Achieving FIRE at 36 - Episode 7

About our guest:

Antoinette Munroe is a serial entrepreneur with a broad spectrum of business experience in industries ranging from music entertainment to construction. After eight years of accelerated advancement at a global CPG company, Antoinette shifted her focus from climbing the corporate ladder to pursuing FIRE(Financial Independence Retire Early) by 40. She achieved that goal at 36!

To achieve this goal, Antoinette developed Budget ABC's, House Hacking, and Travel Hacking strategies that accelerated her path to financial independence. Along the way she's repaid over 100K debt, eliminated all her living expenses and traveled around the world visiting exotic locations like Bora Bora and Maldives for little to no cost.

Currently, Antoinette primarily focuses on scaling her real estate investment portfolio using various strategies like short-term rentals, flipping, group homes, and multifamily. With her hyper focus on creating innovative ways to minimize expenses, maximize savings, and monetize opportunities, it's no surprise that she's the first self-made millionaire in her family. When she’s not "Building to Billions.” Antoinette enjoys salsa dancing, fine dining, and having fun with friends and family. Living by the personal mantra "I will find a way or make one", Antoinette is continuously working towards achieving her wildest dreams and brings and helping others define and achieve theirs.

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Naseema: What's up? What's up? What's up? Hey, welcome back to the Financially Intentional Podcast Super Juice to have Antoinette Monroe join us today because she has an incredible story about her journey into financial freedom through real estate. And it's one wish I feel is. Really important to highlight because it's something that all of us can do.

I don't think that she even understood like how far she could go when she started on her journey, but it's something that's super attainable for everyone. So I wanna welcome you on

[00:00:38] Antionette: Antoinette. Hey. Okay, Naima, thank you for having me, .

[00:00:42] Naseema: Of course. Let's just hop right into your story.

I wanna know like where you started, like as far as learning about money. Was money something that was talked about at home or like how did

[00:00:54] Antionette: you set out on this journey? I learned very well what not to do with money. That was the lesson that I got at home. Credit cards ran up, lights going on and off.

Every month I got to experience a bankruptcy with my parents. Like money was not a. Thing that my family knew how to do. But even when you're receiving negative messages, you can still learn a positive lesson. So for me, the lesson was, okay, don't do none of that and . So that's how it started with me for money.

[00:01:24] Naseema: Yeah, that's funny. Like Me Too, the same hearing, like I learned how to dodge bill collectors. That was like my biggest lesson, . So what caused you to make that transition? Into real estate or was that your first foray into kind of investing?

[00:01:42] Antionette: Yes, but it was totally unintentional. I, I. , I was just trying to be smart with money and make like good money decisions and not repeat the things that I saw growing up.

Doing the right things, saving, not spending more money than you had living within or below your means. So I was just doing smart stuff. And a part of that, I thought that the right thing to do would be to purchase a home because you'll be building equity and not giving away money at rent.

, when I initially made a purchase, it was just like, this is the next smart thing to do with money cuz it's some form of investing. Still not really understanding anything about it, but this is what I should do and let's do it as smartly as possible. Meaning, I got approved for two 20 but I didn't wanna spend over 200.

So making sure I was very conservative with any new debt I was taking on. It was after getting the house and going through the process maybe even a year after that I finally start to connect some dots and think about that home ownership from an investment perspective. But initially it was just let me be good and do good money things.

[00:02:47] Naseema: What made you think that real estate was gonna be a good form of investing? And what put you in the mindset that renting was throwing away money.

[00:03:00] Antionette: Nobody's ever asked me that question, so I wish I knew, but I'll say, so when I was 19, I was driving around, I had decided I was gonna buy a house because I had just spent two years paying rent at an apartment complex.

And like in the college towns, you're paying by the bedroom. So I'm like, all right, we're paying this much for this apartment. I feel like that money's just going away. Cuz once it's out, it was gone. And I was very much a money hoarder. I wanted to save everything. So it pained me every month to write that check and it just be gone and nothing else would happen after it.

So to me, I thought that if I owned the home, at least that money was going into something that was. and that was it. It was very surface level. Like I can give it to the apartment complex or I can give it to something that belongs to me. And maybe in the long run later if I sell it or something, I could recoup some of that.

And that was it. Like a surface level understanding. So I actually purchased my first home at 19 when I was in college because I had this bright idea of I'm not gonna pay rent no more to. Of course I'm 19. I don't have no money. So the second half of that was to convince a family member to put this home in their name, promising that I'm gonna make all the payments every month and deal with the maintenance and be responsible for it, but could they just get the loan for me?

And fortunately, my sister was able and willing to do that. So at 19 was the first purchase, and still it was just to me, the smart money thing to. Like rather than throwing money away or giving money away at rent, I'm keeping it in some way, but I still didn't understand anything about real estate investing.

