{How Does She Afford That?} How Faith Went From Living in a Tent to Building a Multi 6-figure Business & Buying Her First Rental

In today's episode, I'm interviewing Faith Mariah, who is a real estate investor, a multi six-figure business owner and a digital nomad. In this episode, I'm going to pull back the curtain on how Faith went from living in a tent for most of her twenties to now living a freedom lifestyle that most people desire. You're going to hear Faith's incredibly inspiring story, as well as the actual financials of how she made this work and most importantly, the mindset that had her create the life of her dreams. This is not an episode that you want to miss, make sure and listen to the end!

Key Highlights
[00:01:31] Living a freedom lifestyle.
[00:04:33] Overcoming homelessness and financial success.
[00:07:34] Making money as a blogger.
[00:10:23] Significant business growth.
[00:13:24] Financial stability and resilience.
[00:18:03] What's possible with money.
[00:19:21] Buying a rental house.
[00:24:59] Rental property investment mindset.
[00:27:19] Difference between spending and investing.
[00:30:01] Sales and marketing skills.
[00:32:25] Building goals and cash flow.
[00:35:43] Entrepreneurship and business discussion.

Notable Quotes
"Failure is just not an option. The only availability I have is forward."
"Down is on the way to up. There's no down and there's no backwards for me. We're only ever going forward."
"Being poor is such a scam. It's so easy to make money, even if you only have a little bit. You've got to start getting that leverage for yourself because it gets easier and easier."
"There's always solutions. Problems can't exist without solutions. Anytime there's a problem, there's a solution."
"Even if it's going to take a year, two years, three years, five years to build, it's worth doing so you can have it someday."
"Just figure out what you want, and then look at what would it actually cost and just put your brain to work about how could I get that kind of cash flow?"
"You've got to work for yourself because if you're working for someone else, they're going to be paying you less than your labor is worth."
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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, how do they afford that series? So The premise of this series is all about interviewing people that I know you've seen online, that I see online, that you'll get their lives. And you're like, how in the hell are you a 40 MIS? So it's creative entrepreneurs that have nontraditional lives. Like I built a retreat center or I live in Costa Rica and spend all my days on the beach with my family. Or I am an interim coach and I traveled the world 50 to 60% of the year. It's those people that you look at and you wonder to yourself, how in the world are you making your financial life work? And today's episode, I'm going to be interviewing faith, Mariah, who is a real estate investor, a multi six-figure business owner. And a digital nomad. In this episode, I'm going to pull back the curtain on how faith went from living in a tent for most of her twenties. To now living a freedom lifestyle that most people desire. You're going to hear face incredibly inspiring story, as well as the actual financials of how she made this work. And most importantly, the mindset that had her create the life of her dreams. This is not an episode that you want to miss, make sure and listen to the N. Let's get started. Faith Mariah, welcome to the holistic money podcast. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Are you really excited to be here? Cause you're about to share your financial life with the world. Well, I'm a chronic oversharer. So if you follow my Instagram, you know, you know what I'm up to. Yes. That's why I wanted to have you on. Let's talk about your life today. You are about to leave your rental property that you've been renovating for the past couple of months. You're about to go travel the world, and you have a business that you love that basically operates online. So a lot of people may look at you and be like, how the hell is she making this work? How the hell is she about to go travel the world for many months, have a rental property, rent it out, have this business that she makes multi six figures online? And that's what we're going to dive into today. We're going to look at how the hell do you make your life work financially? I know that you didn't start here, so why don't you start by just telling me about your money story? Yeah, I'm glad you said that. Cause I think a lot of people, they do look at the business and like what I have. Now, but my business is also seven years in the making. And so I do think it's important for people to realize that it wasn't like, Oh, I just started a business and had a great relationship and the rental house and like all this, I do think I have a good life. Like I'm not shy about that at all. Like I feel very thankful because my life wasn't this way. And it took a lot to get here and have the opportunities that I have. Um, and so my money story was really just like, money is hard. I think I originally, am I allowed to say that? Yeah. We work together. Whitney's my money coach. And I hired you, gosh, was it like a year ago? I hired you about