How She Went From $18K in Debt to Nearly $1 Million in 6 Years

22:19In fact, I am about to move my honeymoon by 48 hours because of an event with a pretty top government official who is going to come into town and see one of my projects. So there's a lot of sacrifice that comes with an income at this level. Let me make that very clear. Yeah, there's no easy job making 400 grand. If it were easy, everybody would do it. If it's easy now, then it's going away in the next few years, guys. There's no such thing. That does not stick around a long time. But it is possible in sales. And I'll also say, it looks like you invested 90 grand to get to this point, effectively, because you took a$30 ,000 pay cut at the prior job, plus whatever commissions or upside you could have made in the three years following that departure.

23:00So there's probably a six-figure investment, if you will, of lower income in order to build up to this explosive growth you've experienced the last two or three years. Is that right? Absolutely. It was definitely an investment in myself, my career, my family, and my housing situation. We made plenty of sacrifices over those three years because I knew I had to work hard and I knew that the potential was there. I believed in myself. I believed in my company and my team. But it definitely doesn't happen overnight. Going back to about this transition point, right? We've overhauled our financial system, reduced spending.

23:36What other habits are entering your life around this point? Is there a written set of goals going on for your finances? Are you starting to read or self-educate a lot more on personal finance? What else is going on that's behind the scenes here that is turbocharging or accelerating your journey? Yeah. I mean, education and investing in yourself is one of the best things that you can do. So that 30 ,000 miles a year that I drive for work, I'm in the car listening to personal finance and investing podcasts, much like Bigger Pockets. I discovered Bigger Pockets money in 2022 and started listening every single week.

24:12And there's a number of other podcasts I use. My favorite thing is when I hear a term, I don't know, because that gives me an opportunity to go look it up, listen to other podcasts about

24:21Mindy Jensen:to read a book, what have you. Again, my financial vocabulary didn't happen overnight either. It's a continuous process and the world is changing around us every day and we need to keep up with it too. So it's definitely an investment of time, but I had a lot of time in the car, so I put it to use. Are there any other habits that came together during this time period, like fitness or other areas of your life that were addressed? Or was it really just these couple of changes, the spending, the new career, and then self-education on a continuous basis? I would say it was also a lot more intentional forecasting with travels and other like fun and entertainment things that we wanted to do.

24:58Again, I was always that yes person, perpetual FOMO. So when talking about things we value, I even had to reprioritize some of the fun things in my life and travel too. So one of the things that probably bugs my fiance to no end, but he's always thankful after we come home from a trip is we think about every single penny that we might spend on a trip, even down to do we think we're going to want coffee at the airport? Because you know, coffee at the airport is 10 bucks a piece. We'll actually write all of that down and come up with a realistic picture of what we're actually going to spend. We don't deprive ourselves.

25:36Do we want to buy some souvenirs? Do we want to pay for an excursion or a tour, for example? That's fine. We just need to plan for it. So that meant, you know, okay, well, if we're going to give ourselves X number of dollars a year for travel or vacations, do we want to do one big fancy vacation or a handful of smaller, more low key ones? Those are conversations that we have on our monthly money dates. I love that. And I want to zoom in on this because you can have very similar experience set for thousands of dollars difference by doing what you're doing or not caring at all. And I have been to both places in my life.

26:13When I'm running a company, you kind of just go on the plane and figure it out and spend money to buy the thing you forgot or get the coffee or whatever. because how can you justify spending the time to save$10 on coffee at the airport when there's so many other demands on your time? And now, having stepped down, we do exactly what you're doing with Virginia and I when we plan a trip, because that makes all the difference in the world. I wonder, would you rather continue with the sales profession right now? Let's say you hit your five number. Would you rather continue with the sales profession and not have to do that, not have to worry about it because you're making so much money for$500 ,000 a year on a go-forward basis?

