From Renting to Financial Independence: The Power of House Hacking - Feat. Rachel Ramirez

In this episode of the "I Should Have Learned This Sooner" podcast, host Tim Winfred sits down with Rachel Ramirez, a nurse turned real estate investor, to discuss her journey into house hacking and her goal of achieving financial independence. Rachel shares how she transitioned from paying high rent to owning a property that covers her mortgage through rental income. They delve into the house hacking strategy, the challenges and rewards of being a landlord, and the mindset shift required to take the leap into real estate investing. Join Tim and Rachel as they explore the power of house hacking and how it can pave the way to financial freedom. Don't miss this insightful conversation filled with valuable tips and inspiration for anyone looking to break free from the rental cycle and build wealth through real estate.

Transcript

Being comfortable is not always a bad thing, right? Because it's kind of ingrained in us that if you're comfortable, that means you're not doing enough, you're not working hard enough, and you're being lazy, and that feeds into that toxicity again. 

And so what she's saying is being comfortable isn't always a bad thing. If you've worked really hard to get to where you are, it's okay. Comfort is kind of like what you're working towards, right? We're all trying to become financially free and independent, and for that reason, so we can be comfortable down the road. 

And it's like it's okay to take a break and breathe and reap the rewards of the work that you put in. Hello, hello. Welcome to the I should have learned this sooner podcast. I'm your host, Tim Winfred. 

Together, let's take a dive into amazing stories of personal growth as my guests share their answer to the question, what is something you know now that you wish you had learned sooner? From overcoming impostor syndrome, investing money, lessons and more. 

Join me and my guests as they share their stories of challenges they faced head on and how they came out on top. So it's officially the final episode of season two, and it's been such a wonderful ride and journey and I've heard so many amazing stories along the way. 

Thank you all for joining me. I hope you enjoyed every episode that was released over the last several months. Please feel free to go back and check out them. Let me know which one was your favorite. 

I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to know what you'd like to hear on season three. There will be a season three, hopefully before the end of the year. I will keep you updated. Check me out on Instagram and Twitter to stay up to date for whenever that will get released at contemporary. 

So today's episode is Rachel Ramirez, a friend that I met here recently in the Denver metro, and we bonded over how similar our stories were with real estate and buying a house to house hack. So I wanted to bring Rachel on to share her story and what inspired her to house hack and try to reach financial independence ends. 

So join me on this journey with Rachel and learn how you can also use this strategy to set yourself up for financial freedom. Here we go. Hi, Rachel. Thanks so much for joining me. Hi. Yeah, thanks for having me. 

Excited to be here. Yeah, we just met, and I got to learn a little bit about your real estate journey for anybody who is unfamiliar with you. Can you please give us a little rundown? Yeah, for sure. So my name is Rachel. 

I'm currently living in Colorado, but I'm from Texas. I've been a nurse for ten years and recently started doing travel nursing about three years ago. And, yeah, I just got into real estate this year. 

Actually, January of this year, I bought my first house and doing the house hacking thing that you're doing as well. And yeah. What strategy are you using for your house hack? Rent by the room. I'm doing midterm or long term rentals. 

A little bit of both. Yeah, a little bit of both. How many rooms are in your place? So it's four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms, and I have a basement unit that basically is like, its own studio apartment. 

It's got bedroom, bathroom, walking closet, and office, like, a whole living room area. So that yeah, but yeah, definitely going for, like, more long term tenants, but it's just kind of like based on what I can get. 

I've had a lot of people that are renting for, like, one to three months. Twelve month leases are a little bit harder to come by. It's really whatever. I can get at this at this moment. So you have four bedrooms and you're renting out all three of the other ones? 

Yeah. So renting out the basement studio, and then I've got two of the other bedrooms that I'm renting out. I live in the master suite. Okay, so do those three other rooms completely pay for your mortgage or are you paying out of pocket? 

Yeah, so I think there's been like a month or two where paying $500 out of pocket, and that's for utilities. But other than that, my mortgage is currently being paid by those rentals, which is really nice because prior to this, I was living in a studio apartment and paying $1,600 just in rent. 

So to go from that to now having a house and getting the mortgage pay for and basically paying 500 if that per month is really nice. Yeah, I know. I was in Los Angeles for six years, and the last place that I was in, I was splitting the rent on a two bedroom, two bath apartment that was 2500 a month. 

And so I'm doing a midterm strategy. Out of my basement, I added a kitchen, and I decided to have an office. So I am paying for that, which is I'm paying about $800 a month towards my mortgage for a two bed, one bath, upper floor of a house without a roommate. 