a year ago, I think. And the money story was really like, I don't know what I'm doing. At that point, the story was like, I'm good at making money, but I don't know what to do with it. I'm bad at money. It was very overwhelming and stressful to me and I didn't even want to look at I had no idea How much was even coming in and out? I just didn't even want to ever look at it And so that was apparent In the results of your business because you were making multi six figures at the point you and I started working together You did have over almost two hundred thousand dollars in savings just sitting in cash that now we've deployed and put to work But I want you to actually start even further back because I know at one point you were actually homeless, you were hitchhiking around. And I want you to start from there, from that part of your life to how you got to where you are now, which is traveling the world, this amazing business and buying your rental. Yeah, I grew up, you know, with working class parents, we grew up pretty poor. I would say we had no air conditioning. We lived in a single. single wide trailer, right? With like bunk beds, no air conditioning and lived a pretty frugal lifestyle. I have a great family, but we just never had much growing up. And that was very familiar to me and comfortable for me. And so I continued that life all the way through college, all the way through grad school. I was just always. Living paycheck to paycheck. And I had a real, I think I have a real hustler kind of mentality. I still do. Right. That's like, I'll get scrappy and I'll do what I have to. And it's really from all those years, I think of just being like, we have to make, I have to make rent. Like, and that was my life really until probably I was like 30 years old. It was just really this mentality of like. I got to make rent. I got to go pick up a job and pick up some tables, waiting tables. I got to go. I picked up a job once at like a dry cleaner. I was like a personal assistant for a while. I've worked at every chain restaurant you can imagine. Like I've worked at all of them. Like that was kind of the hustle for me. It was like the paycheck to paycheck life. I didn't even really imagine. What it would even be like to have savings or think about having savings. Cause I just never had anything. I didn't have anything like really until I was probably 30. And then I was able to start my business. And I think that's when things started changing for me. But before that, it was just. Working jobs getting by. And when you started your business, did you have to have like startup capital to start your business? You're gonna hate this. Nobody do this. This is not financial advice. I put about 17,000 on a credit card when I started my business over. Time just because I felt like I really I had some money coming in because I had the job at UF so I had a plan to pay it back and the business was making some revenue. So I had like a clear path of being able to pay that money back over time and I understood the interest rate and I did factor it all out. It was like a calculated move. It was still a pretty risky move at that time because at that time I didn't have any savings. I was working at UF. But I was still living paycheck to paycheck. Cause the cost of living is high as we all know. And like, even at a salaried job like that doesn't mean you have extra money left over. I'm sure people can relate to that. Right. And so, yeah, I did, I did use startup capital on a credit card. Don't do that. I don't advise my students. Yeah, it worked. It paid off for you though, because of that. I really believe it because of that hustler mentality that like, one of the things I love about. Working with you and talking with you is the way that you think about your business and the way that you think about failure. It's just like, so not an option in your mind. It's really contributed to your success. So you started your business, you put money on some credit card. When did you actually start to make money in your business? And when I mean make money, I like, we'll say more than a couple thousand dollars a month. Well, here's what happened for me. So I didn't start as a coach. I started as a blogger, right? And I had a mental health blog that I had in my background is in social work and I was like gonna have this blog, it was my year's resolution. I was going to start this blog. I had found some income reports online of people making like 10, 000 a month. I remember reading like that. And that blew my mind. I was like, there's no way people make 10, 000 a month. I'm like, that's like, that was like the craziest thing I had ever heard. I'd never even heard of that. I didn't even know that was like. A thing that was real or possible, right? And so I saw people doing it. I like looked it up online and I Googled it. I remember like I was traveling in Europe with my boyfriend. That relationship was ended. It was very clear on that trip that that relationship was ending. Anybody that's traveled with a partner, you know, on a trip like that, where you're like, Oh, when we get home, this relationship has fully come to an end. So I was like laying on the floor of our Airbnb in Europe on Christmas Eve. We were there for Christmas and I was like looking at all