I Still Can't Believe I'm a Landlord
My wife wanted to move.
Not just to a different house—we talked about moving somewhere completely different.
The plan was simple.
I'd find a job doing... well... just about anything.
My wife would finally open the in-home daycare she'd always dreamed about.
She had been a public school teacher for years, and over time I noticed something.
She complained less about the kids...
...and more about the paperwork.
The meetings.
The office politics.
One day she finally said it out loud.
"I wish I could open my own daycare and do things my way."
That was the beginning.
As we talked about our future, our dreams started to take shape.
She wanted to own her own daycare.
I wanted to own a handful of rental properties.
We imagined building a life where we had a little more freedom and a little less dependence on our jobs.
Eventually we started looking for a house.
There was just one problem.
I had fallen in love with my job.
I actually looked forward to going to work every day. (Ironically, it's the same job that cut my salary by $20,000 a few years later.)
I didn't want to move anymore.
I wanted to stay.
But our townhouse wasn't going to work for the daycare. There wasn't enough yard, and there wasn't a dedicated space my wife could use just for her business.
So we started looking for another house nearby.
When we finally found one, I had a crazy thought.
"What if we don't sell the townhouse?"
What if...
...we did both dreams at the same time?
She could start the daycare.
I could become a landlord.
So that's what we did.
That decision came with a very small down payment, the $3,200 mortgage I've written about before, and plenty of unexpected work managing a rental property.
But it also came with something I'd never had before.
Income that didn't depend on me going to work.
Even today, that rental only puts a few hundred dollars in my pocket each month.
Some people would dismiss that as insignificant.
I don't.
Because every one of those dollars is a dollar my family doesn't have to earn from my paycheck.
That's what excites me.
The equity is nice.
The appreciation is nice.
But what I really love is that every month, my family receives money whether I clock in to work or not.
That changed the way I think about financial freedom.
🛡️ FREEDOM NUMBER #5
Income Without My Job
Definition
Every dollar my family earns that doesn't come from our primary jobs.
Why It Matters
Every additional dollar of Income Without My Job is one less dollar my family depends on a paycheck to earn.
Long-Term Goal
Build enough Income Without My Job that work becomes a choice instead of a necessity.
Today our Income Without My Job comes primarily from one rental property.
Someday, I hope it also includes this website, YouTube, investments, and maybe another rental or two.
I don't know exactly what that future will look like.
I just know I want more of my income to arrive whether I go to work that day or not.
