1673: Retirement Savings, Inflation & Client Case Study: Slow and Steady Portfolio Building with Curt Moe

Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there and done it. He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome to episode 1673. 1673. Thank you for joining me today. So the nagging question is, how much have you put away for retirement? Actually, given our brilliant listeners, I bet this is not a big worry for you. But if we have massive inflation, which finally, as Jason Hartman's been saying for quite a while, it seems like the popular consensus is that that is coming our way. Now, I guess last year was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back, right? When you print 20 to 35% of all dollars ever created, ever.

In one year, people are starting to believe there might be a problem.

Hungary, Weimar, Germany, Zimbabwe, Argentina, Venezuela. Why'd he put hashtags in front of them? I don't know. It's just kind of cute. Go on Twitter and search those hashtags, you'll see it. But the question is, that's a moving target. Now, the numbers I am about to share with you, ladies and gentlemen, do not mean cash. Well, I don't think they mean cash. The sources I'm getting them from don't say. But I just think they mean available wealth that is convertible to cash in a reasonable amount of time. So I would include equity in real estate. But remember that equity is a moving measuring stick too, because it becomes debased by inflation and of course, it becomes potentially at risk with market cycles. And that's why you will engage in the Hartman equity stripping refi till you die strategy, because we have talked about that for so many years now. And you're doing it. You're doing it, you're taking advantage of it. Okay, so let's look at some numbers. So I found a chart from one of these financial planning outfits and it talked about, you know, the amount of money people should save based on their age. And they're doing it as a multiplier of income. Now the methodology, you know, I don't know how they arrive at this, but I would assume this is somewhat, and I think it's a reasonable assumption that it's somewhat industry standard, if you will. So by age 30, one time your income. By age 43 times your income. 55 times your income. 67 times your income, 79 times your income. So you see that this is not any kind of a one for one ratio here, right? But by 80, 11 times your income and based on the typical income of, they're saying about, you know, household median income is about 61,000. So if you're 30, you got 60, well, 62,000 in the bank, hopefully, or saved one way or another. If you're 40, 188, 186,000. If you're 50, 310,000. If you're 60, $434,000. If you're 70, $557,000. If you're 80, $681,000. But I don't believe this really counts for the ravages of inflation, which is on our doorstep. I would say on the doorstep, waiting outside, waiting to come in and rob our house, our house of wealth will be robbed by the burglar and casing the joint. That's, that's inflation. Right. So what is the actuality? Right. What is reality? That's the recommendation. Okay, but what's the reality? Here's where we need to get really, really concerned. Why do we need to be concerned? Well, number one, if you're like me, you don't want to live in a Banana republic. No, that's not the store. Which by the way, I highly recommend. I do shop there myself. Check out the luxe touch T shirts, they're the best and they're not expensive either. So I recommend. Boy, how much did Banana Republic just make off that free advertising I just gave them? You know, I hope they send me a gift card because I've earned it. Okay. Anyway, so by age 40 to 49, right. In that 10 year span. So this could be essentially an almost 50 year old. 41% of those people have less than $50,000. Now. Some have more, but I'm going to go with the downside. The Banana Republic, by the way, is obviously a country where you have a small number of people who are very rich and, and the masses who are very poor and there's no middle class. That's a banana Republic. The U.S. as I've been saying for 20 years, is quickly becoming a banana republic. And California specifically is really becoming a banana republic much more quickly than many other states. But I like a big middle class. I don't like a banana republic. Look, even if I'm rich, I don't want to live in a banana republic because it's not pleasant. I want my fellow citizens to be doing well and enjoying a nice lifestyle and, you know, having that big stability of a big middle class. That's a much better world to live in. I mean, the old saying, right, Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat. Well, particularly true in banana republic countries. Now that you know, that old saying really refers to people who are still on the treadmill and haven't created wealth through investments following our plan. These are people that are on the treadmill and they earn money and then they spend it all and they buy expensive toys and those are depreciating assets. And look, you can buy those depreciating assets if you want, but only after you have other assets that will pay for them for you. Right? That's the thing. Don't become debt laden with the appearances of wealth without having the real wealth to back it up. That's the key. Okay, so 41% of the country from age 40 to 49 years old has less than $50,000. Okay. Ages 50 to 59, 37% of the country has less than $50,000. Now compare that to the recommendation. So the 40 year old should have $186,000. The 50 year old should have 310,000. 