[00:04:33] Naseema: Yeah, I ask you that because for me, real estate investing was the only investing that I had seen my family do. So, um, my grandfather and my uncle owned a lot of real estate in Oakland, California. And so like that sometimes you don't know what's possible for you unless you see other people do it.

And. That's all I knew about investing was real estate investing. I knew, of course, you know about the stock market, but you think maybe that's for other people like, and don't really understand that aspect of investing. And yeah, for me it was like it was real estate or nothing. And I didn't buy my first property as young as you, but I still brought my first property, like in, in my early twenties.

[00:05:12] Antionette: I think that I'll say then, if the family is the example, like I lived in a, the same home my whole life and my parents own. To the extent of what I knew about real estate, I knew that we had always lived in the same place and we didn't pay rent to anybody. We owned it. So that was probably like the foundation of that I should own something versus paying rent.

[00:05:31] Naseema: I can understand that, and that's very interesting, even though, you experienced your parents going through a bankruptcy they still had their home. So that is another kind of money lesson, like at least we have this right.

But also what's very interesting that you brought up is that you had a family member that was ready and willing and was able to help you get your first property. Like that is something that a lot of people don't have access to, but something that she took full advantage of, and I think that is incredible that your sister was able to help you out at 19, get your first property.

Walk us through what that first property was and how you managed to pay for it, even though, like you said, you didn't have a lot of money at 19.

[00:06:11] Antionette: So fortunately for my sister, we are all first generation college, but she is what, six years older than me. She got to go through college first, go through law school and she was a lawyer at that point.

Sister jackpot, a little bit . But that property I'd found it randomly, like I saw it on the front of those for sale by owner magazines that used to be at the gas station. And I thought it was cute, and so I picked up the magazine and kept it with me like, oh, this is cute. have a lot of free time.

I'm in college, so I'm riding around. Let's go look at it. No real thought. Jess saw this in the magazine. Thought it was so cute that I actually wanted to go look at it. And then in meeting the owner, she was just like some little old lady that really wanted to sell her house and so personable and really wanted to make this happen for me, that she gave me the keys the first day we.

No contract, nothing. She just gave me the keys and I'm like, okay, I guess I'm buying a house. I got the keys now. So it's, it was weird. So when I talked to my sister about it, I just, she was familiar with the living setup in Tallahassee, cuz I was living in an apartment with two other roommates and we were all paying the rent collectively.

So I was like we could do this same thing. , we could buy this place. I rent out the other room and then I pay for the portion, and so the mortgage would be covered. You don't have to worry about anything just to get the loan. And I had been saving my net check, so I thought it was a lot of money. I had $6,000 in the bank.

I'm like, oh my God, all this money, I can furnish it, , I can do whatever needs to be done. Just get the loan for me. No awareness of the down payment requirements of closing costs. Nothing. Just thinking all she had to do was show up and. and it'd be against her credit and then we will be all good.

But it was a sell by owner sell. So a lawyer moderated it. My sister signed for it, did the application, all of that stuff. So I didn't have any awareness of that part. I just showed up at closing with the keys. I already had to just be a presence once this got done. So it was really that simple.

But this was. 2006. So still a little bit in the Wawa west of real estate before the market crash happened. Like everybody was still naive, banks were still flexible. And we could move a little differently then. Can you

[00:08:21] Naseema: walk me through the process, like how much that house cost and then did you eventually take over or refinance in your own name and

[00:08:29] Antionette: what that looked.

So the house costs 95,000. And when we were done with closing costs, let's say the total was like 104,000, it appraised at that time for 1 25. So we thought we were savvy and smart and we bought this thing, and there's some equity in it, so it's a buy. I was working for like a small business owner locally in Tallahassee, and we had rental properties and were building some new construction.

So I was familiar with how to get stuff fixed up in the house. So my dad came up for a weekend. We like repainted the cabinet doors. He fixed up the bathroom for me. I hired some guys to put some tile in with some discount material I found on one of the job sites. So just a little tu touchups, not that much.

My little $6,000. I did what I could with, I did a lot of painting myself. I would show up to class a lot of times covered in paint because I wasn't good at it, but, We made it work, but then 2008 happened and what we didn't understand when we purchased that home at 2006 was the storm that was brewing that was coming for us and then 2008 happened and it all hit the fan.

I've graduated and moved away and rented the place out. But we were never able to make enough rent to cover the total mortgage, so monthly I always had to add something to it, and I think maybe 2000. 13 or so, the tenant that was in there moved out and didn't notify us. They kept paying, but they turned off the lights, like they didn't wanna break the lease.

