Passive income equals freedom
I was sitting on a plane recently getting ready to take the longest flight I have ever been on. It was from Atlanta to Portland, and it was going to take 5 1/2 hours. And I was wondering what I was going to do with myself for that long.
When I boarded the plane, I was a little taken aback. It was huge. A Boeing 767 looks like one of the plans you see in the movies with three separate cabins: first class, comfort and then the main cabin. And from where I entered, I couldn’t easily see either end of the plane.
I had the first seat in the middle row on the aisle side of the main cabin. There was a little wall that partitioned off the next section forward — comfort — directly in front of me. This was awesome because it gave me a ton of extra leg room and freedom of motion because there was no chair right in front of me.
But because there was no chair in front of me, the normal things like a monitor or even a tray table were not present. This messed with my plans because I had intended to write to you while I was in the air. I did find that I had a stowable tray table and monitor that came out of the arm rest, which was kind of cool. But the tray table was too small to accommodate my computer.
Well, when my plans to work fell through, I did what I normally do to pass time. I started talking. I struck up a conversation with the passenger next to me. His name was Chris, and he was from Tampa. He was heading out to Portland to help his daughter move back to the eastern side of the United States. When he got to Portland, he was going to rent a moving truck, load it and then drive it and his daughter back home. He said he was going to get some good quality time with her in the truck … four days worth.
Those are going to be some memories.
I told Chris about the great day Ashley and I had just had with the kids. They took me hiking to Amicalola Falls for Father’s Day. It was a tough hike, by the way. The whole hike is only 2.4 miles, but the first mile is a steady grade that goes 700 feet up in elevation. And I did that with a baby on my back. It took us nearly 40 minutes to get to the top, and it was a great workout. The falls were breath taking and made the effort worth it.
Chris started talking about his work and the company he works for. He talked about how great a product they had and how good they were to him to give him so much vacation time.
He noticed my “We buy Houses” shirt and changed our conversation. He and his wife had been looking into wholesaling and had even taking a few classes. He said he wanted to start wholesaling and then eventually move into flipping.
When I asked him why he wanted to start flipping houses, he started talking about how he wanted to create win-win situations. He wanted to help people out of their property problems and make great homes for new buyers.
That’s when I stopped him and asked,” Why do you want to change careers paths from what you know and are doing well to something like real estate?”
You see people often time start romanticizing the idea of getting into flipping and wholesaling without a good reason. A lot of the time, it’s because they know someone who did a deal, or they saw it on TV.
But Chris had a different answer. He said he wanted to flip houses to get money to buy rental properties so that he could have passive income and not have to work anymore. And I thought that was a great reason.
You see, rentals pay you whether you are at the office or taking a hike with your family for Father’s Day up Amicalola Falls. They pay you whether you are out sick, on vacation or flying to Oregon. Rentals pay you without you having to work daily for that money so you can do whatever it is you want. That’s the meaning of passive income, and that’s how passive income equals freedom.
Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.