41%. You know, granted I'm looking at two different charts, so they a year either way irrelevant, right? But 41% has less than 50 grand. And then when you go to the next decade, if you're 60, you should have $434,000. Well, guess what, 37% have less than 50,000. 16% in that same cohort has only 50 to $99,000. Okay, let's go to the 60 year old to 69 cohort, 28% less than $50,000. Wow, that's really, really sad. And so let's look at the 70 number. 9 times income. $557,000 is the recommendation. And 28% have less than 50,000. Now remember that less than number could mean they have $1,000. It just says less than 50,000. It doesn't say how much less. Right. That's the lowest segment in this chart I'm looking at. So folks, things are dire for many, many people. The best way to help the poor is don't be one of Them. And, you know, that sounds like a sarcastic, callous thing to say, but it's actually quite true. Because these people, the vast majority of people, will be putting a huge burden on the system and some just won't get aid because our government is obviously broke. Our government is printing fake paper en masse. 20 to 35% of all dollars ever created, created in the last year. Remember the two primary value drivers for anything, according to yours truly, scarcity and utility. Scarcity and utility. If something is not scarce, it becomes less valuable. And the more abundant it is, in many cases, especially with money or currency, the proper word is currency, not money, the less utility it has because fewer people think it's valuable. If there's so much of it, Right? And I'm not saying so much of it in a good way. I'm saying in a debased way, meaning the governments and the central banks have debased it by creating such an abundance of it. This is not abundance in a good way. This is abundance in a bad way, inflationary way. So there you go, something to think about. Okay, we've got another client case study today, and that is our. Now, here's the important thing about this one. This is a good case study. Here's why I particularly like the client case study you're about to hear. I like it because he's not doing it in some big way. He's not saying, hey, I wanna. I wanna go get rich and make, you know, $10 million. He's just doing it in us in a very sort of basic incremental way. You know, listen to the podcast. For nine years, bought his first property, and then a couple years later, bought another property and now is buying another one. I think he's closed on that one now. So I think three properties in, right? Not a big deal. This is not a pie in the sky story. This is a very, very realistic story. But you see how after a job layoff, that could happen to any of us. Well, it wouldn't happen to me. I mean, sort of could slowly, right? I remember I was with my girlfriend at the time, Lynn, and her father, Jerry. She was saying something like, I was talking about how bad the real estate market was. It was a really tough cy. And I was in traditional real estate way back in the day. You know, her father, very wealthy guy, had a big company. She said, well, you know, we were talking about all the job layoffs, right? And she said, well, Jason, you can't get laid off. And her father says, well, he gets laid off one at A time. And you know, he was right. Meaning that there's just not that many real estate transactions going on. So you're basically getting laid off one at a time. Or you take a listing on a house and it doesn't sell and it's on the market for a year, which I experienced a few times. Property just won't sell. The seller won't get realistic about the price and the buyers just, they vote, they say, we're not paying. Sorry. So that's how you get laid off. If you're self employed, you do get laid off. Anybody can get laid off, right? Everybody has a boss. Remember that. So when you have that and you just have one or two properties that provides a security blanket for you, doesn't have to be a big thing, doesn't have to be a big giant portfolio. It doesn't have to be a dozen, two dozen, three dozen houses. Right. I mean, some of our clients have been on the show, you know, they got dozens and dozens of properties. Right. You've heard those case studies. The thing I like about this one is this is just a super duper realistic, anybody could do it case study. So it's Curtis Moe and here he is. It's my pleasure to welcome Kurt Moe today. He is a client and this is a client case study. And his is special in a lot of ways. I think you'll like it. Kurt, welcome. How you doing?

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Jason. Yeah, happy to talk about real estate and whatever else.

It's good to have you on. And, you know, we talk a lot, we're messaging back and forth frequently, I guess. You know, I first came to know you about three, maybe four years ago, I think I remember when you messaged me and you said something that was really cool. Do you remember what you said when you introduced yourself?

I don't.

I'll remind you. I'll remind you. Then you said, hey, Jason, my name is Kurt Moe. I've been listening to your podcast for nine years and I finally bought a property and I've been working with Sarah and that's what you said.

Excellent, excellent.