So with the lights turned off, then the mortgage company gets a notification of the property being vacant. So even though we are receiving rental payments and sending them to the bank, , once they got the vacant notice, they stopped accepting the payments. So we look up six months later, and again, all of this is running through my sister's bank account and she's not the best with money or being like attentive to that.

So a long time went by before we realized they weren't accepting any of the payments. And by the time we did notice, they had already started the foreclosure process. Wow. I act, I, we lost that first house to fore. Wow. And just

[00:10:37] Naseema: to backtrack because I don't think this was covered, but who ended up paying like all the closing costs and all the fees associated

[00:10:45] Antionette: with buying the house?

My sister, I didn't even know those costs existed. So she ended up eating those costs. But in 2006 they weren't as high like , you didn't have to put as much down. And you, so it was just the closing costs. I think she was able to not put any down payment down. Okay.

[00:11:00] Naseema: Okay, perfect. So you guys end up losing that house.

But you had already moved away. When you moved away, were you renting or did you buy another house?

[00:11:08] Antionette: I was just renting cuz I was moving, like with a job in a temporary location, so I didn't wanna put it, put any roots. I was relocated to Memphis and I knew I wasn't gonna stay there. So I, I rented. A while between renting and staying with family after that home was let go.

I didn't buy another home until 2015, so that was a pretty sizable gap nearly 10 years before I considered a real estate purchase again. And what was your next purchase? The next purchase was my home in Orlando. And this was the game changer home. It changed everything. So I bought like the smallest, ugliest house in the neighborhood.

I probably, I paid 1 60, 69 for it. It was a thousand square feet, two bedrooms, one bath. Nothing sexy like. Green, blue carpet, pink bathroom tile. There was no kitchen. It was a mess. But I remembered I was so like unhappy at work and trying to think of what would make me happy if I wanted to go through a career change.

And the only thing I could think of was, The last time I was doing house stuff, like when I rehabbed that home in college and when I was working for that local entrepreneur doing property management. So I decided to buy something ugly and do a project, and I said that if that worked, then I would consider that a sign that I needed to move towards something real estate or property related.

So I was intentionally looking for a fixer upper. To go through this process of discovering whether or not this would be what I wanted to do moving forward. So we were successful in finding something very ugly , but it took a, it took six months to close on that house because everything went wrong, and we don't even have to get into that, but then another five months to make it, to do the rehab and make it livable.

So it was like a full year process of just getting. That home. And a part of what we discovered there was the opportunity to add on additional space and create a rental unit, which I thought would just give me more space to have roommates and have help with paying my bills. But it turned into like the beginning of my early retirement.

[00:13:15] Naseema: Okay, so was this a live and flip meaning for people who don't know what that means, you were living in the home as you were doing renovations, or were you still renting while you were getting the renovations done?

[00:13:27] Antionette: I was not renting, I was living with my boyfriend's mom because I wasn't prepared for the live-in flip life.

Like that level of dust and mess. It was not possible. But so we just lived with family in the meantime and would go over every day and do work on the house until it got to a point where we could move in. That's important cuz you

[00:13:46] Naseema: weren't duplicating expenses at least.

[00:13:48] Antionette: I would've been renting.

We were supposed to, I put the contract in April. We were supposed to close in June. June. The seller died the day before closing, and then two rounds of probate later. We finally closed in November. So I wasn't like, I would've rented had I foreseen all of that. But , I canceled my lease when I put the contract on, and so that just happened.

[00:14:13] Naseema: Wow. Okay. I see what you mean. There was so many things that happened and going through that probate process was a lesson in itself, I'm sure. But you said like this property was a game changer for you. Tell me what happened in this property that set you on the

[00:14:27] Antionette: path to fi. Well, In those many months while I waited to close, I got the bright idea to close in the screen in patio and the carport, and it was big enough for it to be like a one bedroom apartment.

So I was like, okay, cool. I can add onto the house and increase the value of this property that I got for so cheap, but also it'll make it a more comfortable situation to have roommates and have help with the bills, and then to pay back all this debt that I'm racking up doing all this stuff to the house.

So it was supposed to just be all right. We do the addition, get some roommates to pay back all of the money we've invested in the house, but in the end, I've paid a low amount. I added the equity. This was a good purchase. Once the addition was complete I probably overdid it with, two nice finishes for a rentals.

So then I ended up moving over there instead of staying in the original house like the plan was. And rather than getting a roommate, I tested it out on Airbnb. . I took three reservations just to see what happened and after the first one, I walked back in the house and it looked like nobody had been there, but I got like $500 in my account.

So someone was here and it just seemed so easy to just put something up on the app and let it work itself and then collect the. That was you were Airbnb out the main house and you were living in Oh, the, okay. All right. Yes. And how many bed?