So I probably could. We both know Danielle Daley, who was also a guest, I think, episode three of this podcast, which is we met at her house recently, and she said in the same area where I live, she rents her rooms for over $800 a month. 

So if I really wanted to, I could give up my office and push it to over that mortgage payment. But how much over? Whenever you're fully booked out for the month, what is your cash flow? So not cash flowing right now, which obviously we want to cash flow. 

Right? We want to make some profit from what we're doing. But for this first house hack, honestly, my thing was like, as long as I can get my mortgage covered. That's all I care about. Because if I'm living for free, that's an extra $1,600 into my savings account every single month. 

So currently not cash flowing, but as long as I have all those rooms rented out, it's bringing me in like right at $3,200 per month. And that is my mortgage. Awesome. I feel like we talked and you said you weren't a Colorado native, right? 

No, I'm actually from Texas. Houston, Texas? Yeah. All right. So Texas doesn't have any income tax, right? I don't think so. Or is it property tax? I really thought about understanding my state and taxes and all that. 

I was just thinking because whenever I moved from California to Colorado, I got about a $250 per paycheck raise just because of the state tax differences. So you probably took a tax hit because Colorado is like 4.9% or whatever tax compared to but the property taxes, as we were talking about it right before we started recording insurance, there's next to no insurance cost because not a lot of damage to the homes happen out here except for hail. 

And taxes are relatively low compared to a lot of places. Yeah, I was actually looking at getting a house because I still have a place out in Texas renting on. So I was looking at a place to make as my primary out in Texas. 

But I looked at the property taxes. And that's the thing, right? It's like the houses in Texas, they seem to be cheaper than in Colorado, but when you look at those property taxes, it is insane. Like some of those houses are up to ten a year just in property taxes. 

That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. My property taxes out here in North Glenn are like $1,000 a year. Ridiculously cheap. I think it's like 100 something a month that I'm paying. It definitely like it really evens out. 

Between the two, for sure. So what made you decide to get into real estate and do the house hacking strategy? So, like I said, I'm a nurse, right? Been a nurse for about ten years now, doing the travel nurse thing. 

And honestly, I'm burnt out, right? I'm burnt out on being a nurse. Health care, it can be very fulfilling, but it's also extremely stressful. And I think my whole life I've or not my whole life, but for the past six years, let's say I've been looking for other ways to make money and regain that time. 

Freedom, financial freedom, set myself up for the future. So I've dabbled in a couple of other business opportunities that didn't really work out. And I had looked into the airbnb thing because a lot of my friends were doing it, but at the time this was like a couple of years ago at the time I thought to have a house, you had to be rich for some reason. 

I just thought you had to have millions in the bank and pay all cash for your house. And I didn't look any further than that. So last year around November, I had met a guy at the gym who does real estate and he has about like five airbnb's, I think, and we just started talking about it and I'm like, Hold on, if you can do this, I can do this. 

So I just dove straight in. And this is November of 2022. So last year I dove right in. I ordered all the Bigger Pockets books and on Amazon got them in, just started reading. I was literally reading probably a book either a day or within a couple of days. 

I was just all like, wow. Yeah. And I was listening to all these like the Bigger Pockets podcast and the Real Estate Rookie podcast and listening to all these stories. And it was specifically when I read the book, the House Hacker book. 

Blah, blah. Yeah, reading that one, because at this point, I'm like, okay, I want to get into real estate investing. What strategy should I do? What's the best financially reasonable opportunity? And I read that book, and I'm reading all these stories, and I'm like, oh, my God, I need to get a house right now. 

And the more that I was reading it, I almost started getting angry at the fact that I was paying rent. So I'm like, get out of this apartment. Stick of paying rent. So, yeah, I went through the bigger pockets forum. 

I made an account on there, and I started searching for a real estate invest agent, and I was looking both in Texas and in Colorado because I wasn't too sure at this time where I wanted the first house to be. 

And I found investor friendly agents here in Colorado, and he has done the house hacking strategy himself. So I connected with him. We met up, told him what I was looking for, and I mean, immediately just got to work. 

And within three months, I closed on my first house. I mean, it was it even three months. You said November, and you bought your house in January, 2 months. Yeah. So you learned the strategy, and you snapped your fingers and boom, you closed on a house. 

Yeah, and we looked at four houses, and I think the house that I got, it was probably the third house that we looked at. Okay. And definitely over my price range because, you know, Colorado, these houses are expensive, and I was looking for something, like, in the 400 range, but I realized with the house hacking strategy, it only really works if you have a bigger house. 