26:48or would you rather be able to cut back from the sales profession entirely and with the trade-off that you're going to have to keep doing this to keep those costs in line for travels in a FI life? Honestly, I've actually already spoken with my boss about wanting to become work optional because my job is so demanding. My nervous system would love a break. I'm sure my fiance would love to see me at home more often too. It comes with its own opportunity costs. So I'm working hard now while I have this opportunity in front of me. to make quite a bit of money. And now that I have several sales under my belt and relationships with people in my market, it's becoming a little bit easier.

27:28I would say it's not much of a grind, but it's still really demanding. The plan is still to become work optional in about five or six years. And my boss actually asked me if I would give him a year notice. It was kind of a gamble to tell him about our plans, but he understands what we're trying to accomplish. And if he can get five really good focused years out of me instead of 10 distracted ones, is how he put it, he'll take it. So essentially, they'll let me go down to part time. My commissions come in as we build our projects and finish them. So if I leave before a project is done, then I leave commission on the table.

28:04So he's essentially giving me that long runway to ride off into the sunset and start the next phase of whatever's next. Kate, tell me about where your dollars went when you were just switching into this new job. I think you're making$90 ,000 a year. And what was your order of operating? How much were you making? How much were you spending? And what was your order of investing operations? And how has that shifted now that your income has exploded? You know, I will say we have started spending a little bit more. We have the resources to do that, but we do it within reason. We did purchase a new home.

28:36This is going to be our forever home. We have three sets of aging parents between the two of us. So it was an investment in our long-term family future. However, you know, that$90 ,000, you know, my, my fiance also makes probably at that time he was making about$75 ,000 in a new career. He switched careers during the pandemic. So we were definitely on a budget. We always focused first on our 401k match. And then we focused on Roth contributions as much as we possibly could. As far as daily spending, lucky for me, my fiance is an amazing cook. And that saves us so much money. So even if you're not a good cook, I would encourage you just find 10 recipes that you can even do a halfway good job on.

29:19And you'll see a huge bump to your cash at the end of the month. Whenever we do go out to eat. It's a very rare occasion. Maybe once a month we'll get takeout. We're shocked at the fact that it's$75 for maybe two meals between the two of us, where$75 is our grocery budget for four whole days, three whole meals at home. So that's definitely something that we've done. And I would say my main impulse spending back in the day was definitely clothing and fashion. So I, in the last four or five years, have become a serial thrifter. I love the thrill of the hunt. I do Poshmark and other secondhand online retailers.

30:01I still get that dopamine hit without the hit to my bank account. And I've actually turned it into a bit of a side hustle as well. I actually go to estate sale auctions and flip furniture with all of my free time that I certainly don't have. But even doing it extremely part-time, I make about another $600 or$800 a month doing that. And that all goes to investments. So order of operations, when we were still at that base salary mark, no commissions yet, I would say we were mostly focused on 401k match and Roth contributions. And of course, we both had either an FSA or an HSA. So we would make sure we max those out.

30:35But we didn't have the ability or the income at the time to max out our 401ks like we would have liked to. But then as soon as I knew that my income was about to explode. We sat down and said, we need to hold ourselves accountable so that we don't experience lifestyle inflation. We really want this money to be a blessing and to work for us because 2021 Kate would have said, oh, cool. I can get a nicer car or nicer this, that, and the other. We can take a fancy vacation. My friends are like, you make a half million dollars a year. What do you mean you're not going to go out to eat with us? I'm like, that's not something I value.

31:09I value spending time with you. So if you want to come to our house, we'll make you a meal, but we don't want to go out to a restaurant and have just a mediocre meal and spend 150 bucks between the two of us. That's not our vibe these days. So we really try to stick to our values and our friends have kind of caught onto that too. So we can still spend time with people. We can still have fun. There's just ways to do it without spending a bunch of money. Love it. So first observation here is absolutely do what you're doing because you're already thinking about not doing this job and saying, it's not what I want for a long period of time.