[00:15:53] Naseema: So that was a two bed, the main house was two

[00:15:55] Antionette: bedroom. One bath?

Yep. One bath. Okay. And then I was living in the one bedroom side, one bedroom. It was like a master suite off of a family room. So that was, we had that space. And that was the game changer. So then that was maybe October. We tested it out on Airbnb and so we decided February of that following year to go in on that full-time.

And that first month we made our mortgage by, twice as much. And that was it. That was all she wrote. We never looked back from Airbnb since. And then

[00:16:23] Naseema: so what did you do next? Was this your first and last property, or is that your only property? Or what did you do next?

[00:16:30] Antionette: We sat on that for a while because I still wasn't a real estate investor.

I just happened to do these smart money things real quick with this house. And I spent maybe that first year just paying off the debt from building the edition. So let's say I bought the house in 2015, started Airbnb full-time in 2018. And just focused on paying debt. It wasn't until February, 2019 where I was getting like pumped up by some people at a wedding cuz they thought what I had done with the house and Airbnb was so smart and they were like, oh, you're a real estate investor, you should do this, take this seriously, or we'll give you money, we'll invest with you.

And I was like, what ? Ok. I'm gonna be a real estate investor. And so then I had to go home and figure out what that. So I started learning seriously about real estate investing and all the different strategies for the year of 2019. So by November of that year, that was my first like deal that I purchased as an investor with some knowledge of what real estate investing was and with the intent to add this to a rental portfolio.

Everything else before that was. I was going to live there, and then it just happened to turn into something with Airbnb. So yeah, by the end of 2019 was the first deal as an investor. And

[00:17:47] Naseema: where did you, when you were saying you needed to learn how to be a real estate investor, where did you get a lot of your information?

[00:17:53] Antionette: primarily@biggerpockets.com. So I had always been a bigger Pockets Money podcast fan. So I started listening to their real estate show and then whatever I didn't understand from the show, I would go onto the website and dig through the forums and ask questions to get answers there. And I joined my local ria, the Real Estate Investors Association here in Central Florida.

So that if I couldn't find the answer, just researching online or listening to podcasts, I would go to a meetup and then specifically ask, what about this or that. So it was just a lot of research. I didn't get into any real estate books, but but podcasts, internet research, and then the local meetups were good enough.

And then later on in the journey, I started adding other podcasts like Coach Carson's shell. That's

[00:18:40] Naseema: dope. Like I love bigger pockets. Coach Carson is the bomb too. But yeah, I like how you are like , you like backended it. Like people already thought you were a real estate investor and you was like, okay, I guess I'll own this title.

Let me figure out what I needed to do, and then tapped into all those resources to do that. So in 2019, you really dipped your toes into, being an investor. Talk us through that. Invest one time. Talk us

[00:19:04] Antionette: through invest. That first deal was bomb. Let me just say, but tee it up and say . Yes. So I had learned about like birth strategy.

I had learned about whole selling all of things. Oh, you gotta

[00:19:15] Naseema: break it down a little bit for our audience. Okay. Cause you know, the bigger pockets audience will know what bur is, but just break down the acronym for us. All

[00:19:23] Antionette: right. So the bur strategy is when you. A property and then you, the Rs are renovate, rent it out, refinance the property, and then you repeat the process.

So this was my goal. I wanted to buy a house that needed some work, do the updates, put a tenant in it, and then go to the bank and. Pull out the money that I had invested initially so that I could use it again to repeat the process. I'd also been learning about wholesaling, which is essentially buying a deal directly from the owner of the home or an intermediary that's not a realtor, but it's off market.

It's not listed on marketing. You can normally get a better deal on I was talking to my mom one day and she mentioned that our neighbor across the street. In the, neighborhood I grew up in. She was planning to move and she had been having people come over and look at the house to give her a price.

She didn't wanna do any work, she didn't wanna put it on the market. And I was like, Ooh, this is a wholesale deal. I know what that is. So I called my neighbor, I talked to her, I explained to her, I'm a real estate investor now and I'm looking for more things to purchase and if she's interested in moving, I could help with that.

And got, a price for what she. And I thought it was reasonable. I don't negotiate. I ask the seller what they want. They tell me if the numbers make sense. I just say, okay, I probably should start negotiating. But that's how that deal went. We went back and forth for a while. She did get some other offers from wholesalers, but I just agreed to beat whatever her best offer was which was 190,000.

And she agreed to let me buy the house instead of selling it to one of the other wholesalers. Now you're probably wondering where I had 190 at, not in my pocket, but from the renovation of the house we were living in, and as a part of the birth strategy. Because that was like a burr. It was an old house that I fixed up.