Yeah, that was awesome. I remember it and it just makes me think, you know, some people, you know, they hear the podcast, they find us on YouTube, whatever, and they jump right in and do stuff. And some, you know, they gotta warm up to it for a while. So tell us about your story and where you first started listening to this show. I think it was when you were serving in Iraq. And by the way, thank you for your service. Tell us about that.

Yeah, so I, you know, I went to Iraq in 0607 and yeah, had a lot of downtime. And that was also like, you have time to kind of think about, well, what do I want to do next with my life? And I had been working in coffee shops for like seven years. And during that time I was like, I'm done with this. But I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I just started going through the whole Kiyosaki library and I think I read at that time all of the rich dad books and then started, you know, podcasts were a brand new thing and I stumbled upon yours. And after reading his books and listening to your podcast and some others, I knew like, hey, I want to get into real estate. But at that time, and when I came back, I had quite a bit of consumer debt and some student loan debt and some core beliefs that I had to address also. So, you know, that was 06 07. And then I sent you that first message in like 2017 when I bought the first house in Memphis. That was really just in that 10 year period. It's a struggle, a mental struggle of wanting to invest in real estate so badly but having to address that debt first. And I didn't pay off the whole debt before I got the house, but I got it down to a point where my monthly payments were enough that I could save more, where everything didn't have to go to the debt payment.

Which debt are you referring to?

I had credit card debt. I had some student loans and stuff.

So tell us about those core beliefs that you had to change and why that was impactful.

Sure, sure. I had a pretty rough young childhood and just a lot of ingrained stuff in there that maybe I wasn't deserving of wealth or I wasn't deserving of a quality life. And that's something, I'm very open with it about people these days. But it's something that, you know, you're saving and you're saving and you want to, you have this goal, you want to get in real estate, but you're always coming up against these beliefs that in your course says you can't do this or you aren't, you know, worthy enough to do this. So that's, you know, that's just another piece of the pie that I had to get through. And just like a lot of people say, once you get that first property, it's like, okay, I'm, you know, I'm ready to do 10 more.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that, that's Great. And then, you know, just fast forward a little bit. So. Well, first of all, maybe we'd talk about these beliefs a little bit. But I want. I want to make sure, Kurt, that talk about that other message you left me that I will never forget where you were changing jobs and relocating and how, you know, just having two properties, no big deal. Not a giant portfolio, not 50 properties. How it really, really. I guess we're going into it now, but we'll get back to the police.

That's all right. To back up just a minute. I got the first house in Memphis, and then shortly after, I moved down to Tennessee, and, you know, I just said, why don't I move to where, you know, it's a great market and I'll really start to learn things and understand Memphis. But one thing that really opened my eyes there was I got a different job in Memphis, but I ironically got hired at the exact same rate I was making in Minneapolis. High tax. Minnesota went down to Memphis, no state income tax. And just from that move, again, making the same amount in my salary, I was still able to net around $500 a month just from the no state income tax. And that really opened my eyes to what the lower taxes can do.

Now, interestingly, you're living in Puerto Rico. That has the best tax deal on planet Earth. Or an American citizen. If you're not American, you can do all kinds of stuff, but Americans are kind of trapped because the IRS taxes you worldwide. Except Puerto Rico, they give you a big exemption. So congratulations on that. But just to also explain, you're an IT professional, right? So you do information technology. You know, saving six grand a year on taxes was significant because in a couple years, you can add another property or portfolio, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It was. It was incredible. Especially it. Really, the numbers really helped. I mean, I would have preferred more money when I moved to Memphis, but just that the fact that I was getting the same amount in pay, but my checks were like. Or at least every month was like 400 extra dollars or 500.

Well, your cost of living was low, right?

That too. Yeah, that too. That too. But to the message. Yeah. When. When all this pandemic started, I was actually in the middle of switching jobs and was kind of nervous about things, but I remember the message, and I just had a. Maybe not a confidence, but I didn't have a fear and an anxiety. And I just said, just from having these two houses, you know, plus the income and savings that I have, you know, I know I'm feeling a lot better. And A lot less anxious. And I don't have to worry about as much as I would need to if I didn't have this passive income coming in now, even if it got to the point where I didn't. It was a really weird transition because my new job really delayed on bringing me on board, where I was taking just a week off between jobs, and it ended up being five weeks because they didn't know what to do as Covid was starting.

