Summary

In this episode of the Life By Design Podcast, Jessilyn and Brian Persson discuss the concept of 'micro freedom moments' achieved through real estate investing. They explore how small wins in real estate can lead to significant financial and personal freedom, emphasizing the importance of time, emotional well-being, and lifestyle choices. The conversation highlights their personal experiences, including reducing mortgage payments, enjoying family time, and the emotional relief that comes from financial stability. They encourage listeners to embrace the small victories in their investment journey, which collectively contribute to a more fulfilling life.

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Chapters

00:00 Micro Freedom Moments in Real Estate Investing

08:38 Time Freedom Through Real Estate

15:31 Emotional and Mental Freedom

22:39 Lifestyle and Retirement Freedom

Transcript
Jessilyn Persson (00:00)

Welcome to the Life By Design Podcast where Jessilyn and Brian Persson, struggling to align your financial goals or confidently invest in real estate as a couple.

Brian Persson (00:09)

That's why we created this podcast and the Riches, Relationships and Real Estate program to help you build wealth and strengthen your relationship. Visit weekendwealth.ca to take our quiz and discover your real estate investor type. Let's create the life you deserve together.

Jessilyn Persson (00:26)

Today we're going to talk about creating micro freedom moments through real estate investing. Because small wins equals big momentum. So every property you acquire isn't just an investment. It's a step closer to time freedom, financial peace and living a life on your terms. So what do we mean by micro freedom moments? Those are the little steps forward that bring you closer to your goals. Whether that's financially reclaiming your time or enjoying

more of life as it is. So we're going to break up our micro freedom moment discussions into different areas and share some key points and stories on what we do and how we did it and how we gained more freedom step by step over time while we built our real estate portfolio. So Brian, talk about one of the financial micro freedom moments we've had.

Brian Persson (01:23)

Well, one of the ones that I'm pretty sure we've mentioned in other podcasts is just being able to lower our mortgage payments because what we did was we borrowed against our property in order to buy real estate. then with the split off loan from our personal property, the real estate that we bought, the investment we bought was actually paying for that. So our personal liability towards our own house, ⁓

was drastically lowered basically. And I think at one point we were paying $600 a month in mortgage payments.

Jessilyn Persson (02:00)

I do remember that and I remember we were on a little local holiday with a dear friend of ours and we were in the pool talking about mortgages and she was saying how her mortgage ⁓ was high and when she told me her amount and ⁓ then I told her mine and she goes, no, no, that's not correct. She goes, that's not a month. You must mean a week. I'm like, ⁓ nope, I mean a month. She's like, what? Cause hers was,

⁓ I think five times that amount of ours.

Brian Persson (02:32)

Yeah, yeah. And to dial it in, it wasn't like we're living in a hundred thousand dollar condo. It was a half million dollar house. you know, other people living in similar sized houses were probably paying two, $3,000 a month in mortgage payments. And we were paying $600 a month in mortgage payments because the two real estate properties we bought from the loan from our personal property was paying for both that portion of the mortgage payment

plus paying us cash flow on top of it from the actual real estate. So we were kind of double dipping the real estate investment, both like removing expenses from our personal life and also generating some income for ourselves.

Jessilyn Persson (03:18)

Yep, exactly. But to be clear, we paid down our mortgage first. Yeah. And then that obviously opened up equity for us to pull out. So our mortgage was full, our house, sorry, was fully mortgaged again. ⁓ But we were only paying a portion of it because the rest was through our rental property. So we were living in this grand, grand for us house, but keeping our mortgage payments less than people pay for a one bedroom.

in a house for rent was mind blowing to people.

Brian Persson (03:49)

And I think that was the big eye-opener. The micro freedom or that that sigh, that relief, that like, aha moment was just looking at how low our expenses were. And knowing that, you know, if you got sick, if I got sick, if the kids got sick, we had to take time off. If there was whatever life crisis that goes on in life and they will happen, if that ever happened, we knew we...

already were well taken care of and our expenses were going to be very, very low because our real estate had taken some of the expenses off the plate and were paying us money. It really gave us this little sense of indestructibility in our financial life where it was like, you know what? The bottom is that our expenses are covered and that's the worst thing that can possibly happen to us.

That's an interesting feeling when you get to that point and you're like, huh, I feel sort of indestructible. I mean, not truly, but that's the idea behind it is that you're just getting that little step towards financial indestructibility.

Jessilyn Persson (04:59)

Yeah, so I know this is going back almost 17 years, but do you remember when the first rent deposit hit your account?

Brian Persson (05:10)

No, don't. You want to know why? Because the first rent deposit didn't hit our account. I don't know if you remember this going 17 years back, but the very first renters we put into our very first condo didn't actually pay their first month's rent.

Jessilyn Persson (05:26)

yes. But when we did finally get them pained.

Brian Persson (05:32)

Yeah,

yeah, just for the audience, the story is that newbie investors here, 17 years ago, we bought the condo, we found tenants and totally gapped on the fact that we have to like actually be there to move the tenants in and we ended up being out of town for the weekend that they were moving in. So I had a buddy of mine, which is allowed in Alberta anyway, ⁓ come and

put the tenants into the house, into the condo. And ⁓ the thing is he didn't know anything about real estate. Not that I knew a whole lot more, but I knew that you needed to collect the rent check. And so when they showed up, ⁓ the couple that was moving in didn't have their first month rent and they were promising it in about a week. And my buddy let them move in anyway and gave them ...