I don't know how many rooms your house has. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I ended up getting a $600,000 house, which at the time, it was like, oh, my gosh, it's so much money. And I really had to, like, talk myself down from that because sometimes it's hard for me, at least it was very hard to wrap my head around, like, okay, I want to, like, be financially free. 

I want to, like. Save money and all this stuff. How am I saving money? By buying a half a million dollar house, taking on all this debt. So that's why I had to dive so deep into all these books and these podcasts to really be comfortable with doing what I did. 

And so far it's been really awesome. I was really scared that I wasn't going to get any tenants and I was going to be stuck with this $3,000 mortgage all by myself. But yeah, I immediately fill the rooms right away and it's been great. 

Yeah, it's very easy to go down that, but what if, but what if, but what if, but what if and come up with all of these reasons and as they say, get into the analysis paralysis mindset where you're just overthinking everything and not actually going. 

So the fact that you did it in such a short period of time is amazing to me. And then I'm curious, you must have had the money saved up or did you take out investments and did you do a 3% down? What sort of was your money situation? 

No, yeah, so I had a lot of money saved up. I had been saving a lot of money since I started travel, nursing, so I had quite a bit in the bank and I put down 10% on the house. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, I did about 30,000 to furnish, which probably did a little too much on that end, but I am kind of a perfectionist and just want the house to look really great. 

But yeah, once I put my mind to something, I go all in on it. And just like you said about analysis paralysis, that's another reason why I moved so quickly, because I knew if I don't get a house right now, I'm going to overthink it because that's what I do. 

I'm going to talk myself out of it. I'm going to get scared. And there is a lot of times where I did almost pull out. My real estate agent blessed his heart. There were so many times I messaged him and I'm like, I can't do this. 

And he just helped to talk me off a ledge. But yeah, that's. That is the reason why I closed so quickly, because I knew I just had to get my foot in the door and just do it. Yeah, I feel you. Even though my money situation took a little bit longer to get figured out, I was on a road trip in Atlanta, and I knew I was going to buy a place somewhere near Denver. 

And I think I realized my money was at the tipping point, where could got my lenders all aligned for how much I could be approved for without pulling out of my emergency fund and hit the ground running. 

And within I think, a week and a half, something like that, I'd seen 15 houses and put in like seven offers. Yeah. My agent was brian, who I know you know, and I know I was making him do a lot of work in order to get the best deal and everything, so I ended up actually closing. 

If you're looking for a property for your next one north Glenn, there's a lot of the brick ranches with basement like the one I'm in that are sub five. So if you're looking for another one down the road, it's a great opportunity out here. 

I'm probably going to start looking for my second house in November, and that's something, too. It was the first house I put an offer on. I feel like I got lucky, but in a way, it's kind of crazy, like, looking back because I told you I saved up all that money. 

And looking back on that, I was saving all that money for different reasons. Right. I had no intentions of doing real estate. I was saving the money just to stash away as much as I could and set myself up for the future. 

And then that money ended up coming in hand for real estate. So it's crazy how sometimes when you're doing stuff, you don't release the opportunities that it can open up for you in the future, even if you're not looking at that right now, you know? 

Definitely having that little bit of nest egg in a bucket somewhere. Well, it sounds like you've had a lot of great experiences with real estate. I do want to jump into the first primary question, and, I mean, it might even back around to this, so feel free. 

But I wanted to start that off just because I know that's how we sort of related and connected. So the first primary question is, what is something you know now that you wish you had learned sooner? So, yeah, this does kind of wrap around back to real estate eventually. 

But one thing I've been talking a lot about lately is the whole culture mentality, right? And I got really sucked into that years ago. So little background. I came from a pretty poor family, a lot of drugs and stuff involved with family. 

And from that, I kind of developed this kind of, like, fear mentality of, like, I have to work really hard to save up all this money and set myself up. Because of that, I became very work focused and kind of blocked everything out. 

Like, I wasn't going out with friends, wasn't spending money. Don't get me wrong, I've lived a very good life. I've traveled a lot, and I've done all these things. But kind of looking back on my life, there were so many opportunities that I missed out on with friends and family because I was so, like, work, work. 

Like you, like, 24/7 kind of mentality. And I went through nursing school, and as soon as I became a nurse, I had jumped into a different business and started working really hard towards that. And this business that I was involved in really preached that kind of hustle culture mentality of having to set aside everything else in your life and focus mainly on just making tons of money. 