these income reports. And I was like, okay, my new year's resolution is to start this blog and make money. If they're making 10, 000 a month, I was like. I can make two and I was like if I could make two I could quit UF and make it work, right? And so I made out my little budget my little plan of like how much I needed to make And I bought my little blogging course and my first program I ever did. I remember it was 700 I felt like I was gonna puke. I thought that was like an insane to do right? And bought my little website and I launched January one. And by October I had was, I made no money at all the whole time. It was like no money, no money, no money, no money. But I finally I had a really good funnel that I had been testing and my traffic like just went off and that cash started coming in and I was sitting at my desk and I made like two grand in one day. I had never made any money the month. Prior, right? So this is like all crazy and I'm sitting there and I hate this job. And my plan was to transition out of the job. I had cut my hours to 20 hours and I just walked into her office and I was like, I'm going to put my notice in and I quit. No savings. Don't do that. This might be an episode when you have like what not to do. And so I quit my job. Okay. So last job you ever had and then you have, Like you said, you've been doing this business for the past seven years. When did you actually start to get to critical momentum in your business when you started to consistently make money and really actually start to be able to save and invest? Really? Probably last year. But it wasn't like very strategic. It was, I was like making a lot more. So we went from doing, I was hustling really hard before that to make six figures, but then we doubled. So we went from six figures to 200, 000 and that felt like a significant leap to me. That was like pretty crazy when that happened. And it also happened pretty quickly. It's always been like that in my business. It's always been like. Kind of like nothing is happening. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. And it feels like you're stagnant. And then all of a sudden you like turn around and you're like, Oh, we're in a different game. Like this isn't even close to the numbers we were doing a year ago. What I want to talk about now is, so you simplified your business. You went from 100 to 200. But you mentioned that there were these moments of feeling stagnant and all of a sudden your business taking off in these. How did you manage that? Because that can be a really difficult time as an entrepreneur. These, these periods of stagnation. What was your mindset that keep you kept you going and not like, Oh fuck, I'm giving up this business isn't working anymore. It's the hardest thing about entrepreneurship, but that's what I love about it and why I love coaching on the mindset stuff so much. And the. Most challenging thing about entrepreneurship is that you're not going to get instant results in pretty much anything that you do. So everything we're doing now, I'm always telling the team, we're going to start seeing results from it nine months to a year from now. Like, I don't expect to do something and just see it in the bank account or see it in the followers or see, I don't expect to like, turn around and just... See those numbers instantly, but that's hard for our brains because our brains like to do something and then just see the evidence that it's working and do something and see the evidence that it's working. This is why people love like jobs. Right. Cause it's like, you go to work, you do your hours and you see like, Oh, I make these hours are making me this much money. And that's great. Our brains love that. Like that makes a lot of sense to us. Right. And I just always was in this belief where I was like, what you were saying, like failure is just not an option. Like. The only availability I have is forward and I'm always, one of my favorite mantras is like, down is on the way to up. I'm like, there's no down and there's no backwards for me. We're only ever going forward. We're only ever on the way to up. And that's all that is ever going to happen in my life. And my mindset is just like, I'm really stubborn about it. It's just like, I'm The energy I built my business in is very much like, I will be successful, like, God damn it. And so I do drink, make my team crazy sometimes, but it comes in handy in those moments where it's like, I just won't go backwards. We had this incident like in COVID in 2020, March, 2020, my main revenue stream was ad income from the site. So my old website used to get like 120, 000 visitors a month and we would get. Thousands of email subscribers every month. And when COVID happened, everybody locked their ad budgets. And so that was thousands of dollars of my income that was gone overnight. That, that was very predictable and very stable prior. Like it was money I could really count on. Um, and that money was just all of a sudden it dried up. And I remember calling my assistant and I gave her a raise and I told her, I was like, we're not going backwards. Like, I was like, we're. Only I don't know why I'm crying about this, but it's like we I just won't do it I was like, we're gonna make more money like we're gonna be successful and