So you were switching. You were switching as the COVID thing was becoming a big deal and so they delayed your hiring. Yeah, that's when having the two rental properties made you feel more secure because you had the income from them, right?

Yep. Because I thought at any day companies were starting to downsize already. This was March, April, and I thought any day they're just going to say, hey, we need to downsize also, and we're not bringing on new people or we're going to in a hiring freeze. I was convinced that was going to happen until that laptop arrived in the mail for me to start working for them.

And now you've got a third property underway, right, Closing Thursday?

Yeah, I'm going to fly back to Charlotte because unfortunately, the government doesn't let you wire money electronically with some banks. So I got to. Got to fly to Charlotte, close, and then I'll fly back.

Cool. So basically you've. You've done a property per year, right?

Just about. I mean, it's been. I've really had to bootstrap, you know, all my savings and, you know, cash flow. It's all going into to the next down payment. But I think I'm at a point now with this third one especially, where I can really accelerate it. And, you know, and that's just the power of compounding, you know, adding one property and then the next. And as long as you, you know, you don't have to live like a popper, but as long as you keep rolling your profits into the next down payment, you know, you can really accelerate it. And of course, you know, like I said, after the first Property, you want 10 immediately. But, you know, part of the learning process is, you know, the patience you have to exercise, you know, to get to the next one and the next one.

This is definitely an addictive hobby being a real estate investor, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah. Good. Good stuff. You talked about those limiting beliefs. Do you want to circle back to that at all? Because I think that' important for a lot of people and it's amazing. You know, it's this difference between context and content. Right. For example, you know, fish, they live in water. Do they notice the water? Well, we don't know because we can't read their minds. Right. But probably not. You know, we live in air. Do we notice the air? We don't really think about it too much unless it's really bad. Right. But everything in our lives is generated out of this belief system we have. And that's why it's so incredibly important to manage one's belief system, isn't it?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And they really, you know, you can have unlimiting beliefs and you can have limiting beliefs. And I definitely had limiting beliefs. And I, you know, it came to a point where, you know, I just accepted my past and really dove into those. And it's, it's a thing where I've read and read the prosperity books and the wealth books and the finance books and the Tony Robbins, but until you really, you know, look at yourself and confront those beliefs and, you know, I recommend if they're bad enough, see a therapist. I've done that and I still do that. And it's extremely helpful for me.

Most therapists, though, aren't going to be prosperity conscious though, are they?

No, no. But if you can address like, beliefs of like shame and guilt that you may carry from your childhood, where that was the repeated message that you received, I mean, absolutely, it's going to carry over into other things of life. You change it in one area and then it's your diet and your health and your exercise that's lifted also.

Right, Right. Well, you're definitely a health conscious guy, I'm sure. I mean, shape, I met you when you came out to our Meet the Masters in 2019. Right.

19.

Ron Paul, Newport Beach, California. And the funniest thing, you sent me a message right before the event. We hadn't met yet, but it was another you. You send some funny messages. I love them. And this message was funny. He said, hey, Jason, let me know if you need any help with the event. You know, I'd be happy to work security.

I'm thinking, God, if I need security, I'm in trouble. Oh man. But if you're not watching this on video, Kurt is a big buff dude, so he could handle security for sure.

I wasn't always. I wasn't always. I was upwards of 250 at one point.

But you know, it applies with health and weight and with prosperity and with all these things, doesn't it? You know, we just.

Relationships. Absolutely.

Yeah. You know, they say the most Important conversation any of us will ever have is the conversation we have with ourselves. And we're just talking to ourselves all the time, all day long, aren't we? Yeah. Yeah. So share with how the changing these belief systems. Just. Any more on that? You know, did you change the conversation with yourself? What was the old one? What's the new one?

Oh, definitely, definitely. I mean, the old one. You know, one of the messages I got growing up was, you know, everything I touch breaks. I was a troublemaker. You know, I got into trouble all the time, and a lot of things broke, you know, when I did that.

So it wasn't. It wasn't untrue then?

