Honest Advice to Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom

BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast

BiggerPockets

Education, Business, Investing

4.8 • 16.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Financial freedom—no boss bugging you, bills taken care of, vacations easily paid for, and time to do whatever you want. This is the goal of every real estate investor, and the goal Dave and Henry had when they bought their first rental properties. But now, they’re financially free, with real estate portfolios that can pay for their lifestyles and seven-figure net worths. Is financial freedom what they thought it would be? No. Dave and Henry could quit. They could vacation for much of the year. They could drive Ferraris. But…they don’t. They both continue to work and invest, even while being financially independent. But why? Today, we’re talking about why financial freedom is much different than you think, why Dave and Henry decided NOT to live off of their cash flow, and what actual financial freedom looks like (it’s not endless beach days). You want financial freedom, but what if the reality of financial freedom is even better than you thought? Today, we’re showing you how to get there, how to change your financial freedom goals as you grow, and why getting to financial freedom slower will make you even happier. In This Episode We Cover Paying off properties vs. buying more: which gets you financial freedom faster? The “levels” of financial freedom, and which one you’re at right now Financial freedom vs. financial flexibility: the real goal for real estate investors Why spending your rentals' cash flow delays your financial freedom Why you should have some lifestyle creep and upgrade your standards as your wealth grows And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1169 Interested in learning more about today’s sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Financial freedom is a journey, not just a destination, and that's a good thing.
0:05.5	Maybe you want to replace your income and quit your job someday, and real estate can absolutely
0:10.7	help you get there. But maybe what you really want is financial flexibility, the ability to
0:16.8	buy dinner or go on vacation without having to stress about the costs.
0:21.4	And the ability to provide that flexibility is somewhat unique to real estate.
0:26.3	Today, we're talking about how your goals can change over time,
0:29.2	but there's always an investing strategy to meet you where you are.
0:42.4	Hey everyone, I'm Dave Meyer, head of real estate investing here at Bigger Pockets, and I'm joined once again by my friend, Henry Washington.
0:45.0	What's up, buddy?
0:45.8	Glad to be here.
0:46.6	I am glad you're here as well, because I think it's fair to say both of us have sort of
0:51.4	reached our own version of financial freedom.
0:54.1	Is that right? Would you say
0:54.9	that? Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'd say that. It sometimes doesn't feel like that. But yeah, for sure.
0:59.9	Right. I think that's kind of the point, though. Like, I've sort of hit financial freedom too. But also,
1:05.6	neither of us are actually retired at this point. Like, we're still working every day.
1:10.4	Right.
1:13.8	Which is basically sort of the big secret of this entire industry.
1:17.0	Everyone who says that they're retired is not actually retired.
1:20.9	They're just maybe doing something different than they were doing before they started getting into real estate investing.
1:22.7	But that's okay, right?
1:24.1	Like that is, I think, the whole point of the episode we want to have today is that the journey that you take on financial freedom does not look the same. It's sort of a moving target. It shifts and changes. And in my opinion, at least, every real estate deal I do, every decision I make should make me more financially free. And like what the actual destination is,
	...

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