that's all I'm available for I'm not available To go back like I just won't and that was our first 10, 000 month Like we had our biggest month ever that month and we launched brand new programming I don't know why I'm crying about that story. I've told that story a lot, but it's an emotional story. It's crazy. I think it's just a testament to your hard work and your resilience. And you're just honoring yourself and seeing yourself in these moments when you're sharing this, because I know that there are so many people who would have walked away at that, at that moment in time in their business and said, well, Well, I had messaged her earlier that day and I was like, you might need to start looking at other jobs. Like, I don't know what's about to happen. Like, it felt like such a crazy time too. Like, it was like March, 2020, like where we were was in lockdown. Like it was just like, and I was like, and then I get all these letters from our ad revenue being like, basically there's no payouts coming next month. And I was just like, Oh my God, like, you know, I have bills to pay. Like, this is my livelihood at that time. My VA's livelihood, like she really counted on that money. And I was like, what are we going to do? And I was just like messaged her being like, you really might need to look at other jobs. Like, I don't know what's about to happen. And so that was kind of like my way of like proclaiming, like, no, like we're going to figure this out. The other thing I think about that helps me a lot in business is like, I'm like, there's always solutions, like there's always going to be problems, but there's. always solutions. And so the job is to just stay solution focused, right? Cause it's really easy to be, our brains love to focus on the negative. And I'm always like, I have like a negative ass, dramatic ass brain. It's always like, everything's the worst for me. And this is the most terrible thing to ever happen for me. Like, that's, that's what it wants to think, right? It's just like, this is so unfair, like crawl off in a quarter somewhere. And then I have to be like, no, There are problems. There's always going to be problems, but Anytime there's a problem, there's a solution. Problems can't exist without solutions. Like it's the way it is. Like there has to be a solution. And that's some of the work that you and I have, we've really taken that mindset and we've moved it into your business, into your money. I'm sorry. Of how you make financial decisions and taking all the wealth that you're generating from your business and actually creating the life that you want to live. And that's what I want to talk about now, because. Do you have a successful six figure business? Multi six figure. You didn't start there. You built this up over time, but now you're actually starting to use the money that you're making and actually starting to build a pretty incredible life with that. And so you just bought your first rental property, which is very exciting. So tell me a little bit about that. How did you get the savings from, I will just talk about how did you get the money to be able to buy this first rental property? Well, I sold another house I had, but the way I got that house was really interesting, and it basically came from when my grandmother passed away, she had been a deli department at Publix, which is a really popular grocery chain in the southeast here. We live in Florida. It's like, you can find a Publix on like every corner here, and so she worked as the deli lady at the grocery store, but they had a stock matching program, and she had been Stashing all this money away her entire time there. She worked there her whole life basically until she retired. And when she passed away, we found out she had over a million dollars of public stock. And my dad inherited a chunk of that and he refused to spend it. My mom's like, I tried to get him to spend it all in travel and like do things with it, but he won't, you know, he doesn't want to spend it. He wants to leave it to you and your brother, but I just told him to just give it to you now because I don't see why he has to wait till he's dead to have it. So, we got the house. The market was low then when we bought. I thought it was an insane amount of money, but now it's crazy how much it's changed down here. The market is so different. You know, it was a small house, but I just loved it. It was really special to me. I think we closed on it at like 120. I lived in it for five years with no rent. And... sold it and made over 100, 000 when we sold it. And I just remember being like, that was like the craziest thing that had ever happened to me, like selling that house. Cause I was just like, I just like lived in this thing rent free for five years and sold it and made a hundred thousand dollars. And it like blew my mind. It just like really started to show me like. What's possible with money and investment. I remember telling Whitney in one of our coaching sessions, I was like, being poor is such a scam. It's just like, it's so easy to make money. Even if you only have a little bit, it's so easy. Like you've got to just start getting that leverage for yourself. Cause one, it gets easier and easier. Like it gets easier and easier to make money. The more money you have, it's