About US - The Find of a lifetime

My early retirement happened not by design, but mostly by luck. My fiancée positioned herself for retirement in just 10 years in the same manner, not by luck but rather by design. During her 10 year journey, in excess of $500,000.00 of her personal income was lost, but she was still on track to retirement, simply due to her plan.

THE RETIREMENT: Pension NOT NEARLY Enough!

In 1990 I was able to optionally retire from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington D.C. after 23 years of service. My income at the time was $40,000 of which I would now get 58% as my retirement with annual COLA adjustments. This was great but for sure not enough to continue living as I was accustomed to for a prolonged time. I knew I really didn’t want to work full time again, but economics dictated I had to increase my income. So like some 2000 others that were eligible to receive this retirement I looked at second job opportunities. I was offered 2 positions in the field that I had a deep passion and could now earn a starting salary of $34,000. Not bad I thought, as first I loved the work and second along with my retirement I had just given myself a $14,000 raise. Wrong! Once I ran the numbers of the new jobs, i.e. cost of transportation, new tax bracket etc. I would only net an additional $6,000 a year. I would have to work another 20 years to obtain an additionally restricted retirement. My passion for sure wasn’t that strong, as I had no real desire to work again and for sure not to make $6000 a year. I fully believed at the time that there would be no Social Security when I reached 65, and if there was I would only receive a reduced annuity due to my first pension. I knew there were several keys to being able to retire and stay retired.

Keep as much of my income as possible
Find a job that required little time and made an increasing income
The job should be a Passion not a need

Business Ventures in Retirement: Say goodbye to free time.

Having run several successful side businesses, while working as a policeman, I already knew the advantages of write-offs increasing what I was able to keep of my incomes. I knew the downside of any successful business: 15 to 17 hours a day work. But I had, I thought, the perfect business that would fit those three keys, operating a charter fishing boat.

Fishing and diving were my passions. I had the Licenses and a lot of equipment and now I could pick and choose when I wanted to work. For five years the chartering business was great and I was picking up enough commercial diving jobs to keep my passion alive. The tax advantages were allowing me to keep my retirement and most of my new income. But key number 2 (a job that required little time and increased income) was slipping away fast.

I had built up a large Fishing clientele and with just a 7 month season, I was working a lot of 15 to 17 hours days just to fit all in. The off season was now filled with commercial diving jobs. The business was not fitting into my retirement very well. I sold the chartering business and set up a commercial marine towing and salvage company with my son in-law. In 2 years I turned the business over to him. I had had enough. The money and write-offs were great, but I had no life, surely not the retirement life that I had envisioned.

The Luck

As I began my story, I told you that my current financial position in full retirement was base on luck not designed on my part. Just prior to my retirement I had become divorced. After the sale of my home, I was in the market for a new house, the only safe investment that I had ever found. Now that I was on my own, I went searching for a waterfront property close to my work. A good realtor friend and I started searching and soon realized that waterfront was out of my price range. What my realtor did find me, and I was not impressed at the time, was a property across the street from the water which had a duplex, both sides currently rented and a second unoccupied house which was in need of repair and being used for storage at the moment, The duplex was old cic.1925 and I wouldn’t even look inside. After looking and looking my realtor friend put a foot in my rear and made me look at the property. I could live in one side of the duplex rent the other for half the mortgage and fix up and rent the other house and live rent free.

So not being in a position to find anything better in my price range and with a foot in the rear I bought the property, fixed up one side of the duplex for myself and kept the other side rented and used the other house for my storage, I then went about my fishing and diving adventure. A year and a half later, my tenant moved on, I took a week and renovated that unit, moved in, and rented my renovated unit for more then half of my current mortgage payment. Then I went back to my fishing for several years. One day a friend asked me, “Are you truly nuts?, for the last 4 years you have been living great but you are sure missing out on increasing your retirement. Clean up the storage house and rent your duplex and your entire mortgage payment will be paid for by the tenants.” I finally woke up and took his advice. I moved into the other house and rented the other two for more then my mortgage, WOW!!! I then continued on with my fishing and salvage company, until I had enough.

This is where I was lucky. During this entire time, without any planning or real work of my own, what my rental property was doing for my retirement far surpassed anything my business was doing for me. And all this was happening with very little effort from me.

A Golden Investment

In just 10 years of owning the rental property my property value had increased 300%. My net worth had gone from about $40,000 plus my Police retirement to $500,000 plus my Police retirement plus my rental income. And the tax write offs from the rental property had enable me to pay less taxes and keep the majority of my total income. Trust me this was dumb luck not design on my part, even thought this was happening right before my eyes for 10 years.

Then in 1990 I met my fiancée. A Canadian realtor, who learned quick in her self employed career that:

There was no paycheck until she made a sale.
There was no retirement in her industry
The only way to get ahead was to invest
Real estate was the best and safest place to invest

During the same period I was lucky, she had designed a 10 year plan to be able to retire at 40 through her real estate investments. During the same period I lucked into taking my net worth to half a million, she had taken her net worth from $0 to an excess of $1.5 million. During her 10 year journey, $500,000 of her income came up missing. Yet simply because of her investment plan her net worth was in excess of $1.5 million. Along her journey she has taught many of her buyers the same plan and taken their net worth to in excess of $1 million dollars each. She is currently building her 15 year dream home all with money from her real estate investments. In the last three years I have followed her plan. My original 3 houses are now all rented. The rents on these three properties in just 11 years now exceed my retirement income from 23 years of work and 15 years of COLA adjustments. My net worth has more then doubled.

My two newest properties are in Florida. One of which we live in at the moment comes complete with lake front and heated pool. I have already far surpassed my expectations of real retirement. We have traveled cross country 3 times, across the western half of Canada 4 times, the Caribbean too many times to count and are just now grasping the reality of the Retirement Dream.

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