And at the time, like, me being so motivated by what I saw my parents go through. Obviously, I got so sucked into that and almost like, brainwashed in a way. And you listen to all these or I listen to all these financial gurus and stuff, and it's very easy to kind of fall into that trap. 

Now, that's kind of where the travel nurse team really helped me, because as soon as I became a travel nurse, this was around the time this in 2020 and came a travel nurse. And I started realizing, why am I doing so much work trying to build this other business and do all these other things to make all this money when I've already worked hard to get my nursing degree? 

Why am I not just focusing on being a nurse and just doing that? So I started travel nursing and making all this money, right? Because this is like the heat of COVID when the travel nurse pay was really spiking. 

So I'm traveling. I'm doing the travel nursing, and I started getting my life back whenever I was doing that, because prior to travel nursing, I wasn't going on vacations. I wasn't traveling like I used to. 

I wasn't having fun. I wasn't doing the things that make me happy and make me the person that I am. So whenever I started travel nursing in 2020, I kind of got a little bit of that back, right? I kind of put all the hustle, the grind on hold and was more at peace with my life, realizing I can have both just to kind of go back. 

There's nothing wrong with, you know, having that, like, hustle mentality and, like, setting yourself up for success, but there does come a point where you kind of, like, have to realize, like, there has to be a balance, right? 

Like, you can have the best of both worlds. You don't have to just work all the time. And yeah, so that kind of does wrap back around to real estate, because, like I said, with nursing, even though I did love the opportunities that it brought to me, I was still looking for something else, but I didn't want to get sucked back into that grind mode that I was in. 

So when I heard about real estate, and when I heard about the house hacking, I was like, oh, this is perfect. I can still work as a travel nurse, and I could buy a house and just rent out the rooms, and I don't have to really work. 

And not to say, obviously, like, having a house is work. Having tenants is work. Right. But it's a lot more laid back than other methods of real estate, maybe. Yeah, it's definitely a simplified way of going about it, and it requires a lot less requires a lot less upfront. 

I mean, all real estate, no matter what you do, is going to require a lot up front, but in comparison, it's not a lot. So you said a couple of things that I wanted to comment on, and the first is the idea of going all in on nursing. 

It reminds me of a quote, and I can't remember who I heard it from, but it's basically imagine any sports player you can think of, except for maybe Michael Jordan. He's probably, like, the one exception. 

They're only good at one sport, right? Like a basketball player. Michael Jordan, again, being the exception, can go off and play golf and be good at it, but being really good at something, if they were spending 50% of their time or 20% of their time on something else, they wouldn't be as great as they are. 

And it's actually something I've been doing as well a lot lately. It's like I want to level up my skills as a software developer. And it has a great ROI, too, at the end of the day, so there's a lot of benefit to it. 

So you're not getting pulled in a bunch of different directions. But I also did add the real estate piece as well because it's a repeatable, simple process. And my last guest, he was on the show talking about how the simple things, whenever you boil it down to something simple and if you explain it to someone and it's really simple, it's just easy to remember. 

It's not that difficult. You get a house, rent out the rooms one by one, or short term, midterm, long term, however you're going to do it, or even the whole house at some point and make money. There's a lot of little pieces that go into it for sure, in terms of costs and expenses and time and maintenance, et cetera. 

But if you boil it down, that's what it is. So I was in the same sort of mentality trying years ago. And I think as my income in my career has leveled up, I've sort of been able to do the more focus on the career side of things because I think about how long it would take me in a side hustle or any sort of side gig to get the same amount of money a year as my primary job. 

And while I don't think it would be impossible, it's a lot less likely now for me to start something than it was whenever I was making $32,000 out of college at that point. If I could make a company that made $50,000 a year, that would have been a huge raise. 

Now that would be a significant devaluation to my time. Yeah, for sure. And the other thing that you said that I really loved was you're at peace with your life by putting the hustle mentality on hold. 

Yeah, I love that because again, with my story, same thing, the hustle, hustle, hustle. You want to try and. Make something happen that you're constantly going and you don't stop to pause and enjoy where you are now and that younger you would have loved to be where you are now. 

Exactly. And that's why I say it's not bad to have in a couple of years because obviously having that mentality got me to where I am and I was able to become a nurse, but it's just the fact that I kept going, why am I still doing this? 

And yeah, just like I had said about just having peace with my life, now it's like I'm working three days a week as a nurse and then I have the house that I'm doing. But even with the house, I don't put much work into it besides just getting the tenants. 