No, it wasn't untrue. But then when you hear that repeatedly, it gets ingrained in you. And like I told. Told my sister the other day, I said, you know, I carried a lot of pain for a long time, and I think, you know, a lot of people who knew me knew. But I'm just. I'm just very open to sharing these things now, especially during these Covid times, because I think a lot of people are hurting and they need. They need that stigma removed of, you know, things like depression and things like mental health, that we're human, we go through this stuff, you know, and if you know that someone else has gone through that and you're going through it and trying to hide it or just keep it in or you're scared to even admit that you have it, hearing one person say that, that's what changed my life a long time ago.

It's interesting that you say that, because I read a post on social media this morning that circles right back to what you're saying. It said something to the effect that suicide is not a selfish act, like some people have said that it is. Right. But it's the final symptom of a disease known as depression. It's so sad when that kind of thing happens. Right? But it's true. Everybody goes through these difficult times, these rough patches in their lives. You know, it's just helpful to know that it's normal and people go through it. Right?

It is. And, you know, social media does us no favor when you have the curated. You know, someone takes 100 photos and posts the one that just looks awesome, and we're constantly seeing that, and then, you know, mentally or consciously or unconsciously comparing ourselves to that. You know, I'm a big, big recommender of, you know, getting off Facebook, which I've done recently. And, you know, anything else that overall, it's like when you look at social media. Just a tangent.

It's.

Look at it as the overall. And for me, it was a net negative. Over the whole time and years that I used it, it was a net negative. You know, I got. I got less out of it than I. Than I gained.

Yeah, I'm starting to think the same way, you know, and I've been. I don't know if you're. We're still on Facebook together, but I've been posting a lot of things since I got restricted. I got put in Facebook jail for saying, quote, they just want a fair election. Apparently. That was blasphemy, Kurt. And so I've been really outspoken lately, and I was thinking, what if they kicked me off? And I'm thinking it might be a blessing.

Because that comparison trap is bad. But, you know, is it always bad? Because sometimes the comparison thing makes us strive for more. Right.

We need to have our heroes and our idols, But I don't know how to really break it down into words, but there's that. There's the heroes and the idols, but then there's. I don't know what social media does to it.

It's.

You know, it's that YOLO life. It's the. You know, I was in Guatemala recently, and I saw some folks taking a photo, and I was like. And I just kind of jokingly walked by them and I said, you know, you know, guys, life doesn't wait to. For Instagram. And the girl immediately replied that pics or it didn't happen, you know. Well, it did happen. And when I go on vacation, I take photos of, like, nature and stuff. But what I don't take photos of is up in my head, and I don't worry about not posting it or something like that and getting all those likes.

So I think one. One way to think about that is, you know, go ahead and take the photo if you want to take the photo. Right. For those of us old enough to remember, there was a time in life when we didn't take photos all the time because it cost a dollar a photo, and if you adjust that for inflation, you know, that's probably like five bucks today. Okay? Taking photos was expensive. It was something to be used conservatively. But go ahead and take the photo and then put your phone down and experience it. Take in the beauty of whatever you're looking at. Right? Yeah.

Life is happening, you know, regardless of what's going on in someone's state or someone's country. Lockdown, you know, in regards of lockdowns and stuff, life is still happening and people are still living it, and it's out there for anyone.

Yeah, it certainly is. Okay, so these beliefs, do you feel like you overcame them, or is it something that you always have to just constantly work on and remind yourself of?

You know, with other things I've gotten where you make a little progress and you're like, oh, I got this. And I've done that with core beliefs and. And I think just the cautious approach and approach I'm taking it is just to assume that it's something that I'm going to have to work on, at least for a long time, maybe not lifelong, but it's important to me enough. And I've gotten so much value and I'm just a completely different person from addressing them and working on them, that I get value when I do really dive into them and things like yoga and meditation. I mean, anytime I do yoga and meditation to start my morning, the day, at least the first half of the day, whatever happens, I'm still super chill and it feels great.

Yeah, and in your line of work, there's a lot of things that go wrong, right? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Well, what's your plan for your real estate portfolio?

I remember doing the. I don't know if you remember the five year plan. I think it was before the 2018 meet the masters or I forget when we did that, but I had the Ric Flair costume when I did mine. But then I think mine then was eight properties within five years, and that was 2017 or 2018, and I know I can still hit that. So I got till 2022. So once we get this next one, I think I can accelerate and maybe refinance the two that I've had and really just kick that into gear. I'm not a huge, like, definitive goal person, but I just keep progressing, you know, and everything I've been doing since 2017 is just funneled into the next property.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So before you picked up the books and started checking out the podcasts and so forth, why real estate? Why income property? What brought you into that?