like ridiculous. Like Matt and I even now are doing like credit card points where we're just putting all our bills on credit cards. And we were looking, we were like, Oh, we could go on like a week vacation with our credit card points. And like stay at a really nice resort and fly down there basically for free. Just for paying our bills on a credit card we were able to get. Stuff like that. It's just like you just get more and more leverage and more and more opportunities the more money you have. It's the hardest part is getting that first little chunk, but it'll never be that hard to make money again. So you use the money from the sale of the first house. To buy this investment property. And there was a period for you of like really actually getting comfortable with that idea and even being ready to invest. I know when you and I started working together, you were like, maybe one day I'll buy an investment property. At the end of our three months, you were like, well, I'm under contract. I thought this was like a 10 year plan. Like I remember you were like, what do you want to do with your money? And I was like, Oh, I would really like to have an investment property in St. Augustine. My family lives in St. Augustine, Florida, which is a really cute little town. It's on the beach. You can, you can come stay in my rental house if you want here, but it's a little tourist town, basically like a little beach town. It has a really cute little historic district and it has a huge tourist population. And I've always thought, Oh, it'd be so awesome to have an Airbnb here where. My family could use it part of the time and my brother's family could use it part of the time and I could stay in it part of the time to visit my family and we could just rent it if nobody's using it and when I was saying that I remember you asking me that and in my mind I was like this is like a huge like 10 year goal like this is just and you were just like kind of like okay well what else do you want to do because you have a bunch of cash you're just kind of like you can just and I was like it had never even occurred to me that I could like buy a house Like, it just didn't even go into my brain that that was like a thing that was even available to me. It was like, I couldn't even see how to use that money I had at all. And now you are getting ready to travel. Tell me about your travel plans. What do you have coming up for yourself? Matt and I are leaving. I'm like, my heart's like palpitating thinking about it because it's, we're leaving the end of this month to go to Asheville. We have to have all of the renovation done and we're renovating the bathroom downstairs before we go. So we're finishing that and the house that we bought, the investment property we bought. And we have the house here in St. Augustine. And we are going to Asheville for a couple months and then we'll be out on the West Coast most of the year. But we're basically just staying in different Airbnbs and different cities we like for the next year. And then we'll see what we want to do after that, if we want to keep traveling, or what, how we like the lifestyle, but we both work remote, and we're just wanting to travel, and go spend time seeing more of the country, and I like the idea of being able to stay in a city for like a month or two, we're staying in Asheville for a couple months, we're gonna go stay in New Orleans for a couple months, We'll be on the west coast. I did grad school out in Seattle, so we're gonna go up there for the summer. And yeah, we're just gonna go check everything out, and it's really, really exciting. I've always wanted to travel, but I've never had both the time and the money to do it. When I was younger, I traveled a lot, but like you said, I was hitchhiking and like living in a tent and like backpacking and stuff. And I did go back across the country, probably like a dozen times traveling and hitchhiking and backpacking and stuff, but it was hard. It was a hard lifestyle. So I had lots of time, but I had no money. I was broke as a joke. And then now it's like, we have time and money. So I feel like that's always been like the dream. This is something that you've actually worked really, really hard for over the past 10 years. And I just want to call that out really quick because I think a lot of people see people like you online and think to themselves, Oh, she must have a trust fund or she must have someone taking care of her. There's no way that she's doing this herself. But I just... One of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on was because of the hard work, the grit, the perseverance that you've put into your life and your money and your business to get to this place. And also, even though we've done so much work on your money mindset, you know, breaking this kind of like poor mentality, you do still have a level of intentionality and awareness and desire to be strategic with your money that has gotten you to this place. And you've done a really, really good job with your money. to be able to get to where you are. I want you to tell me the financials of this rental property. So how much did you buy this rental property for? We closed it for 50. I do think it's a good investment because of the area it's in. It's adjacent to like a multi million dollar neighborhood. So we are basically four blocks from here from like houses that are going for 7, 1. 