And once they're in place, if they're three months to twelve month tenant, that's it. The past three years I've been getting my life back. I've been traveling again, I've been having fun, I've been doing all these things that I put on hold for so long and looking back at how I was. 

Because once I became a nurse and started that new business I was trying to launch, I was in that for about five years and I got nothing from it. And yeah, sure, it gave me some skills, right? Developed some business skills from that. 

But at the end of the day, it was such a waste of time. And I look back, it's like, man, I could have died, right? This is something I harp on so much because it's like you can spend your whole life working, working and trying to make all this money and you could die. 

And what was it all for? I had to find that balance between working and living my life because otherwise what's the point if you're not having fun? Yeah. Did you ever read the book Tuesdays with Maury? 

No, never read it. It's a book that I read in high school, so a million years ago. And this student, his college professor, I don't remember what is causing him. To die. It might be cancer, but he knows he's dying, and his student from years. 

Ago goes out and spends every Tuesdays with him. Every Tuesday with him and just asks them about different topics. And there's also the last lecture. That's another book that's a similar sort of like, I'm on my deathbed writing this book. 

And they all boil down to that. Like, if I could go back instead of spending that Monday night at 09:00 p.m.. Working on that presentation, I wish I spent it with my daughter. I wish I spent it with my niece, my mother, whatever it was. 

At the end of the day, nobody hope or wishes that they spent more time working on their business and trying to make they wish they were traveling. They wish they were seeing things that once they who is it? 

It's Keith Urban. Toby. Keith. Live like you were dying? Sort of. Song. I went skydiving. I still want to go skydiving. I haven't done it. We should do it. I've done it. Okay, let's do it again. But yeah. 

It's so true how every story boils down to that whenever it comes down to people on their deathbed. Yet we get into these YouTube algorithms and these Google News algorithms and these Twitter and social algorithms that if you start interacting with that hustle culture content, then you get into that bubble of content and it just takes over your mindset. 

Yeah, it does. Very toxic. There's so many people out there who are producing content that all it's about, is, like, how you can be more efficient in your day to day and, like, output more. And while, you know. 

We have to slow down at times. We have to take that break and spend that time with the loved ones and just enjoy where we are, as I said earlier. Because if we don't, we're going to get to that deathbed and wish we had. 

Yeah, exactly. And being a nurse, I see that. A lot of people I could imagine, especially during COVID time. Oh yeah, scary stuff. Did that really change or did that, I guess, fast track your idea to figure something else out? 

And is that what made you put the pedal to the metal for real estate? No, not necessarily. Yeah, it wasn't at that time that I was thinking that because I had been looking for stuff for a while. I mean, that's why I had started that whole business after I graduated as a nurse, was just looking for something else. 

Yeah, the real estate thing didn't really come to fruition until last year. Got you. I imagine being faced with your immortality on a regular basis is something that brings you a lot of fear. Yeah, for sure. 

So you also talked about how growing up, not having a lot of money and having drug issues in the family sort of sparked your financial stuff. Financial decisions are impacted that on a previous episode I broke down and I feel like ever since this episode, I've talked about this episode with each guest, rakim Sabri, he's a certified financial therapist, I believe, or something. 

Basically he breaks down the financial traumas. Fascinating how since I've learned about that, I hear that basically from every guest, how there is something, even people who've come from money, there is trauma associated with having an excess or anything. 

Maybe they came from money and lost it and whatever it might be. So. Yeah, I don't know. I like to bring that up just to reiterate to people that there is therapy out there for not just your mental processes that are generalized. 

You can go to a financial therapist as well to help figure those things out. Yeah. I didn't know there was financial therapist. You learned something new. I know I need to find any sort of therapist soon. 

It just hasn't made it to the top of my to do list, but we'll see. All right, so the next question I have for you the second question is, is there something a book, a quote, person, song, city job conversation or anything to that effect that has really impacted your life? 

There's been a lot hard to choose. Just one, but one that actually came to mind. I think it was actually earlier today that I remember I saw this it was just a video that I saw on Instagram, and it really resonated with me because what this woman was saying was talking about this toxic mentality of constantly having to work, right? 

And she said I can't quote exactly, but it was something along the lines of being comfortable is not always a bad thing. Right? Because it's kind of ingrained in us that if you're comfortable, that means you're not doing enough, you're not working hard enough, and you're being lazy. 

And that feeds into that toxicity again. And so what she's saying is being comfortable isn't always a bad thing. If you've worked really hard to get to where you are, it's okay. Comfort is kind of like what you're working towards, right? 