31:40And things are going well right now. It sounds like you have a great relationship with your boss, great relationship with the government. But guess what? Election cycles change things, right? Relationships with bosses change. Companies get sold. Managers change. This income may not be around forever. And I think too many people are foolish to spend income like yours on a regular basis up to those limits and become free because those times change. The right spending pattern, I think, is at least to keep your base expenses, the core lifestyle that you're happy with, at that 4 % of your portfolio value.

32:16This is where I like, maybe I'm a little bit more aggressive than most other people in the Coast Fi world. But I think you should keep it low, keep your foot on the gas until you get to that level, and then let your asset base expand. And that's where the lifestyle inflation can come from, is when your asset base can support it, because it's so much more sustainable. You're never going to find yourself in that panic situation of having to truly downgrade your lifestyle, forced lifestyle reduction, that other high income earners are very likely to go through. Because people have this misnomer that the top 1 % or top 10 % is this class of people that sits there.

32:50It's not how it works. Top 1 % earners are like, hey, they start in a different income bracket at one point in their career, make it into this top bracket, and almost nobody stays in that top 1 % income bracket for more than a decade. A very small percentage of people stay in there for more than one year. This is a very fleeting point and people spend as if, you know, build lifestyles as if it's going to be around forever. So I think you're doing the right thing and you should not listen to your friends on this particular point and keep doing exactly what you're doing. When your asset base can support the fancier lifestyle, go have at it and enjoy.

33:21But I think, I think you're doing it absolutely right. You want to hear a hot take? Go ahead. Yeah. I think the Joneses are broke. We know the Joneses are broke. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Why are we trying to keep up with people who spend every penny that they have. All you know, when you see the fancy house and the flashy car is that they spent a lot of money, not that they have a lot of money. So when I see people and I think, oh, it'd be nice to have that. Well, first of all, do I value that? Probably not. And second of all, it's like, well, we don't know how they paid for it or how they can actually afford it.

33:51Maybe they can't afford it. Maybe they're trying to keep up with themselves at this point. So that's always a good reminder when I'm giving myself kind of a mental or emotional behavioral check with spending is I don't actually think those people have the income to support their lifestyle choices. Or maybe they invested in Tesla 10 years ago and have$10 million and can easily afford luxury. That's another thing that exists. You never know with what other people are spending. You have no idea what their wealth looks like. The question though I wanted to ask is now that you make $500 ,000 a year,$400 ,000 this year, plus your fiance.

34:25Are you married now? Did you just get married? We're getting married in four weeks. Four weeks. All right. So your new household, what will the order of operations be for your retirement accounts, given your very, very high income and low spending right now? So again, we're following the pretty traditional order of operations. So we each do our 401k match first. We did backdoor Roth conversions second. And we are maxing out my fiance's 401k beyond. He only gets a 1 % match, but we're ignoring that and just putting in as much as we can. He's eight years older than me. So he'll have access to those accounts long before I will.

35:05That was very strategic. And then I get a 6 % match and my income is actually high enough that it maxes out just with my 6 % that I put in. So beyond that, we also max out our HSAs. I'll say that too. And beyond that, everything's in a taxable brokerage account. That's going to be our gap money or our flexible money when we decide to become work optional and take a sabbatical if we want to take on contract work or something like that at some point. Awesome. And then the only real estate is the primary in your now very nice HOA. Is that right? Correct. However, we are exploring private money lending for some local real estate flippers that we know.

35:43And that pays obviously much higher dividends, but at a higher risk. So we're just now dipping our toes in that as a way to create some passive income streams for ourselves and just foster some relationships locally with those real estate folks so that we know as soon as we decide that we want to become work optional and no longer have a W-2 paycheck, we have some pretty substantial and fairly predictable passive income streams. Will you do that in your tax-deferred solo or self-directed 401k? Or will you do that with after-tax dollars that could go into the brokerage account otherwise? I see where you're going with this.