8 million dollars. And so our area is still being developed. There's a lot of like the two houses next to ours, like for example, are abandoned. Like they're, we're kind of in, I think the next part that will be developed. So we wanted to be in an area. That would be an investment that would grow over time. It's also right downtown, where you can, if you want to come stay here, you can walk to all the restaurants. You can walk to everything, but it's in a quiet residential area, which I think is really nice because I don't really want to be in the middle of the tourist stuff when we're staying here. Like, you want to be like near it where you can walk to it. But then you can like you buy your house for? Um, 450. You cut out for a second. 450. And then you have a partner. How much did you two put down on the property? I think we put a 30, between 30 and 35 each. So about 70, 000. We did closing and all that. Yeah. And now you're renovating the house. How much are you all putting into the house for renovations? Not very much. We're tiling, so it's a 3 3, but when we bought it, it was a 3 2. 5, and they had taken the, they had taken the shower, this like kills me, they had taken the shower and made it into a pantry in the downstairs bathroom, but the plumbing hookups and stuff were still there, the pipes were there, they were just drywalled in, so we pulled the drywall out, we were like, oh thank god, the drain even was still under the floor, we like peeled it all out, and so we're Basically just tiling that shower. It was like 400 bucks to buy that. I bought the tile on sale. We did some stuff with the landscape, but it really didn't need much. It's not like the fanciest house in the world, but I think it's a good, it's nice enough, people would want to come stay in it in vacation, but it's not so fancy that we have to like baby it or worry about it or anything. So it's a rental basically, you know, it's really set up to be a rental. Not like our dream house. And, and one of the things that you were describing when you were talking about this rental is you're talking about the future potential of the rental by looking around the neighborhood and the tourists and where people like to hang out and the fact that this neighborhood is changing, that's such a great way, such a great mindset to have when you're actually looking for rental properties or properties in general, because a lot of people want to go in and find that dream home that's renovated and beautiful and exactly the amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, but that's not always the best financial decision. Well, I was doing that. You told me not to, because I remember looking, I remember the first, like we went and looked at a duplex that was two units and I was like, Whitney, it's gross. I was like, it's like old, it's gross. I hate it. It's ugly. And you were like. It's four blocks from the beach. You're like, it's a good investment. Like, it's not your dream home. You're not even going to live in it. So why don't you like think about it? And I was like, Oh, like, and we didn't end up getting that one for like some other reasons. But I remember that conversation because. You were like, you know, you were like, you guys can act like rich people when you're rich people. But like, right now you need an investment property so you can get the dream home later. But you were like, don't buy the dream home now, like buy an investment property. And I was like, okay. And this house prop that we bought is that like, it probably wouldn't be something Matt and I would have bought for us to live in full time, but we're not going to be here. So it's like, well, let's get something near the tourists. Let's get something that can grow in value. Let's. get something walkable like that people would want to have amenities people would want on vacation. And so it really did change my mindset. And it was a huge leap for me. Even I remember my dad coming over here and he was kind of like, you know, my dad's working class. They buy everything with cash. My parents, you know, the way they kind of won in life is they bought a house with cash and they have lived in it forever. And so they're like, this is what you do. You buy a house in cash, you live in it till you die. And that's it. We figured it out. And like, this is what you should do. And so my dad came over here and he's, it's just like, I could, and he's the best. Right. But I could tell it's like killing him. And he's like, Oh God, like they're spending all this money on this house downtown. And like, he's just like, I just hate to see you get into something, you know, over your head. And like, I was like, it is a lot of money for a 50 dad, but it's going to be worth twice that in 10 years. Like we're going to get all of that money. We're putting the money in the house, but it's not gone. It's going to stay in the house and it's going to grow. And then we're going to take it out. Later and buy the house we actually want and that's very hard for my family to understand I think it's hard when you grow up working class and you work paycheck to paycheck It's a totally different way of thinking about