I really don't know. I think anyone listening. I was thinking about this as we were getting, you know, as the days were approaching for the. For this interview, and I was thinking, anyone who has gone down a rabbit trail of podcasts, or maybe they found you from George Gammon or someone else, and they found the Jason Hartman podcast, be thankful that the stars aligned to get to here. Or maybe they didn't, but they're on, you know, Listening to some other podcast and I don't know why I got into real estate. You know, once I started reading it, it made sense. Passive income. This looks nice. You see the Robert's cash flow quadrant? Okay, I want to be in this quadrant. And real estate seems to do that. It's just the rabbit trail, I guess. And if you follow it and you follow the direction it brings you, I think good things will happen. It's like listening to podcasts and just being a YouTube junkie for like, George's channel or Real Vision and other stuff like that. You know, if you really make that as part of your life, you can't not be changed somehow because of it. It's impossible not to, as long as you're absorbing it and you're not just sleeping, sleepwalking, you know, as you're listening to the podcast. So, I mean, it's not a great answer, but, you know, I think life leaves little breadcrumbs to trails of positivity. As long as you follow them, you know, like, good things are going to happen as long as you take some action.

Yeah. And you know, I guess part of that is not specifically about income, property or real estate, but it's just becoming more financially focused. And some people, Kurt, might view that as work. Right. But other people just think it's interesting. You know, it's an interesting thing. I mean, to me it is at least studying investing and economics and stuff like that. But I remember years ago, I took a community college night class with my mom, and I was only in high school at the time. I was a senior in high school and I took like a real estate finance class or something. You know, we met some different people and, you know, I remember meeting this one, like, rich guy and he talked about how he owned all these, I think, bicycle stores. And I recognized the brand because I thought stores were all over. And, you know, he had all this real estate and stuff. And I asked my mom, I said, why is someone like that here? You know, why is someone like that working on investing and working at all? And she said, it's just interesting. What else are you going to do? You know, I mean, you gotta be interested in something.

You do, you do.

Yeah.

I had a co worker and a good friend. We were chatting earlier and he knows I'm flying to close out the property on Thursday. He's like, you know, what's your goal? You know, retire early. And I said, well, retire in the sense that if I want to walk away from a nine to five, I can, but I'LL still keep working on something like, I enjoy the fulfillment and the sense of achievement, you know, that you get from a day's work or, you know, saving it up to get your next property. We need that, you know, as everyone knows, or I'm sure everyone's heard something. You know, if people who don't do anything after they retire at 65, you know, they're kind of gone with, you know, they're off this world in a few years. You really need it to live.

You do. You gotta be engaged. That's the people who live the longest and the healthiest are engaged in stuff. If you like financial freedom, you might as well be engaged in the area of finance and investing. Right. Any lessons you learned along the way? I'm sure there have been some that you can impart or share with people listening. You know, any technology that you're using, any apps, any tools or resources or anything like that to do better at investing.

Yeah, well, I mean, real simple is stay out of debt and if you're in debt, address it immediately.

Except for mortgage debt, right?

Except for mortgage debt. Cap off that consumer debt and do what you can do. The Dave Ramsey method, the snowball method is what I did. There's a lot of great calculators out there where you can see visually. I think one of them is like snowball calculator.com or something along those lines. And you can see visually the breakdown of when you're going to pay off each if you pay off this much extra per month and then once you can just start saving for that first property. You know, I waited a long time, almost a decade for that first one. But I mean, that first one has changed my life. And the path since then has also as far as tools, tip of the cat to Drew Baker. I've dipped my toe in self management with the one house hatch I did in Memphis. So I, I use tools like Smart Move for my background checks and then I use. What's the direct deposit one I'm trying to remember now?

Cozy.

Cozy, yep. I use Cozy for direct deposit.

We've had them on the show. Yeah, but you use Property tracker, right?

Property Tracker, yep. Property Tracker is great. Especially when it comes time like right now to get your Schedule E in, do your taxes.

Makes it a lot easier. Yeah.