36:23We definitely would love any tax advantage strategies we can get. However, my fiance and I do have a prenup agreement and all of our individual retirement accounts are kept separate. So we have explored using his self-directed IRA. I don't have one. We've explored using his self-directed IRA in order to lend funds from that account. However, because our accounts are separate in our prenuptial agreement, just what works for us right now at this moment in time is just using cash. So I know it's not tax-advantaged. However, just considering our relationship and our current situation, that's what we agreed on would work best for us right now.

36:59I just think it's interesting that such a high percentage of people seem to experiment with what exactly what you're talking about. Mindy's done it. I've done it. You've done it. I know many, many other people in a relatively similar position. Oh, I'm earning a high amount of income right now. I have an after-tax position. I'm now going to lend it out very tax inefficiently in a private money loan or a debt fund or some sort of similar situation. And then you, tax efficiency. But it also, there's like an element of confidence that I think dwarfs the tax inefficiency for some people in that, yes, yes, I can generate passive income.

37:33It will be real. It will actually hit my bank account and in the form of interest payments that I can then spend, as long as I set aside the taxes, the tax portion that is real, intangible, and I can feel. And so there's a powerful element to that despite the tax inefficiency question. Yes, I was getting at them with it, but I think it's a great thing for a lot of people to try. It's certainly helpful to me. We're doing it now while we have two income streams through our corporate jobs. So if we do make a mistake or lose money at this point while we're just starting our private money lending journey, we have other income to fall back on.

38:05And again, it's going to give us time to create those relationships over the next few years so that we're really solid once we become work optional.

38:12Mindy Jensen:Have you read the book Lend to Live? I have not. That's a book by Bigger Pockets Publishing written by Beth Pinkley Johnson and Alex Brashears. And they walk through the steps to becoming a private money lender. And I had some success with private money lending, But I also had a little bit of anxiety with one of my loans, which caused me to pull back and not lend so much to the actual deal as to the person. If I know the person that's lending, then I've got a better, like, I just don't lend to people that I don't know. And I only lend to people that I know are going to pay me back. Because I don't want to own real estate, you know, in a state, 17 states from me.

38:54Mindy Jensen:I want to get paid back by the loan. I'm right there with you. We joined an online real estate community earlier this year to learn more about private and hard money lending. And folks in that online community are in other states and looking for both lenders and borrowers. And we just didn't feel good about investing in a market that we didn't know. So I actually have an esthetician. I go and get a facial every once in a while. And we were just chatting at one of my appointments. And it turns out her husband is also in corporate sales. We have very similar personalities and he does house flipping on the side and is always looking for investors.

39:28So you never know. I got my current job because I talked about my career with some friends at a wedding. And now we're building a relationship with a great local flipper through someone that I see on a normal basis for appointments. So that feels a lot better to us. We've been able to visit some of his current projects, actually see the progress, meet his business partner. And I have actually lived in all of the neighborhoods and areas where these guys do their flips. So I know the real estate market in this area and I feel really confident in the decisions that they're making. I love to hear that.

40:04Mindy Jensen:I always get so nervous when people say that they want to start lending money. I'm like, do you know what you're doing? I love that you know the area, you know the person, and that's not a guarantee that nothing's going to go wrong, but that's going to give you a lot more success. What are you looking forward to most about becoming work optional or hitting these next few financial milestones? I'm really looking forward to having control over my own schedule. I don't even have control over my own honeymoon schedule right now because of this work event that's happening. So, you know, just having time to have a slow morning.

40:35I love a slow morning. Instead of waking up and hitting the ground running, I'm looking forward to spending more time with friends and family. Even just time to sleep in my own bed and go to my local gym I'm really tired of hotel gyms at this point. They get the job done, but it's just really not the same. So I'm really looking forward to investing in my health, my body, my friends and family, and my own time to pursue some other passions and hobbies that I have no time to do right now. As you're approaching your FI target, what are the things that are weighing most on your mind or the challenges that you're not sure about yet?