I now had all this additional equity in that property, and I was able to go to the bank and get a home equity line of credit on the home I was living in and use those dollars to purchase this other home cash. So

[00:21:30] Naseema: with the whole selling though, you don't necessarily have to purchase the home, right? You just have to have rights to the contract, isn't it?

So that, from my understanding, like you lock in a price for this home, but then you find somebody to buy it at for a higher price. So without really having to own the home, you can make money off of the contract itself. Like that. That was my understanding of wholesaling,

[00:21:54] Antionette: correct. So with the, if I were the wholes seller, What I would be selling to someone else is the rights to the contract that I have with the original owner and assigning that contract to the new purchaser.

So the process for this purchase was the wholesale process. It was listed off market. I was able to negotiate directly to the owner. But I didn't wanna sell it to somebody else. I wanted to keep it for myself. So at the point of closing, there was no assigning the contract to someone else. I kept the property for me.

So it was essentially, I just purchased a market off, a property, off market. But understanding how wholesaling worked allowed me to be able to navigate that process on my own without having to work through a wholesaler. That was the That's

[00:22:42] Naseema: great. That was an incredible process. And so that was the bomb property that you got for 190.

190. So now you have your primary residence and then their primary residence, which is the one that you're renting out on Airbnb. And now you have this other property that you bought from your mother's neighbor,

[00:22:57] Antionette: correct? . Yes. So that one's rented out the bomb. Part of it was the whole process took 45 days to complete the.

And to do the refinance process. So at the end of 45 days after purchasing that process, all of the dollars that I had put into the home to purchase it and to fix it up, I was able to complete a refinance and have those dollars back in my pocket so that I could repeat the process again on another property.

[00:23:22] Naseema: So now you just have a regular

[00:23:24] Antionette: mortgage on that property? Yes. And, And rented the tenants pay for

[00:23:27] Naseema: it. Okay. Yeah, that's the next thing. So the tenants pay for the mortgage, and so you're not coming out of pocket any money. It's just now a pure investment and you have your Airbnb investment.

[00:23:39] Antionette: Okay. What's next?

What'd you do next? So before purchasing that house, I'd put a contract on a new construction home that was gonna take 12 months to build. So I'm still waiting on that, and that was due to close April of 2020, but this was gonna be like what I considered a luxury house hack. So now this is a single family home with a detached garage apartment, and I could rent out the apartment on top of the garage and that would cover half the mortgage and then any of the other rental properties would cover the other half so I could move to a brand new home, have more space in a nicer neighborhood.

And not have any cost to live there, essentially. So that was the next deal. I spent a year saving money cuz I didn't have that down payment. So again I'm calling family members this time. It was my brother-in-law that loaned me the money for the down payment until I could pay it back. But April, 2020, we just moved from our Airbnb home and committed that to full-time Airbnb, both sides of it, and moved into a new primary house hack.

[00:24:42] Naseema: Okay. And I was gonna say that like you threw out some very important concepts that have some special names that a lot of people might not know. So you, from the beginning, even with your first property that you lost, you were house hacking. And house hacking is a way to either decrease our. Fully eliminate your housing costs.

And your housing costs are gonna be some of your bus biggest expenses. And if you can find a way to eliminate or decrease your housing costs, then you free up a lot of money to do other things like your other investing. Investing. And so now you have the three properties, one that's Airbnb, one that's fully rented out, and now you have your primary residence with the rental above the garage, and you're not paying housing.

[00:25:29] Antionette: No, and let me backtrack a little bit. That was the point of all of this, all of the decision making was how do I eliminate my expenses? Because ultimately my goal was to achieve financial independence and retire early. That's the fire movement. For those that aren't familiar it was my goal to achieve fire.

Not to be a real estate investor, I just didn't wanna have any bills because if I didn't have bills, I wouldn't need money as much. And then that would give me flexibility to choose a different career path or to make less income, but do something more fulfilling. So that was the primary motivation behind it all.

Was eliminating expenses in the pursuit of achieving financial independence. What it turned into being was understanding a path to achieve an accelerated rate of financial independence through real estate investing. So now I have a new fire.

[00:26:23] Naseema: But you are technically financially independent.

[00:26:28] Antionette: Yes. Yes.

And how old are you? I am, I'm 37 now. Yes. Nice. ,

[00:26:34] Naseema: financially independent at 37, meaning that work is optional for her. Her bills are, expenses are covered by her investments, and she can maneuver how she wants to. So what are you doing in this FI

[00:26:45] Antionette: life? I still do real estate, so that's cool. I still enjoy that.

I think what I like the most is like taking the ugly house and making it pretty. So I still do that, but I'm only doing one or two deals a year, and that could be something that I keep or something that I flip. But I didn't wanna create another job for myself. The goal was to not work. So one or two a year is enough to have some discretionary income for the year because all of my primary expenses are covered.

