Ashley Hamilton started as a waitress. Then she achieved financial freedom with 35 rental properties.

But this wasn't the finish line. This was only the start. But because I had those freedoms,

I was able to really dive into it and I lost 100 pounds, you know, in over eight months and been

able to maintain that. Ashley transformed her health and kept improving her real estate investments.

It was hard for me to sit back and say, hey, Ashley, you own 35 properties. You are financially free. You can kind of slow down. I think that did not hit me until both of my kids were in college. In this episode, you'll learn about Ashley's journey to invest time and the growth of her kids, transform her health, and try new and fun types of real estate investing that have also made her a lot of money.

If you ever wondered what happens after financial freedom, this is the episode for you.

Let's get started.

So Ashley, I had to look it up. It was all the way back in 2022 when we had our last episode. And it was an amazing episode. I'm going to link to that so everybody can check it out. I mean, your story is incredible. You started off, I think you said making $20,000 a year. You were raising two kids. You did this thing part-time and built up a real estate empire. So everybody needs to go back and listen to that. I also featured you as one of my main small and mighty real estate investors and the small and mighty real estate investor book. So all of that will be linked in the show notes. But what I really was excited about today, Ashley, it's just I wanted to catch up with you and see what's going on. But I wanted to start this conversation where the last conversation ended. So basically, I love to hear from you, like when you've made it, you bought a certain

number of properties. You got a certain amount of cash flow coming in. A lot of people from the outside in was say, hey, you've achieved financial independence. You've got fine now. I just, I want to know like at that point, what were we ended last time? What did that feel like for you when you look back on that. Like just getting to that point, hustling, having those, I think you have 35 properties at that point. What did it feel like for you? To be honest, it felt amazing, right? To not have to work and depend on other people and to deal with some of the struggles that I dealt with for years and day to day. But I would just say it was, it was just a broader feeling. I would say it was

more, because it was more than financial independence, right? It was also being able to break

generational curses. And that honestly, it sends chills through my spine every time I think about it,

because obviously when we start our real estate journey, we're thinking about us and trying to get

out of the rat race and, you know, our immediate family, but we don't realize that, you know, we have children or maybe even

relatives or even parents that aren't able or weren't able to experience these things and to be

able to pretty much set the standard or set a future for your whole entire family, your whole

entire generation going forward. That was a big, you know,

aha moment or a really amazing feeling that is kind of hard to, you know, describe in words,

obviously, especially being at the time, I was 36 years old. I'm 38 now. So, you know, it's definitely

just an amazing feeling. One, I really can't put into words. I need to figure out

how to do it. But it was deeper than real estate. It was deeper than financial freedom when I was being able to, you know, change a trajectory of my whole family. I would love to, if you don't mind, dig into that part a little bit as a parent as well. And I know some of the times that you and I've talked to the past, we were talking about our kids. And I remember at one point, you were helping one of your children kind of transition into adulthood. I forget what exactly that, you know, they graduated from what something. And could you just talk about that, having the space as a parent to be able to be there for your kid and help them through those transitions. Or maybe if you have a story about that. Yeah, absolutely. So for sure, it was something that I did not experience on my own and I kind of set out early on when I started to invest in real

estate that I was really doing it for my kids and to give them things that I didn't have and also teach them things. Early on, set up pillars, four pillars that I wanted to give to my two children. And basically what it was is to be able to graduate college, you know, debt free if they choose to not to take out any student loans or have any debt, to have a 750 credit score or above by the time they were 18.

And I achieved that just by adding them as authorized users on my credit to have a card that they own free and clear so that they can, you know, be able to travel and things like that and get back and forth to work. And then also to help them buy their first investment property or create their first business. So I feel like if I were able to achieve those four pillars for my kids that, you know, even if they didn't go down the road of real estate or if they chose something differently, at least they could start with an advantage versus a disadvantage. So at this point, I have two children, both are first generation college students. They were the first in our immediate family to go to college. And they're honestly, I'm not going to lie, their kids, so they're still trying to find their way. They were definitely able to benefit from the pillars that I set up. But I feel like they're going into their own direction right now. And like real estate is, hey, if this doesn't work, I can do the real estate. But just the freedom of them being able to choose. So my daughter, she has a real estate background. She helps me a lot with the real estate, but she's actually trying to start her own daycare center. She studied early childhood education. She's been certified and she even interned at daycare centers. So that is like the focus that we're trying to work on now, getting her own first licensed daycare center of Michigan. And it's been pretty exciting. And then as far as my son, he's still 19 years old. He's off of college right now. It's the summertime. But he wants to do something in videography or something like that. But right now, just trying to find his own way. But again, doesn't have the struggles that I had when I was growing up. We're not having reliable transportation, not having a college education or having debt, you know, college debt and things like that. So that's kind of where we're at right now. And in the meantime, they're helping me in the active business, which is the Airbnb. I love those four pillars, Ashley. I'm going to, can I borrow those? I mean, that's so good. So graduate debt free if they want to go to college, have a credit score of 750 or above. A car that's free and clear, which is amazing because that's the kind of the freedom, flexibility to go work and do your thing.

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