If you're not okay with delayed gratification, you will not be able to get to that end goal.

That's Jaron Sustar, aka the Finance Cowboy, who at 23 years old, was broke and had over $100,000 in debt.

Fast forward 10 years later, and he has a net worth of over $2 million.

For five years, I was drowning in debt, and we weren't making much progress other than just climbing out of this hole.

In this episode, you'll learn about the side gigs Jared found to save money for investment. I used to go take pictures of in caps in CDS for Google. I started a pressure washing business. I did all sorts of stuff. How he expanded from two to 19 properties without running out of money. I'd fix it up and now it's worth way more. way more. And so then I would go to a small local bank and I'd say, hey, I want to do a cash out refinance. How we found new properties with creative, low-cost strategies like using social media. If you post that once a week or once every other week when your personal Facebook, you'll be surprised at the messages you get that start coming your way.

And now we're going to dig into all of that and more.

So, Jaron, I saw one of your recent social media posts that I loved and I wanted to lead off with

this. You said the real American dream is all about several things. Number one, having a paid off vehicle. Number two, no consumer debt. Number three, having six plus months of emergency fund. Number four, having a rental portfolio that makes $10,000 per month like that, having a dream home and having time freedom that's a cool list i want you to unpack

that a little bit how did you come up with that is that what you're living now like tell me about this i think

that hits the nail in the head it's like who doesn't want this right we've gotten to pretty much

all of that in our journey and it wasn't easy it's been well over a decade of doing it but i think that's

kind of what we set out to do when we first started this journey of financial freedom, not really knowing exactly how we were going to get there. But now having walked through the journey and being on the other side, those are pretty much the main things that I would say have had the biggest impact on us, having that emergency fund, getting the bad debt taken care of having rentals paying you every

month going and flipping and making a bunch of money having your dream home on acreage we checked

all those boxes and my life's pretty good so for me that's the new american dream i want to talk

about where you started that's the fun part of the story you had 100 000 in debt you were working a job

that pretty normal income but i really like leading with american dream idea because what i didn't see on that list was like a really big fancy car. I didn't see like fancy clothes. I didn't see like number of social media followers. There's some of the things that normally, you know, get thrown out there. But it's a good mix of like to me like number six, time freedom. Like that one has been every time I've chosen something that gave me more time freedom and gave up a promotion at work or some other job that's huge and we can talk about that a little bit you and I are both kind of at a cool place you're online you're teaching people you're sharing you're helping people out we both have families having the time to be able to just do that and flexibility just how cool is that having also been in the other spot where you're

working a full-time job and other people telling you what to do? I guess you still have a job, but like how cool is that number six, the time free? It's life-changing to be able to decide what you want like literally before this show I was riding the tractor with my three-year-old. That's what we all strive for. And I think it's good to make clear that just because we have time freedom doesn't mean we sit around and do nothing people ask you probably get asked the

question why do you still work Why do you still do this? If you've got all this time freedom. Well, it's because I still like achieving things. I'm still driven, but I get to choose what each day looks like for the most part. Some days you don't. That's in no matter where you get in life. Some days life is going to throw you curballs and you're going to have to do just what you have to do to get it done. But most of my time now is

spent. you don't. That's in no matter where you get in life. Some days life is going to throw you curballs and you're

going to have to do just what you have to do to get it done. But most of my time now is spent scheming on how I can protect what I've built from having all of this time because it's easy. You know, Chad, to let it creep back in because you get brought a lot of opportunities. The more wealth you build, the more success you've had, the more doors that open.

And when you're younger, and I'm still young, but I've done this previously,

you hear a good idea. Somebody's offering you something and you go do it. Next thing you know, that time that you worked so hard to accumulate, now just got eaten back up. And what you're doing wasn't necessarily worth it. And so, you know, now it comes to protecting it, but it's literally the most amazing thing in the world. It's all it's cracked up to be. I remember when it was theory, it didn't feel tangible for me at one point because I just wasn't there. When you're there, it's really as good as it's cracked up to be. Yeah, time is a funny thing. If you had a thousand dollars sitting on your desk and somebody reached over and snatched it from you, you'd be pissed off. You take after the person, but somebody snatches three hours of your time. We give it away all the time, right? Like, it's so, it's really, I mean, I'm in the same boat. It's hard, even when you have the flexibility where you break the bonds of how I'm making money and me spending my time or separate it. That's financial freedom. That's the whole point. It's not to retire sit on a beach. It's just to say, I had this like calendar and I could do whatever I want with it. I could be productive with it.

...