerunner with a rusted bumper, you know, it wasn't by anybody looking from the outside in, this was not luxurious lifestyle, but to me, eventually we were like, this is very luxurious. When you think about it, we, we got to. Leave the workforce and we're biking to the beach and all we have to do is clean our vacation rentals once or twice a week, you know, um, but we're getting to make all our food from scratch, um, just like really live life. So, uh, the definition of luxury. I think money in the bank is actually such a luxury. And I think that we have this because of capitalism, because of the country that we live in, because of a lot of the ways that advertising and marketing makes us feel about what we should have in our life and makes us feel about money. We believe that luxury is nice cars, nice homes, but when you really start to think about the, like you said, what it was like to have all the stuff, to have the debt, to have the constant feeling of, I need to show up to work every single day to make sure I can get these bills paid on time versus what you're describing now, which is like, look, we're not prioritizing the stuff we're prioritizing our life. And now we have time freedom. You really start to question what you're Is real freedom. And that's exactly what you and your husband have done. And I think that's so fascinating, that shift in mindset. And I think more people, if they understood this as an option of living, I think more people would go after it. I agree. I agree. So you two bought your, the vacation rental in Florida that you did small renovations on where were you living at the time when you bought that first vacation rental? So we were in a rental ourselves. So for us, there was a big aha moment to not spend our money on a mortgage, but to only spend our money on things that will pay us. So, um, you know, lots of people can argue whether it's better to rent or to own your own home. But for our particular case, having a low rent option, which we were fortunate to find, was our best because we were able to save so much so quickly. And, um, yeah, so we were just in that crappy little duplex rental living in one side. We had. horrible, uh, folks over on the other side. It was not anyone's ideal situation, but we knew that this was a short chapter and that we just had to like grit our teeth and get through this grind. So yeah, so that was part of the saving money to get the next one, which again was terrifying because we had just watched our bank account go way up high again. And now our bank account just plummeted. Um, again, it was like 500 in the bank the day that that money transferred. Of course, there was paychecks and things that came, other rentals and things that came through, so it didn't stay there longer than a day, but still terrifying to see yourself go from a high amount of savings to about 500. And again, only a budget for paint. So, our place, if I say so myself, is absolutely stunning, but... 80 percent of everything in there was found off the side of the road or extremely, extremely cheap off of marketplace or the buy nothing group or something like that. And, uh, we turned the ugly duckling into a beautiful coastal cottage and accidentally timed it perfectly with the pandemic. So just a few months after the pandemic, when, when everything reopened and we saw that this cottage was going to be renting and renting. With great numbers, he felt confident enough to leave the workforce and retired. And that was just absolutely terrifying, especially for him as like the man of the house and the one who brought in the money and the income to now leave a very stable job and help me clean the places because we managed them ourselves. And I managed them, and I cleaned them, and now I had someone to help me, it's great. And we just had all this time together, and so we spent the next two years just really enjoying being with each other, finally. And being with our children, and it took very little time to go in there and clean the properties between guests. And so, the next stage was to finally achieve the dream of moving to the jungle, which originally had been Nicaragua. But then the politics got crazy. So we shifted our focus to Costa Rica. And so we had again, savings goals to achieve. And um, yes, I don't know if you want to talk about that. Yeah. So I want to know if you know the specifics of your numbers, I'd love to hear it because do you remember how much both of your properties were cash flowing at the time that allowed your husband to leave? Work when we were collecting the cleaning fee as well. We make somewhere between like 55, 000 to 70, 000. Yeah, I think for per property. It's really good because it's a year round tourist destination and especially during those years. Um, our numbers looked. That astounding. Was that after you paid, um, like the mortgage and internet and all the other expenses that went along with the property. Is that right? Yes. And we also pretty much paid off the condo, so that one feels mostly like just pure profit coming in, and we still have a pretty hefty mortgage on the cottage, but it allows dogs, so it books all the time, and uh, yeah, so I think there's probably about 2, 000 that goes to the mortgage and expenses per month for the cottage, but then everything on top of that, which is probably, I don't know, Three to 5, 000 extra a month that we're making from that one. Okay. So this is with two properties. You and your husband are making about a hundred thousand dollars a year in cashflow. That is amazing. Yeah, it was. And we constantly. I've been asking ourself, what is enough, like pondering enoughness and which started with the minimalism, you know, like what is it enough as far as dishes, what's enough as far as furniture, what's enough as far as clothes. And it came down to money because it was really easy to see how people end up becoming owners of like a hundred properties, especially when you start using leverage and easy snowball effect. And so while we are going to continue, um, now at that point in time, we said, you know what, this is enough. We don't spend that much money. We