money. And that's really what I learned from working with you is like the difference Yeah, working hard for money versus strategic leverage and you're starting to learn how to play the money game Is essentially what you're doing. So do you expect to make money on this property? Yeah, I think we, uh, my goal for the first like year is just if we could pay the mortgage or most of the mortgage, I would be happy with that. So that's our first step. I think in business, you know, you have to kind of go step by step. So when I'm coaching people on their online businesses, I'm always telling them the first step is just to make one sale, right? And then it's like, then maybe you'll have a thousand dollar month. And then you have to learn how to make a thousand dollars every month, month after month, right? So the first step is like just doing it once. And then can you replicate it over and over and build those systems out so you can make that same amount of money every month? And so for this business, I kind of think of it the same way. It's like the first step is like just learning how to get some renters in here. And like just the first step is just kind of like pay that mortgage payment, right? And then it's like, okay, can we also get it to pay for the taxes? And can we get it to pay for the utilities? I'm totally on the same page with you. I love your mindset around this. Because even with my rentals, for example, I've had to slowly increase the value of the rental in order to slowly increase the price of the rent. And there have been a lot of tenants that have moved in that have helped us understand, Hey, this would be really nice. We also had to learn how to market and sell our rentals. We had, you know, for our rentals on our property, we were starting a website and building our own brand. So treating your rental business like you would treat any other business is what will make you a successful real estate investor. And I don't think a lot of people actually think like that about their real estate business. They're like, Oh, it's just passive. It doesn't matter. The money's going to come in. And it's like, no, this is another business that you actually have to take care of and nurture. So the goal for the first year is. to have your rental income paying at least the mortgage and then how are you two going to afford? We're going back to that question. How are you two going to afford traveling for a year? Well, we just made a budget and figured out how much we need to make. My partner, Matt, is an attorney. He also makes It's six figures himself, so that definitely helps, but yeah, we're splitting it. You know, it's funny because it is expensive because it's Airbnb, but honestly, like rent where we live is so expensive. It's not that much more. Um, and when you start making more money, it's like an extra thousand dollars a month, 2, 000 a month to be able to travel and do have the experiences we want and do the things we want. It's worth it to us. And we have the cashflow right now. And I really like the idea of. Thinking about the kind of life you want, how much would it cost you? And then there's always a way to make that work. There's always a way to fund that, right? So even if I had to make an extra, let's say, like, not nobody booked the property or everybody canceled the rental property and we had to pay, you know, the 4, 000 of expenses. But with the mortgage and all the utilities and taxes, we figured it's about 4, 000 a month for this property. So let's say I have to pay that 4, 000 a month plus. Like our Airbnb, which I think our budget we gave ourselves for that was four grand, but that includes utilities. That's really what we were paying rent here before we were paying 3, 500 a month in rent plus utilities where we live. So we live in an expensive area already. I think that has helped the budgeting mindset of it, right? And so even if we had to pay all that and let's say, you know, Matt Doesn't have the cash or something. And I need to come up with 4, 000 extra dollars. I have the ability to do that with my business because I understand how to make money. I understand how to do sales and marketing. I think sales and marketing are the most important skills people should learn under capitalism. I think everyone should know them because you can always figure out something to sell a service, a product, something, put it out in the market and sell it and make that money if you have to, and so. I'm always just like, yeah, if we end up in a situation, this is just how my brain works, right? I'm not willing to touch my savings and my investment. I just wouldn't, right? I would just go make that extra couple thousand bucks or four thousand bucks. I think a lot of people have limiting beliefs about what's required for them to go travel the world and it could be as simple as rent out your house. If you have a home, if you don't have a home, you know, just go, you've set a budget for yourself, 4, 000 a month for our Airbnb expenses, which you're going to stick within and then go live your life and enjoy yourself. Yeah. And it doesn't have to cost that much either. Like Matt and I, you know, are both professionals in our careers and make. Pretty good money, and I like to stay in nice places, but there's definitely cheaper