41:11Definitely healthcare. That's definitely a big question mark. we're trying to dump as much as we can into our brokerage account after our tax-advantaged accounts are maxed out for the year. However, healthcare is definitely a source of some trepidation for both of us. And we've even thought, you know, maybe my fiance could keep his job for a while and maybe I just need six months off to reset my brain and my body. We don't really know yet, but healthcare is definitely probably the biggest one. That's it. That's a big one for a lot of people. Other than that, I'm looking forward to everything that comes with being in control of my own time.

41:44Just to chime in on your fear here, I think it's well-grounded fear. We've talked about this at length, but the premiums will go up every year as you age. And then the other part is they're rising very fast right now. I think they're going to be, they rose like 20 % last year, year over year, unsubsidized for Affordable Care Act plans. And they're set to increase about 17 % again this year, year over year. And that's because, you know, if people don't like this and they say it's too strong a word, but I'm going to use it anyways, I think we're in the insurance death spiral in the Affordable Care Act right now as premiums go up.

42:17So healthy people opt out or find different ways to self-insure or just don't have insurance at all, leaving the pool of people who will remain on Affordable Care Act plans to be unhealthier. The insurers understand this. And so they raise premiums accordingly because there's a higher risk pool in the population. And that has happened every year now for two or three years. And there's no reason it won't continue into 2028 unless something breaks. The end result of that is it will have to blow up. something will have to change structurally. Either they'll have to revert to a true single-payer system and bring everybody back in, which will lower the average cost of planned participants, or they'll have to let it privatize and let people splinter out.

42:51And that will lower the cost for otherwise healthy people while leaving the people who almost depend on the system at a pretty tough spot. But I do think that you can bet on that changing in the next couple of years, what that change will look like is anybody's guess, but it will not continue to inflate at 17 % for more than a few more years before it implodes, or whatever that's worth. So that'll be a fun one. But I think that's like the big question mark on everyone's mind here. Forget markets or careers or your spending and other categories and how well you've got that. Healthcare is, how can you possibly guess at what's going to happen there?

43:22Fun challenge on there. And it might be a situation where I take on a role that's not quite as demanding with much lower earning potential just so I can have health insurance through an employer. It's not the ideal situation, but it's definitely something I can always fall back on. We've also considered moving abroad So there's that too.

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45:23Like I hate the fact that that's where you have to come to because think about what you just said there. I may create financial independence for myself, but I will still have to find an employer willing to pay for my health insurance. That power dynamic between employer and employee, I think it's like a fundamental problem with what's wrong with American society today. Childcare for a period of your life, if you have kids, you know, if that's something that you want, that can be a big issue. But other than that, you can choose almost everything else in your life. You can choose housing to keep housing low.

45:51You can choose food. You can choose your entertainment budget. You can choose what you do with your day. It's hard to opt out of health insurance and the traditional health care system here. Like, it's just not that's not really the same option. And that single thing, I think, ties so many people to their employer in a just unhealthy, unreasonable, unfair way in this society. I think it's going to, I hope it breaks and something emerges in the next few years, even if there is a little bit of chaos in there, because this is not fair. It's not right. What's going on? I agree with you completely.

46:21It makes me start craving mad to think I might have to go back to work just to have health insurance. But at least for a period of time, I think it's definitely going to give us, you know, the money that we've saved and invested is truly a safety net. It's not lost on me how blessed we are to be in this position. I know a lot of people that are struggling right now. And we even had to have a conversation on our last money date about increasing our grocery budget. because the grocery bucket is dwindling day by day and it's not lasting as long as it used to even for us. And we don't buy anything terribly fancy or anything.

46:57It's just life. It's just inflation. And so I feel for people out there that are struggling and don't have the ability to increase their income or the harder they work, they can make more money. That's not an option for a lot of people. So just know that it's really not lost on me that we're in a really great position right now. And, you know, we are trying to make sure that we give back, donate to causes that we care about and value and also, you know, give our time when we can. Well, let's end on a high note. Where are you going on your honeymoon and what are you looking forward to most? What's like the highlight of a day in the life of this wonderful, sustainable, wealth accelerating journey that you're on right now?