don't need that much money to enjoy our life. And, um, especially if we're able to live in a very self sustainable way and grow our own food. And, um, he's a woodworker. I love sewing, uh, things that we've got to really explore more once we had the time to do so. Yeah. So that was when we, Wanted to implement geo arbitrage, which is a fancy word used in the, uh, financial independence world, um, for living somewhere where the dollar will go further than it will in the U. S. And so, uh, in Nicaragua, you know, it's everything so cheap, Panama, Ecuador, everything so cheap. And for the longest time, it's been the case for Costa Rica as well. And, um, we. Visited, we went on vacations, uh, throughout this period, you know, taking Spirit Airlines with just a backpack. Very frugal vacations, but, um, we knew that Costa Rica was a place that we could do that. So we finally, uh, get a property manager and we hire on a cleaning team and it was very terrifying, but again, big change and we do it and we take our family of four at this point to Costa Rica. And, um, I ended up house, I found out about house sitting in Costa Rica, and it's a big thing. And so we had a free place to live for the first five months there. Um, so we, our goal was to live there for 1, 000 a month, um, or 1, 500 a month max. That was kind of our span that we gave ourselves. So, um, with the free rent, we were definitely able to achieve that. And then... I got pregnant pretty much as soon as we landed in Costa Rica. Not fully intentional. That's a whole nother story. But, um, I was, uh, Felt like I was free falling because this was not our house and we knew we had to leave at some point when the owners came back and I was like, where am I going to birth this baby? I don't know which house I'm going to be living in or what city or anything. So, um, I ended up finding a midwife, an American midwife that lived out there and. Getting a log cabin, open air, the other one was also a log cabin, open air. Out deep in a hundred acres of primary rainforest, it came with two horses, we ended up getting chickens, we planted a garden right away. And it turns out Costa Rica is extremely expensive right now. Just FYI for anyone listening, wanting to replicate this. Um, there's a reason we're back now. Uh, there's a 40 percent import tax on goods. So we showed up with a backpack each and one small carry on doing our minimalist thing. And now we had a house and we needed all of the things and we were shocked to see the prices. And, uh, we needed to be able to build things, you know, so my husband needed tools. Oh my gosh, tools are so expensive. Uh, just to give you an example, like a real life example, a 59 saw. At a Home Depot in the U. S. is over 300 in Costa Rica. So, that big of an amount. That's the difference. And it's for everything. Even a bouncy for a baby is 300 there. So, there is not an abundance of things like there is in the U. S. You know, I told you I was able to just drive around on Sundays and pick up free furniture and put a coat of white on it to furnish one of our rentals. Because there's such an abundance of things that people just put out really good things. They just want newer, bigger, better. There, there's no abundance of things. Every tiny thing, I'm talking like pickle jars, will get up cycled and passed down to family members or friends. Like nothing is thrown away. Because the abundance isn't there and nobody can really afford anything. So, um, Luckily, he's good at woodworking, and I'm good at sewing, so we made most of everything that we needed for ourselves. Um, I'm, and I'm serious, like everything, we made everything. And we kept in, in our 1, 500 a month budget, but it was really hard. There was a lot of rice and beans. We grew as much as we could. We, you know, shopped, uh, with local Costa Rican, uh, Tico farmers and, um. We found a cabin for 600 a month, but it was hard living. I mean, really, I felt like a pioneer. I was hand washing my clothes. I was hanging it on the line. I was making all my bread from scratch. If you look at my Instagram, it looks beautiful and romantic and picturesque. It's very cottagecore, but in reality, it's very, very hard, and there was no glass in the windows, there were no screens, we were eaten alive by bugs, we shared our house with lots of creatures, and, um, I had an amazing time, I, I, that sounds like I'm complaining and it's horrible because on the flip side, we were hiking to waterfalls and finding like natural water slides and we were just in this gorgeous jungle and going to the beach. He was riding a motorcycle every morning, crazy mountain roads and going to Dominical with massive waves and surfing every morning. So we did the thing that we wanted. It was, I would never take back that experience. And, but now that it has ended, I look at it as a sabbatical. Um, you know, we went into it thinking this was permanent, but we hit a year and a half, and we had to do a border run to Panama, because you have to do that to keep a tourist visa going every 90 days. And we had an Airbnb that had air condition and glass in the windows, and it was so amazing. And you were like, this is nice. We're staying here. Yeah, we, I mean, we were living without a microwave or an oven or a toaster, anything we had, you know, that we had like no appliances or electronics. We constantly were without electricity and without water. So anyway, we're coming back from this border run and my husband says, it doesn't have to be this hard. And my whole body relaxed and I was like, Oh, thank God. So we ended up breaking our lease and, um, selling, we had two vehicles and a motorcycle and, and all this stuff and, we got all of our money back. We had put into this, um, chapter, and have come back, and now have discovered you cannot leave your houses, uh, unattended for 16 months. they were in rough shape and we, we knew they would need touch up paint or something like that, but we were very naive, wow, were you able to save money while you were in Costa Rica? And now that you're back and you're managing these rentals, what are you thinking will be next for you two? Yes, so