We're all trying to become financially free and independent, and for that reason, so we can be comfortable down the road. And it's like it's okay to take a break and breathe and reap the rewards of the work that you put in. 

I think that's such a good reminder for so many of us who. Are still stuck in that mentality, because, yeah, sometimes we feel like if we're just sitting down watching Netflix, we think like, oh, I'm being lazy. 

I should be doing something. But it's like, no, I worked my ass off. I should be able to watch Netflix or go out and have a drink or have fun and not feel bad about it. And that was a big thing for me years ago, was I would feel bad about doing things that were fun because in my head, I'm like, oh, I should be working right now. 

I should be doing something towards my business right now to make money. And now I realize how toxic that was to think like that. I had gone on a road trip for my 30th birthday around the Four Corners, utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and it was 17 days, and I spent seven of those days camping. 

And every night that I camped, I had a campfire and I would just sit there. I had a dog that was with me, but I was there by myself, and I could sit there for three, 4 hours just staring at the campfire and be so lost in it. 

But as soon as I got home from that road trip and was in my apartment and I was sitting on the couch, not doing something productive or not, as you said always, or I felt comfortable. I felt comfortable. 

I started getting antsy and I started feeling like I needed to get up and do something and create a to do list and just go, go, go. And there's so much to be said. You mentioned, like watching Netflix or going out and having a drink. 

But I think nature is so healing, and it's just even in the pandemic, when we couldn't go out and do those things and we couldn't spend time, I found solace in nature by watching videos on YouTube of the beach and of forests and whatever it might be just animals. 

There's just something so calming. And recharging about it. So I feel that a lot, and it ties back into what I said about you have to sit back and enjoy where you are at some point. Yeah, exactly. What's that one saying? 

We're human beings, not humans doing right. I've never heard that, actually. Never heard that? No. That's great. All the time. Yeah, because sometimes we're so programmed to always be doing something, it's like, no, you're a human. 

Relax. It's okay. Go outside and touch some grass. It's fine. And it's so easy to think about the future and where you want to be, and then next thing you know, it's the end of the weekend, or it's the end of the month, it's the end of the year, and you look back and you're like, what the hell did I do? 

Because all you were thinking about is what was next, as opposed to being present and being in that moment. And there's ideas in Buddhism, whenever you are attached to the moment and you are really fully mindful that time slows down. 

A lot of older Buddhist people claim that they are enlightened. Buddhist people claim that they have lived, like, two to three times a human lifespan just because they're able to slow down their time by being mindful. 

And that's the thing, too. It's like, sometimes I used to feel like this. It's like you accomplish one thing, and already you have to start working on the next thing. Right. Like, enjoying what you have. 

And that's a big thing for me, is when I look back on my life, it's like, wait, I'm like, living the life that I've always wanted, so I'm just learning to enjoy that instead of chasing after the next thing. 

Yeah, totally. Obviously, I have goals, right? Like, having goals is a good thing, but it's like I said, learning that. Lines between you can still have those goals, but you can still have a life. Yeah. 

And a lot of those goals, like I said, for me in particular, whenever I was younger, it was like to have a higher income, to have a dog. And now I've got two and they cost me way more money than I expected. 

But dogs are live good. Yeah. And I don't even think, like you said, I didn't even think I would ever be able to afford to have a house and then learn the strategy. So for myself, same thing as you. I'm curious what your longer term goals are. 

But for me it is the same thing. Become more financially independent, have income sources that I've put in the upfront, work that later down the road they will be more passive. Unfortunately, I'm not on, as I think, as fast of a timeline as you are with buying my next one before the end of the year. 

I was hoping to, but I spent more on this house than I expected, emphasis on moron. So I'm curious for you in terms of I know we're talking about being present, but your present situation is setting you up for your longer term. 

What is at the moment, and I'm sure it'll change, but at the moment, what is your goal with doing the house hacking? So my goal is to buy a house every year for the next five years, and maybe beyond that, I don't know. 

But I put a five year mark on that because that is when I want to be able to leave the nursing field and go full time as an investor. And I also came up with the number five because I'm pretty sure that was in the book, the house hacking book, or it may have been in another book that I read from bigger pockets, but I remember somebody saying if you buy one house every year for the next five years, you can be set, and that. 

That's not like a guarantee, right? It just kind of depends on your cash flow and all that. But that's the current goal right now. Yeah. Well, there's also a conventional loan limit, I believe. Double check me, ask Chat, GPT or Google on this one. 