From the real estate properties we currently have, so I'm not necessarily. Building out a real estate investment, company or, trying to take over the industry or anything like that, . But I do still like to side hustle and explore different businesses. So sometimes I'm a notary for my neighbors around here, and that becomes money, free money that I can eat out with whenever I teach part-time at a local university, so that provides some additional income.

I'll sit on different boards. That provides income. So there are just a bunch of different things as if I'm interested in it, I can go do them and it doesn't matter to me the amount I make from it because that's just fun money anyway. Like I don't need that money to live. So if I encounter something of interest and I can make a little money, like I'll go do surveys.

I did a Chick-Fil-A survey two weeks ago. They gave me free lunch and $150. That was a great day to me, . So I just do a bunch of little silly stuff to keep myself. And make some free spending money.

[00:28:10] Naseema: Throughout the podcast you've said we, who is your partner in crime in all

[00:28:15] Antionette: of this? My partner in crime is my boyfriend.

He's been there since day one, like he was with me cleaning out that foreclosure so that I could hand the keys over. So just having a support system, definitely having somebody. Listens to your ideas and says, yes, I think that's possible. Versus, oh no, maybe we shouldn't, or, that sounds risky. Whoever you're talking to, they need to be putting fuel behind your fire and telling you can do it, and pushing you for and supporting you through that.

Because a lot of this stuff is risky and without knowledge, it can seem scary at first. So you wanna make sure that the people around you are support. Your ideas and if there is any doubt or hesitation rather than, convincing you to not do it, helping you do that research or figure out how to make it happen.

[00:29:06] Naseema: Yeah, I love that. And I love that you have that support network because that does mean a lot. But what I wanna really highlight is the trajectory in which you became financially independent. So we know you about the property that you lost at 19. Even though you lost that property, it gave you so many lessons that you're transferring to, what you're doing right now.

But I just want people to understand. From the year that you bought this that that first investment property to right now, how long that took and what that looked like in terms of you becoming

[00:29:41] Antionette: financially independent. 2015 I purchased the first property and it was just my primary home.

Still not an investor, not thinking just, I'm gonna buy a place to live. It year 2020, I got fired from my job and I didn't have to worry about where I would go to work. So in a five year span and. Three property purchases. So essentially, one every couple years I had enough cash flow coming in from those rentals and my expenses were low enough courtesy of house hacking, which is the key to all of this.

Having a job didn't matter anymore. That's a five year window. That's a very short amount of time. And if I'm blatantly honest, if you start with a house hack, if you start by eliminating your biggest expense, which is the reason you go to work every day anyway, it makes achieving fi that much easier and it accelerates that pass fully.

So because I started with a house hack and having no bills, any additional money that I made from rental incomes just it, it was just extra because I didn't need it to live.

[00:30:48] Naseema: I think one of the most powerful things of discovering the financial independence movement is understanding that you don't have to work forever.

Because it had been ingrained in us because what our parents know that,

[00:31:01] Antionette: You go to

[00:31:02] Naseema: college, you get a job, you work for 30 plus years until you can retire. But the financial independence space gave us avenues. And calculations to say, wait, we don't have to work forever. And I think it's super impactful that you were able to make that move, which started unintentionally from, just buying your first property to being financially independent in five years.

And so this is, we're only seven years out from when she bought that first property. And the things that she is able. Accomplish in such a short period of time have been really dynamic. But what I want people

[00:31:39] Antionette: to understand is that they think, you

[00:31:41] Naseema: think you have to have it all figured out from the beginning in order to be there, but you just kept on learning and kept on growing.

You took the first step and then you realized, oh, okay, like this, is something. Let me take the next step and then let me learn something. Let me continue to learn.

[00:31:59] Antionette: Let me be in

[00:32:00] Naseema: spaces where there are people that are doing things that I aspire to and I'm gonna keep on learning and I'm gonna keep on implementing those things.

And what that does is it compounds your knowledge and your experiences so that financial independence is not something that you have to wait 30 years for When you get pensioned in retirement, it becomes something that's attainable in five years for

[00:32:22] Antionette: you. You're absolutely right. I had like for people like, I don't know what to do, so what don't matter.

I ain't know either. That is not a hindrance. And when you first get into the fire movement, it was very intimidating for me because the traditional path to fire is to save every single dime until you have Several million in the bank and then you can retire. Then like thinking that I would have a million dollars in the bank one day or in an investment account was so far beyond my purview that didn't seem like reality.

So even though I was pursuing fire, I couldn't connect to the traditional fire movement because I didn't understand how well I was gonna get a million dollars for to have my investments. So that's why I focused more on just eliminating expenses cuz I understood how to do that. and that became my secret sauce.