we weren't able to save because we kept within that budget, so we've kind of continued at that same pace. We have currently another 75, 000 that we're wanting to put down for another property, um, or another investment. We're trying to time it right because the market is very volatile. And we're still putting all of the income that we get from the rentals into. Uh, index files. And so, you know, a few weeks ago we were way up and at the moment we are way down. Um, so it's a, a bit of a, uh, a gamble as always. It will eventually always go back up. Um, so we're just trying to find that right time to pull the cash out and make our next move. And, um, At the moment, I don't know if this is the deal that we will go through with, but it'll give you an idea of the things that we're looking at. We have a word of mouth deal for four homes, possibly around 100, 000 for all four, and they are currently Section 8 housing. So we've done a deep dive on researching this. I'm very excited about it. And so we could have four more rentals, um, if the deal goes through. If it. Is it, um, as good as we think it is. We're going to go look at the houses soon. Yeah, so we're looking at opportunities like this. The really good deals are all word of mouth ones. Nothing that's on the MLS has been a good deal, so it's, it really requires us being on the ground and talking to folks and telling them that we're looking. So. Something is going to happen soon. Yes. This is something that I think a lot of people need to know about real estate investing is that there are always opportunities available. It's just what you're doing to find them. And it's not always going to be on the MLS. I had an interview last week where I talked to someone where she was like, I went walking in this neighborhood and I met this man that had his house for sale. He was an older man and I ended up talking to him for a couple hours. And then we went under contract with 10 and a bag of tacos, you know, and that was how she ended up getting her second or third rental property. So it really is about networking and meeting people and telling them what you're up to. So Meg, what an incredible journey that you and your husband have been on over these past six years. You both have completely retired from the workforce and you're just pursuing your path and real estate investing and spending time with your family. If you were to give someone advice, who's listening to this and thinking to themselves, I want what Meg has. I want to change my life. I want to start to live off the income from my rental properties. What advice would you give them? Oh, I have so much advice, but the first thing that came to mind was, um, skill stacking. That's probably not normal financial advice, but a lot of what we've been able to achieve is because We have a lot of skills and we're continually adding to the toolkit. Um, the more that you can do yourself, obviously the less you're having to contract out, and the better it's going to be. And, uh, just the faster you can save your money. So, um, we're in this amazing information age with AI and YouTube at our fingertips. And you can learn anything. And at this point we're pretty proficient at, woodworking, plumbing, uh, electricity, uh, anything mechanical, anything structural, sewing. Like it's, it's pretty insane. The amount of skills that we've gotten in and it just takes just saying I can do anything he's no longer a full time mechanic. I'm no longer in publishing and digital marketing. We are real estate investors, I think that's great advice because most people that I've interviewed in this series who have made a creative lifestyle work have brought a level of skills that they have developed. Not because they went to trade school and had someone teach them how to do these things It's because they had the mindset of I can do this myself I can figure it out and because of that that is how they've literally built something from nothing So Meg, thank you so much for your time today for bringing on your little baby And and sharing what an incredible journey you and your husband have made been on. I would love to end with you just telling listeners how they can find you if they're interested in learning more about your life and your book. Please tell us. Um, yeah, the best place to find me is Meg Nordman on Instagram or Twitter. That's M E G N O R D M A N N. my book is, uh, on Amazon and it's have yourself a minimalist Christmas. So I know there's lots of books about minimalism already, but this was a particularly difficult time of year for me. Even after I felt like a minimalist, uh, then now you have a very consumerist, um, focused season. And when you're a mother with children, it's very, very hard. Um, so. That was what this book was about was how to opt out of the cultural norms around Christmas time and still have like a really joyful, beautiful holiday. Oh, I love that. I know our listeners have gotten so much out of this episode and y'all. You need to follow Meg on Instagram, Facebook. This is actually how I met her because I've been watching her beautiful life unfold. And I was so curious about what she's been up to. She posts the coolest content, so make sure and follow her. And yeah, you're going to enjoy it. Trust me, I do. So thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If. If you like this episode, please leave me a comment below or share it with a friend. I hope everyone has a great week. We'll see you soon. Have you ever built a budget, but within weeks felt exhausted by the spreadsheets, the upkeep, or the restrictive spending categories? If so, you are not alone. Budgeting has never worked for me, so I created a new way, money mapping. Money mapping has all of the things you need to be successful in your wealth building journey. It's simple, organized, and automated, but most importantly, it offers a completely new way to relate to money and manage it in your life. If you're ready to kick off your no budget strategy for building wealth, sign up for my free money map training at www. holistic money. com forward slash money map. Here's to building wealth with ease.