places we could be staying at. Like, it doesn't have to be 4, 000 a month, just so people know. Like, you could spend 10, 000 a month on rent easily on Airbnbs. You could spend half what we are and stay outside the city, right? I wanted to be somewhere walkable while we're staying in these places, and I'm willing to pay more, but it doesn't have to cost that much. This... Mindset that you have about your life and your business has really set you up to build something pretty incredible that I think a lot of people dream about living and existing in, and this interview, no doubt, is allowing people to see that with The right mindset, determination, and focus, you can absolutely make these goals come to life for yourself. Just figure out where, what you want, figure out what you want, and then look at like, what would it actually cost? And just put your brain to work about like, how could I get that kind of cash flow? Like, what would I have to have for myself? And even if it's going to take a year, two years, three years, five years to build. It's worth doing so you can have it someday in addition to your travel. Are you also investing for like retirement and saving as well? Yeah, well, I meet with Whitney every quarter. So I did one on one coaching. I can't remember for like three months or six months or whatever it was when we started. And now we meet quarterly and she tells me where to put my money. So I highly advise, I suggest just doing that. I just like do what Whitney tells me to do. And we look at it. It's good. We just look at like the expenses of my business. How much is the business costing to run? How much is the business bringing in? How much cash is in all the accounts? And then we decide where to put it. And then we've set up automatic deposits based on those calculations for retirement. And that investment account is killing it. We have that Vanguard account. I was like blown away the other day when I looked at it. It was like bringing in like 15 percent or something the last month. I was just like, Oh my God. So I definitely want to stash some more money in that. I think that'll be like my next little project. Yeah, it's good to see what kind of investor you are. But I wanted to ask that question because I want people to also know that you are still prioritizing your investing for the future. You're saving for the future while you are. Still living a really great life for yourself. So faith, I want you to, I want to wrap up the podcast with you giving someone who is listening to this podcast, who has aspirations to be where you are today. They want to be in the financial situation, the life situation, the business situation. Just give them some advice on how to get started. My biggest piece of advice. This might be controversial for your audience. My biggest piece of advice is like, you've got to work for yourself because if you're working for somebody else, unless you're highly, highly skilled in something that's very in demand. Most jobs, if you're working for someone else, they're going to be paying you less than your labor is worth. It's how capitalism works, right? It's how it works in my business, right? I'm like, I pay my BAs a certain amount because I know they can make me more than that per hour, right? And so you're always going to be paid less than what your labor is worth when you're working for someone else. If you want to make the full value of what your work is actually worth, of what it's actually valued at, you have to. to work for yourself. It is probably the hardest thing you'll ever do. And the potential to have unlimited earning potential and flexibility and passive income, the opportunity is too great, like not to do it. And the risk really isn't that much. Like people really get in their heads about like, Oh, like what if I, it doesn't work. And I like waste time and waste money. And my thought about that is just like, so what, this is like one of my mantras that I use when I was like. Poor as hell and it was always like I'm not gonna get very many shots, but I always shoot my shot You give me a chance. I'm fucking taking it right and this is a shot. Faith tell everyone where they can find you I'm at faith Ryan calm I have a weekly business panel live show that I do Whitney's been on you can find it on the blog My team has been taking all the past episodes and putting them on the blog. They're really good people have been loving them So if you want to find Whitney's episode and other past episodes, we've done we talk about everything business from strategizing for your first six Figures to money mindset, to investing, to anything entrepreneur. We talk about it on the show on Instagram. If you want to see my bathroom renovation traveling, I guess we'll, maybe we'll post like travel. Am I going to be like a travel influencer now? Maybe, maybe so we'll be over there being a travel influencer. You can see what we're up to and follow our trip next year. Say, thank you so much for being here today. If you all love this episode, please make sure and share it with a friend or leave me a review. You know i love reading your reviews we will continue the how do they afford series in the next episode i will see you all soon have a great week

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