And yeah, I don't know, there's so many. So many. You know, that's one of the other, I guess, affirmations I've been telling myself lately is there's the world's full of trustworthy and Safe people. Not all of them are trustworthy and safe, but there's tons of them and people who want to help. And I think that's another belief I had to get over is being comfortable asking for help, you know, asking for assistance on things. Not just living in my pride that, you know, I can figure it out on my own. There's groups like Jason Hartman, other tools that can make it happen, and you know, along to Drew's line of self management, that's easier than it's ever been.

Yeah.

You know, you can cut out your property manager if you feel comfortable. I still use management, but I self manage that one.

So you self manage one of the. You have two now and you'll have three soon. You self manage one of the two, right?

Yep. And I'm going to put the next one under. Under management also.

Yeah, Good. Good stuff. And I agree with you, you know, that there are. Most people are good people, you know, most tenants are good tenants too. The vast majority of them. There are definitely some scammers and shysters out there. We've all, you know, been burned by them at one time or another, maybe multiple times. But I came across a good quote and I have to credit one of my social media friends. Again.

There are some good things out of it. And I took a screenshot of this because I like the quote so much. It said the rich get richer because the poor think every opportunity is a scam. And there are certainly a lot of scams out there, but you got to balance that. You got to take some risk and be willing to try things. And sometimes it's not going to work and you are going to get burned. That's just reality. It's just odds, right? It is.

And it's like, I don't know if it was the previous episode or two episodes ago where you said, look, what the Fed is doing and what central bank's doing is absolutely terrible. But what are we as individuals going to do to change it? So we can do what you always say, which is align ourselves with the most powerful forces that is known to man.

Yeah, right, right. These, these governments and central banks, they're not ethical. What they're doing is not right, but we aren't going to change it. So we might as well just align our interests with theirs. We're not part of it. We're not doing it. Okay. It's not like we're going to commit the crime with them. But look, they're going to do certain things. Nobody, but nobody's going to stop them, okay? And we might as well just ride on the coattails of what they do. And that means get those big, long mortgages and don't pay them off, don't pay them down. Let those mortgages make you rich. And I want to make sure you distinguish that, because you said pay down your debt and you don't mean the good debt. Right, Right.

Low interest debt that's tied up to a house. Absolutely. That's the good stuff.

That's the good stuff. Good. Good deal. Tell us about your military service. And again, thank you. I mean, you were. You were in the action. Tell us what you did.

Kind of. I never, you know, I was logistics. The MOS for any other military guys is 8, 8 November. You know, we were the core transportation hub for everything going on in Iraq and, you know, coming things would come in through Kuwait. Before there, it was a wild time, great experience, and for jobs like mine, you don't. If you don't need to go off base, you don't go off base. So I didn't see any, you know, action, you know, as we, you know, seeing the movies and stuff. But one thing that was really nice, anytime you do run into a guy who drove truck, you know, trying to dodge IEDs and suffer, an infantry guy, you know, you have a talk with them. And, you know, our job, we kind of knew our place. But it's like, you know, I'm just a logistics guy, but everyone in the military knows that nothing happens until something moves. Some type of equipment, people or things move. And that's a fact.

You know, that's interesting. That's a good metaphor for life and investing, isn't it?

It is.

It is. Yeah. Yeah. So until you take action and, you know, start buying properties, nothing happens. Right. You can learn about it, you can think about it, and that's all great. Get educated. But you gotta do it.

You gotta do it at some point.

Yeah, yeah.

You don't have to wait nine years. But if you do, you know, it's. Hey, like I said, I'm still very happy that. That, you know, I'm on that path. So.

Yeah. Kurt, thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you for your service. And it's just always great. People love when they get to your client case studies from real people like yourself, and I'm just really happy for you. So keep up the good work with your investing and any. Any final words to wrap it up?

I can't go without Tip of the cat to Adam Jackson, who, you know, we were at that, the Memphis property tour I think it was 2017. And he told me, he's like, I cashed out my 401k and bought 10 houses. And I was like, what?

He was on the show talking about that.

Yeah, a few times. And that kind of is like, okay, I can. I have a little bit. My 401k, I can do something here. And so he, you know, just that little conversation also played a big part in me getting that first house. So I always appreciate you, Adam.

That's awesome. Thanks so much, Kurt. Really appreciate you being on the show. Thank you very much. And happy investing, my friend.

Thanks, Jason. Thanks for having me.

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