And just in eliminating expenses, I discovered travel hacking using rewards points from programs or loyalty programs and credit cards to be able to afford to travel. So even though I'm pursuing fire, I'm now, I'm still living and enjoying life and able to travel because I figured out how to travel for.

So every time I can erase a cost or an expense, like I don't have a gas car anymore, I now have a hybrid that I can get around the city on all electric before it switches over to gas. So for me, if I can make the expense go away or find an additional source of income to fully cover it, which is what the rental properties do my need for money looks a lot different without compromising.

Quality of life. Like I don't feel like I'm a minimalist or I'm having to sacrifice or have less of anything. I still feel like I have the full experiences and access to, certain quality of things in life while not spending any money to have any of it.

[00:34:10] Naseema: And I think that's important. And what I really wanna highlight is, What people can do.

And the number one question I get is, how do I get started? And I tell people how to get started. But the difference between what you did and what most people do is that you just take action. And two things I wanna highlight is number one. You didn't do it without making mistakes. Talk about some of your big mistakes and lessons that you learned from those mistakes

[00:34:37] Antionette: along the way.

I take all mistakes with love. Okay. I'll say if I think back about things I wish I knew. About differently, like with that first purchase. I wish I would've known the benefits of using F H A versus conventional, right? That was extra money that I did not have to spend on a down payment. But I didn't have the full knowledge or understanding of what H F H A was.

I didn't understand lending the way that I do now. I'll say the money that was spent to do the addition, I probably spent 20,000 more than I needed to because of the contractor I was working with, not being mindful of their expenses. So through that process, understanding that I needed to vet the labor, I was hiring better so that they weren't costing me money.

With my home equity line that I initially used to purchase the first investment property, I attempted to use it a second time, and through that process it got closed. So I lost, a big bucket of money that I was supposed to be using to purchase things because I didn't understand the parameters for that lender for them.

The moment I moved out of that. They didn't want me to have access to that home equity line anymore. I didn't know that. I thought once it was open, it would stay open and exist and I could use it at will. So there's always something through every single project or purchase that I just didn't know and didn't find out until after the fact.

But I just accept that there's always gonna be something that I'm not gonna know and I'm not gonna find out until I experience it. And so if I can just accept that as fact, I don't need to be afraid of it or worry about it. Okay. This going. Proceed .

[00:36:18] Naseema: Exactly. And they're things that you learn and then you build off of because it's gonna help you later on.

I think that people are afraid of failure as opposed to taking those failures and using them as lessons. And I, and I. I think we're so afraid of failure that we just are stagnant and it's to our own detriment. And so that's why I like to highlight the things and issues that come up because it's not a linear path.

Like you just don't decide something like, oh, I'm gonna be in real estate, and all of a sudden be super successful without making mistakes. The second thing I meant to talk about, oh,

[00:36:52] Antionette: go ahead. So define failure cuz that was probably the first thing I did was it was, what is my worst case scenario?

If I screw it all up and everything goes wrong, what is the worst that will happen to me? And what it boiled down to was I would have to move back in with my mom and I was like, she cool. I like her. That won't be too bad. I've done it before , right? Like I have had to move back in with my mom before.

and sell all of my things and that wasn't too bad. I didn't die, right? I lived, it was fine and I was able to save a lot of money in doing that. So if failure for me was having to move back in with my mom, once I defined that failure, I didn't have to be afraid of it anymore because I knew exactly what it was and I knew how I could work through.

And also it wasn't gonna be that bad cuz I like her , if you can define, and that's the whole thing. And a lot

[00:37:46] Naseema: of times, like people's failure is sometimes going back to working a traditional nine to five or going back into a corporate world and it's just Guess what, like your worst day is most people's every day.

So like, why are you afraid to take that leap? And so I thank you so much for highlighting that and I love that term, defining your failure and then looking at it like, okay, like it's not this unknown because so people was like, oh, I'm so scared, of the unknown, but let's take the unknown out of it and say, What would happen if, and then put yourself in that situation.

So I like that exercise that you do. Another thing I hear when it comes to house hacking, because I'm a house hacker and I love house hacking, is I don't want roommates. I'm too old. I don't wanna live with someone else.

[00:38:32] Antionette: How do you approach that? I do I think creatively, so that original home, when I built that addition, I designed it so that I would have maximum privacy and separation.

Basically, I kept a door in the middle of the house and if that door is closed and locked, there are no shared spaces or interaction between the two areas. And just about anybody that has a family room and their master bedroom is out the family room. If you drop a door on your family room, Separates the rest of the house from your family room and master bedroom area.