But I believe that once you get five houses, you can no longer take out a conventional loan. You have to take out an investor loan. Because at that point, I guess I don't know the legality and everything, but I think that might also be sort of tied into that strategy. 

That could be for the five years. Yeah, but something another real estate agent that I met through Brian said I had told that story of I made $250 per paycheck raised because I moved from California to Colorado. 

She said, I cash flow $250 a month on one of my properties. So basically, to some extent, I'm not getting the equity gains and everything like that, but the cash flow that I received from that. So I want to challenge you and really anybody who's listening to sort of take your idea of that five and just look into the why and the goal and the reason behind it. 

It's less about having five houses, right? And it's more about getting to a certain number that surpasses your expenses every month. And once you get there, it could be in two houses. And that doesn't have to be in Colorado. 

That could be in a super crazy, cash flowing city like I know. I think Indianapolis is one of those places. In Philadelphia, or maybe it's Pittsburgh, there are places that you could purchase something and the money you would make might be way higher. 

And then you'd rather make $1,000 on one property than $250 a month on four properties. Right? So I think if we boil it down to I'm saying this, whenever I preach like this, sometimes it's me preaching to myself and reminding myself. 

It's like I'm hearing myself say it and I'm going, oh yeah, got to remember that. I've heard that a bunch of times. I've heard the bigger Pockets money show a million times. All of these different sources that say it and then yet I'm over here getting wrapped up in my emotions and my spreadsheets and what numbers I need to hit because my goal said I needed to have it that way. 

So I want to move on to the last question. We've only got about twelve minutes left in our time, so I know I already started talking about forward thinking and what your strategy is moving forward, so this sort of ties into that. 

But what is something you're working on learning now? I mean, a couple of things and I think one of them obviously is real estate, right? Since I just started this year, learning more about real estate and different strategies and also just what we talked about, just learning to live in the moment, right. 

Something I've actually been working on for the past year or so is learning to live in the moment and take it day by day and have fun and not get too caught up in thinking too far ahead into the future. 

And I know we do that, we were just talking about that. What are your goals? What's your five year plan? Yada. Yada. But learning just to take it day by day and not get too caught up in all of it. Definitely. 

Yeah, because before I bought my house, that was a concern of mine, was that real estate was going to consume me and I didn't want that to happen. So, yeah, just learning to take it day by day and. Yeah. 

What are some strategies you use to whenever you find yourself not staying in the present? What are some strategies that I use? Yeah. Oh, man. I don't know if I really have any, to be quite honest. I can't think of any right now. 

I think a big thing is probably doing the things right instead of I mean, this is kind of an example I can bring up that I think about right now is a month ago, kind of around the time I met Brian, he asked me if I want to go to a concert. 

That sounds like Brian. Yeah. I'm thinking like, oh, well, I don't know. I'm coming up with all these reasons why I shouldn't, right? Do I have to work? I work the next day, blah, blah, blah. And then I was like, Just do it. 

Why are we sitting here trying to talk myself out of doing a fun thing? Just do it, right? And that's one thing that one of my best friends told me years ago was like, stop overthinking. Stop thinking about all the what ifs and what could go wrong and whatever. 

Just do it. I think that's the big thing for me is kind of going back to the question of what's something I'm now is definitely learning to just do the things and not question it or overthink it. Are you going to have fun? 

Yeah. Well, then go. It's something that I picked up post. Well, once the world started opening again after the pandemic, because I would be that sort of person during the week, whenever I was working in an office who would go to and from the office and not want to do anything after work. 

And then the pandemic time happened and it was like every day felt the same even if you were working, because you couldn't really do anything. And then eventually I got to a point where things wouldn't be happening on the weekend. 

But they would be happening during the week. And so I had to eventually overcome that. But also my dad is the perfect example of the sort of person who will say no to something, get peer pressured by my mom and me and my brother to go and do it and have a great time most of the time. 

And there was no intention for him want to do it initially, but once he gets out and does it so I feel that wholeheartedly. And I'm the same way sometimes I'm sitting at home scrolling through TikTok and Instagram and feeling miserable and deciding what new show I want to watch and not I like to call it my horizontal time because just laying on that same spot in the couch and people will message and I do the same thing. 

I don't know what it is, but why do we immediately go, how can I get out of this? What excuses are you an introvert? I feel like I've evolved over time and realized that I'm more of an introvert than I thought I was and that I become more what's the word? 

I become more outwardly odd and stressed. And it comes out in the way that I say things, not meaning them in certain ways whenever I am feeling introverted and uncomfortable. So I've learned sometimes that, yeah, I do need to say no for that or leave a situation if I'm not feeling comfortable. 