47:36We are going to Greece. We're going to be parking our butts and rotting on a beach for probably a week. So I'm really excited to not have anything on an agenda, nothing on my calendar, and nobody bothering me. Just spending really good quality time with my almost husband. Please don't call Kate, Governor Polis, in the next couple of weeks here, right? You got your time with her. She's already pushed it back. Don't give her a call until after that, but please don't give her the contract. Yeah, you've got four weeks. Yeah, I know.

48:06Mindy Jensen:It's really close, but we're really excited. Kate, when we first started the show, we had these four questions that we would ask and we've kind of gone away from them. But one of my favorites was always, what is your best piece of advice for somebody who wants to replicate your scenario? What would you say to somebody who's like, hey, Kate, how are you doing this? I have a few different pieces of advice that I could give to listeners. The first one is manifesting out loud. You need to tell people what you're building. You know, opportunity sometimes needs a little nudge. So if you don't talk about what your plans are, then nobody's going to know about it or be able to help you.

48:42Think about my friend at the wedding who helped me get my job and my esthetician that connected me with the real estate investor. Second one would be align spending with your values. Why are you spending money on things you don't care about? As soon as you stop doing that, all of a sudden you're going to have a lot more money to work with, make it work for you. And yeah, just making sure that your money's going to a place that you feel good about. And then the third one would be curate your environment. I invested in a money coaching program and I spent countless hours on the road listening to podcasts and audiobooks, educating myself.

49:18You are a product of what you consume. So maybe instead of turning on the trash TV, listen to something that makes you go, oh, that's new. I learned something today. Turn your dead time into learning time. Between manifesting, aligning spending with your values and curating your environment, you know, I'm not going to promise that you're going to make a half million dollars overnight, but those three behavioral changes can really help you get to the next level. Love it. And just to emphasize that first one and last one, if you tell people what you're doing, you can get lucky. That's like, that's what luck comes from, right?

49:50You got lucky on this. If you haven't mentioned it, you wouldn't have gotten lucky, right? And of course there's also luck. There was whatever circumstances and privilege or whatever that led you to that wedding with those people to tell that story and have that opportunity. But also you told people like that's the luck piece. And then I always find that I lapse if I go too long without putting an earbud in my ear and listening to some kind of self-improvement, business, nonfiction, get better, you know, kick in the pants, self-help guru, whatever it is. I need that in my ear on a constant basis because if I don't have it, then I begin to relapse a little bit and that's not, that's no good.

50:23So I don't know. That's what I've observed in my life on these. I don't know if you've, if you've found that to be the case for you at all. I mean, sure. Fair enough. I can fall down the rabbit hole of trash TV anytime, but holding myself accountable and also having a great partner who likes to listen to those things with me. You know, if we're out running errands together, sometimes instead of listening to music, we'll throw on a short podcast together. And that's a great discussion topic while we're doing something mundane like grocery shopping together. Awesome.

50:50Mindy Jensen:All right, Kate, is there any place people can find you online? Sure. We actually just built a website. It's derikateonfire.com. D-E-R-E-K-A-T-E on fire.com. You can also send us an email at derikateonfire at gmail.com. And for those who want to meet us in person, we will be attending EconoMe next spring. Ooh, that's a great one. My husband's going to be there. It'll be our first time. So tell Carl to show us the ropes. Yes, arrive on Thursday during the day because there's usually a welcome party on Thursday night. Super fun. Well, Kate, thank you so much for sharing your story here. Congratulations on your massive success.

51:26And I'll be looking forward to seeing people implement some of your great advice. Best of luck in the next couple of weeks with your honeymoon coming up and best of luck in the next few years as you finish the journey.