You just gave yourself some privacy and you're not sharing spaces with other persons. You can also do a home with a garage apartment, which is what we live in now. You can do a home with a mother-in-law suite, a casita, a pool house in the backyard. You can buy a duplex, triplex quad. So the type of home you would buy depends on the level of privacy and separation you require.

[00:39:28] Naseema: Yeah. And I rent out a room in my house and people are like, oh my God, how can you do that? I have small kids, I rent out of my room to nurses. Nurses are background checked and screened, and most of them become like family to us. And it's every nurse, they, it's their own separate like level of involvement.

Some of them I never see. So 'em just go in their room and then that's it. And some of 'em, like I said, they come to my family events and they become part of my family. And I think people just. Are so afraid of discomfort, and I posted about this the other day. They're so afraid of discomfort that they don't put themselves in situations that can really impact and change their lives for the best.

And the thing is that, that to me is uncomfortable. So Pick the level of discomfort, like being broke and being stuck is hella uncomfortable for me. I'd rather move out of a place where there might be some temporary discomfort, but I ultimately know the long-term gains of that. And so just giving people a little bit of perspective and different options.

And the thing is that what Antoinette is saying might, and what she has gone through might not be the path that you wanna go on. But I bet you there's something or, and a lot of things you can take out of this and implement into your life to make yourself better. And so I thank you for sharing your story because I love to give people different perspectives and know that at the age of 37, Antoinette is financially independent because she just chose to take imperfect.

And if, oh yeah, we got out of our own way and took those imperfect actions, we can be there. And most people on the path, the financial independence from day one until they get to financial independence on average is 10 years or less, which is a third of the time that you would be in a corporate world if you just stuck to the plan that our parents had for us.

So just put that

[00:41:19] Antionette: in per. Yeah, and I say, I like to say weigh the scales, right? Like on one end of the scale is that end goal that you want, whether that's not working a different job, starting a business, pursuing a passion. There's that thing that you want. And if you define your why, and that connects and resonates with you deeply, when you weigh that against.

I'm gonna have a roommate for a short amount of time, but it's gonna allow me to get to my why in a shorter amount of time. Which 1:00 AM I gonna choose? I can deal with this roommate, I can deal with anything for two years. Let me get a two year roommate situation, cuz that's gonna put me four years closer to my ultimate Why?

So it's weighing the scales of discomfort like. , what are you willing to fight for? And for me, I was willing to fight for my freedom. I was willing to be uncomfortable for my freedom so that I could live the life I wanted to live. So if that meant temporary five years of doing a couple different things, learning new skills so that I could be free for the rest of my life, that was worth it.

Yes,

[00:42:21] Naseema: I love that. Worth it to me. And talk to us about what you're working

[00:42:25] Antionette: on now. Right now we are still operating the Airbnb business. But within the City of Orlando, regulations have changed where. Certain areas or the areas we started, you can't Airbnb unless you live there, unless a host lives on site.

So we're actually converting those properties to group homes, which are licensed by the state, and they would house persons with mental or developmental DI disabilities. That's the particular subset we're looking to service. You may be familiar with assisted living facilities for older people, foster homes for children, all in the same vein.

Just our clientele would be mental or physically disabled. And then with those homes converted, we'll take the income from that business to buy new Airbnb properties in vacation rental markets where we don't have to worry about the regulations changing. Okay.

[00:43:22] Naseema: I love that. And if people wanna get in contact with you or follow

[00:43:26] Antionette: you, where can they do that?

They can follow me on Instagram at Fearless and Free Fi, that's Fearless and Free fi, where I'm trying to do a lot more about sharing just the lifestyle, the travel hacking, the house hacking renovations, the birth strategy, all of. Page and then I have some free resources on the website as well, and that's fearless and free pfi.com.

So there are a couple BL blogs and how to, if you're interested in starting real estate investing or Airbnb hosting. And if you guys

[00:43:57] Naseema: wanna hear more about Antoinette's story, she has one of the top downloaded bigger pockets, episodes ever in history. And if you know about bigger pockets, you know that is a huge platform.

So go on Sister for going and breaking down. So yeah, hear about her there. Y'all better not sleep on Antoinette, but it has been my pleasure. For you to join me in my

[00:44:21] Antionette: little platform, to your big platform. Whatcha you talking about?

[00:44:26] Naseema: to share your story because I know people will be inspired. So make sure you guys reach out to Antoinette.

The, all the links will be in the show notes, but she is someone to watch because she is changing the game in real estate. So thank you so much for

[00:44:40] Antionette: joining me. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be on this big platform. Okay, .

[00:44:48] Naseema: She, she, She is super humble, you guys, but she is doing amazing things, so I appreciate you once again.

Hey there I’m Naseema

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