Yeah, consider myself to be an introvert. And I can be outgoing and loud and talkative once I get comfortable around people. But I'm the same way. Like, I'm at home and feeling all depressed and down and I'm not doing anything, whatever. 

And someone will message me to go out and I'm like. I want to have to get dressed. The past couple of months, it's been more of a just go, just do it instead of sitting at home and sulking. It's so easy, too, especially if you're going out with people who you know really well and it's like, you can go out in your Sunday worst as opposed to your Sunday best and they're not going to give two shits. 

But you're overthinking it because I'm saying you as in me. I'm overthinking it because that's what I tend to do. Yeah, I totally feel you on that. And I think a big thing is, for me at least, it's once I am out and around people, if I'm around a smaller group, like, my comfort level is fine. 

And I think I've never been diagnosed with anything, but I think it has some Add. Once there's a large group of people, it's like, so many things to focus on. I get so overwhelmed that I just, like, need to breathe. 

And otherwise I was saying I start to say dumb things and I'm like, I got to get out of here. I piss someone off. Yeah. Same way I remember the first real estate meetup that I went to back in January. 

There was, like, so many people, and I walked in and I'm trying to act confident and like, yeah, I got this. But I was just inside my little introverted soul was like, yeah. Then I went to one, like, a couple of months ago that only had, like, ten people and it was so nice. 

I'm like, I know this is chill. I love it. Even an extroverted people, though, I feel like I know if he doesn't listen to this episode and hear us say his name 100 times brian, he's a very extroverted person. 

But I've been at an event and where there were a lot of people and he was off because he knew a lot of people. He's like the mayor of Denver real estate networking. And he was off. And then he came back and found me and Ian Jimenez and Kat Jimenez, Ian's wife, and was like, oh, my comfort zone. 

We were that safety where he could go off and be fun and entertaining and then come back and find that place where he could kick off his shoes. So it's definitely important to have that, even in gigantic situation. 

Yeah, for sure. I feel that. And whenever you're with someone, you know, I feel like to tie this back to what you said about trying to stay in the moment whenever I am around somebody new, I'm like trying to think about what I'm going to say next before I say it, because I don't know that person. 

And it often comes out, I think that it reads as that way, and then I pick up on that reaction from them, and then it just makes me feel like, oh, no, hide. I'm the same way. Yeah, but then whenever you're around people, you know, it's very easy to be like, yeah, I can talk about anything, and you know me well enough. 

Yeah, for sure. All right, well, we're just at about time. So I want to give you the opportunity before we wrap up for anybody who's interested in following your journey more and seeing what house you buy in November. 

Where can people follow up with you? I guess my Instagram, it's Rachel 88, so it's R-R-A-C-H-E-L underscore and the numbers 88. I don't post too much about real estate yet. It's more about my traveling and hiking and things like that. 

But, yeah, eventually I'll post more about real estate, but. We'll get around to it. Yeah, I know. In my social media career, I guess, or my platforms, I've changed my content strategy so often, and it's, like, funny to see your numbers. 

Like, once you post about travel for so long, and then you change what you're posting about, people only want you to do one thing, and the algorithm only wants that one thing, and then once you stop. 

So I've it's hard to balance all of my interests on social media. Yeah, for sure. Well, thank you so much, Rachel. This has been great. I appreciate your time, and I did not tell you this, but this is actually the final episode of the season. 

You get to be the last guest. No pressure on my end. Well, I don't know when the next season will be around, but if you have had the chance to get your second house, I would love to just talk about that strategy and how everything went again and do a follow up. 

So we'll be in touch. Absolutely. I'd love that. All right. Thanks so much. It was great talking to you. Take care. You too. Bye. And that's it. That's a wrap for season two of the I should have learned this sooner podcast. 

Thank you all for joining me to listen to Rachel's story and hear a little bit about house hacking and how staying present and staying in the moment is so important to ensuring you live a happy and calm life. 

Thank you so much, Rachel, for joining me. This was such a beautiful story. If you enjoyed this season, if you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to rate and review on Apple podcasts. It will really help out the show. 

And follow me if you want to learn about when season three will be released. You can check me out on Instagram and Twitter at contemporary. It's like Contemporary, but more fun. And until then, I will talk to you soon. 

Take care. Music for this podcast comes from film music IO Acid Trumpet by Kevin McLead, Incompetech.org. Licensed by creativecommons.org Licenses. Buy I 4.0.