51:36Mindy Jensen:Thank you, Kate. And we'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much for having me. All right, Scott, that was an awesome story. I love how she went from$120 ,000 a year with really no potential to$90 ,000 a year with huge upside. And I can hear people saying, oh, but she's making$550 ,000. Of course she's able to save. She only started making that last year. This year, she's making$100 ,000 less than last year or 150 ,000 less than last year. But that is how you do this. That is how you go from$18 ,000 in debt to an$800 ,000 net worth in five years. It's gotta be income. I agree. And I think income in her case was directly derived from her lower spending.

52:18She lowered her spending and then almost immediately an opportunity came into her lap that paid just the$30 ,000 difference that she had cut out of her spending as a base that allowed her more upside. That's not an accident, guys. That is not occurring to people in her situation who are spending at$120 ,000 a year. It's not occurring to them as a possibility that this opportunity exists because there's no way they can cut back from$120 ,000 to$90 ,000 if they haven't cut back. So they can't finance their lifestyle on the base salary of the new opportunity. So this upside never happens. And I get it.

52:52It's annoying because a lot of people work really hard for a long period of time and never make anywhere close to$400 ,000 or$500 ,000 or even half of that in a year. But that's how this works in a lot of fields. That luck is an opportunity that directly translates from being able to bet on yourself and often comes with lower base salary. It's an investment. It does not always pay off. There is going to be a survivorship bias that comes to play as we talk stories about this, even if we do our best to select for that. But it's also a real phenomenon that happens to many in the financial independence space.

53:27And this is how a lot of people move into these higher income tiers. And also it highlights if you are in one of those high income tiers, it may not last. If you're a doctor, you're probably going to make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year or more for a long time. But if you're a salesperson, you're not going to make$500 ,000 a year for 30 years in a row. Almost nobody does that. And so don't spend it all. Don't build a life that requires it. Save your pennies and spend off your asset base if you're gonna go this route.

53:52Mindy Jensen:Absolutely, Scott. I cannot agree more. The sales job is incredibly stressful. She doesn't sleep at home every night. She's constantly traveling all around the state in order to connect with governments, local governments, that will purchase the product that she is selling. That's not a job that everybody wants to do. If everybody wanted to do that, it wouldn't pay$500 ,000. Yeah, I completely agree. And I'm building on that saying, even if she wanted to keep doing it, that opportunity may not exist forever. She's playing her hand perfectly. I love everything about what she's doing. I think she's going to be very successful here.

54:28Hopefully she can ride this out for a lot longer, but she'd be foolish and she's not, but she'd be foolish to act like this is a new long-term state of income generation for her.

54:37Mindy Jensen:Yeah, and she's already making plans to leave, but on her own terms that allows her to still get paid for these longer term commission projects that she's working on. I just, I love everything about her story. It's really great. Well, have a great honeymoon, Kate and Derek. Wishing you well, and thanks for joining us here on the BiggerPocketsMoney podcast. And we know you, dear listeners, may have trouble finding a flat fee or advice only planner who actually understands financial independence. So we are building out a network of these types of professionals and more over at biggerpocketsmoney.com slash FIPro.

55:15Mindy Jensen:That's biggerpocketsmoney.com slash FIPro. And if you feel like you got a specialist situation, by the way, I'll say reach out to me, Scott at biggerpocketsmoney.com. Reach out to Mindy, Mindy at biggerpocketsmoney.com. And we will attempt to ask you some questions, hopefully help to some degree. But more importantly, we would love to learn about the types of situations that you are looking for help with and can't find somebody to help you with. Maybe somebody we know can help or maybe we can go and find them for you. So reach out to us if the professional you're looking for is not on biggerpocketsmoney.com slash 5 Pro because we may know them or be able to add them to the network.

55:51Mindy Jensen:Yep, that would be awesome. We would love to have an entire network of people that you are looking for, professionals that you are looking for all in one place. All right, Scott, should we get out of here? Let's do it. That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPocketsMoney podcast. He is Scott Trench. I am Mindy Jensen saying toodaloo, caribou.