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BiggerPockets Money Podcast

231: 'On the Road' to FIRE: The Massive Financial Benefits of Van Living

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Investing, Business

4.5 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Not everyone has the vagabond spirit of those who choose to optionally live out of their cars, trucks, or vans. While this isn’t up Scott and Mindy’s alley, it’s been perfectly fine for today’s guests Tien and Brandon. After deciding to end their lease before a road trip, Tien and Brandon found living in their specialty-built van wasn’t just habitable, but preferable for their lifestyle. This was especially true after paying pricey southern California rent. All this happened after making some impressive financial moves; paying off $50k of loans in eight months, flipping their first house, and buying a small portfolio of duplexes. Tien and Brandon have made a spree of financially intelligent moves, pushing themselves into a high net worth category, all while living in one of the most beautiful places on earth. As of March 2021, Tien and Brandon dismantled their truly remote lifestyle to settle into their first short-term rental house hack. They’ve been pulling in $8,000 a month (yes, a month) from their San Diego Airbnb property, which is not only covering their entire mortgage but paying them some profits to boot! In This Episode We Cover Paying off a large amount of student debt in a short period of time  Finding side hustles that can support your saving and investing goals Making a plan to retire early and investing in income streams that will make it a reality Flipping a house without construction or real estate experience  Investing out of state where you already have family/friends/relationships  The hardest part of living in a van full-time (and its MAJOR benefits) House hacking with a short-term rental  And So Much More! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the bigger pockets money podcast show number 231 where we interview

0:05.0

10 and Brandon Rooney and talk about van life and rental properties.

0:10.0

So they put all their money into real estate and they just kind of learned along the way.

0:16.0

And so they ended up working for five extra years but still retiring at 45.

0:20.0

And they told us that story and we were like, we can do that.

0:24.0

Hello, hello, hello, my name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my always quick

0:29.0

with the joke co-host Scott Trent.

0:31.0

Thanks Mindy. We'll showcase that later with some good cheese jokes at the end.

0:36.0

That was terrible.

0:38.0

Oh, come on.

0:39.0

That was horrible.

0:41.0

Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less for just for somebody else,

0:47.0

to make really bad jokes, and to introduce you to every money story because we truly do believe

0:53.0

that financial freedom is attainable for everyone no matter when or where you're starting.

0:58.0

That's right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world in a van,

1:01.0

go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate or start your own business.

1:05.0

We'll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way.

1:07.0

So you can watch yourself towards those dreams.

1:17.0

Scott, I really, really am excited about this episode today.

1:20.0

And Brandon are a young couple from Southern California who have traveled the world, traveled the US in their van,

1:29.0

and now have a property in a series of rental properties, including one that they use as Airbnb from their home base of Southern California.

1:40.0

Yeah, I think what I observed about this couple, by the way, shout out to my mom, Mrs. Trench,

...

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