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Life by Design is a podcast that shares the experiences and tools to help couples align their wealth goals and reclaim their time, enabling them to experience freedom, abundance, and a life by design.
Jessilyn Persson (00:00)
Welcome to the Life By Design Podcast where Jessilyn and Brian Persson, struggling to align your financial goals or confidently invest in real estate as a couple.
Brian Persson (00:09)
That's why we created this podcast and the Riches, Relationships and Real Estate program to help you build wealth and strengthen your relationship. Visit weekendwealth.ca to take our quiz and discover your real estate investor type. Let's create the life you deserve together.
Jessilyn Persson (00:26)
Today we're going to talk about creating micro freedom moments through real estate investing. Because small wins equals big momentum. So every property you acquire isn't just an investment. It's a step closer to time freedom, financial peace and living a life on your terms. So what do we mean by micro freedom moments? Those are the little steps forward that bring you closer to your goals. Whether that's financially reclaiming your time or enjoying
more of life as it is. So we're going to break up our micro freedom moment discussions into different areas and share some key points and stories on what we do and how we did it and how we gained more freedom step by step over time while we built our real estate portfolio. So Brian, talk about one of the financial micro freedom moments we've had.
Brian Persson (01:23)
Well, one of the ones that I'm pretty sure we've mentioned in other podcasts is just being able to lower our mortgage payments because what we did was we borrowed against our property in order to buy real estate. then with the split off loan from our personal property, the real estate that we bought, the investment we bought was actually paying for that. So our personal liability towards our own house, ⁓
was drastically lowered basically. And I think at one point we were paying $600 a month in mortgage payments.
Jessilyn Persson (02:00)
I do remember that and I remember we were on a little local holiday with a dear friend of ours and we were in the pool talking about mortgages and she was saying how her mortgage ⁓ was high and when she told me her amount and ⁓ then I told her mine and she goes, no, no, that's not correct. She goes, that's not a month. You must mean a week. I'm like, ⁓ nope, I mean a month. She's like, what? Cause hers was,
⁓ I think five times that amount of ours.
Brian Persson (02:32)
Yeah, yeah. And to dial it in, it wasn't like we're living in a hundred thousand dollar condo. It was a half million dollar house. you know, other people living in similar sized houses were probably paying two, $3,000 a month in mortgage payments. And we were paying $600 a month in mortgage payments because the two real estate properties we bought from the loan from our personal property was paying for both that portion of the mortgage payment
plus paying us cash flow on top of it from the actual real estate. So we were kind of double dipping the real estate investment, both like removing expenses from our personal life and also generating some income for ourselves.
Jessilyn Persson (03:18)
Yep, exactly. But to be clear, we paid down our mortgage first. Yeah. And then that obviously opened up equity for us to pull out. So our mortgage was full, our house, sorry, was fully mortgaged again. ⁓ But we were only paying a portion of it because the rest was through our rental property. So we were living in this grand, grand for us house, but keeping our mortgage payments less than people pay for a one bedroom.
in a house for rent was mind blowing to people.
Brian Persson (03:49)
And I think that was the big eye-opener. The micro freedom or that that sigh, that relief, that like, aha moment was just looking at how low our expenses were. And knowing that, you know, if you got sick, if I got sick, if the kids got sick, we had to take time off. If there was whatever life crisis that goes on in life and they will happen, if that ever happened, we knew we...
already were well taken care of and our expenses were going to be very, very low because our real estate had taken some of the expenses off the plate and were paying us money. It really gave us this little sense of indestructibility in our financial life where it was like, you know what? The bottom is that our expenses are covered and that's the worst thing that can possibly happen to us.
That's an interesting feeling when you get to that point and you're like, huh, I feel sort of indestructible. I mean, not truly, but that's the idea behind it is that you're just getting that little step towards financial indestructibility.
Jessilyn Persson (04:59)
Yeah, so I know this is going back almost 17 years, but do you remember when the first rent deposit hit your account?
Brian Persson (05:10)
No, don't. You want to know why? Because the first rent deposit didn't hit our account. I don't know if you remember this going 17 years back, but the very first renters we put into our very first condo didn't actually pay their first month's rent.
Jessilyn Persson (05:26)
⁓
yes. But when we did finally get them pained.
Brian Persson (05:32)
Yeah,
yeah, just for the audience, the story is that newbie investors here, 17 years ago, we bought the condo, we found tenants and totally gapped on the fact that we have to like actually be there to move the tenants in and we ended up being out of town for the weekend that they were moving in. So I had a buddy of mine, which is allowed in Alberta anyway, ⁓ come and
put the tenants into the house, into the condo. And ⁓ the thing is he didn't know anything about real estate. Not that I knew a whole lot more, but I knew that you needed to collect the rent check. And so when they showed up, ⁓ the couple that was moving in didn't have their first month rent and they were promising it in about a week. And my buddy let them move in anyway and gave them the keys. And when I found out a couple of days later, I was like, what?
Anyway, long story short, it took about three or four months to settle out all the rent for that period and for that couple, but they ended up being fantastic tenants and stayed five years in our condo. So really happy about that, but it was a little bit of rocky start.
Jessilyn Persson (06:46)
But when the first rent hits your account, you you realize, ⁓ this works. Now, I think that just replays and repeats for every new property we acquire. It's like, OK, yeah, we know for us because it's a business that we we collect rent every month from all of our properties. But every time we add new doors, it's like that much more rents going in and you just seeing more in it build. And it's like, well, we know this works, but there's still a little bit of a.
an excitement or like a ⁓ wow factor in there.
Brian Persson (07:18)
Yeah, mean, story of the very first rent we collected aside, one of my favorite times of the, anytime, is the first of the month because that's when all the rent is coming in and I see that the accounts all flush back out and everything is ⁓ very secure at that point, right? So as rent comes in,
I know those properties are now stable for a month, two months, three months, or four months, depending on what kind of float is sitting in that account. And so that's a really good feeling, is just knowing that you kind of don't have to do anything after that. You got to manage the properties, but really, once that rent is collected, you're secure at that point.
Jessilyn Persson (08:08)
Right. And this is where we're talking about micro. So yeah, it was the first property, the first month's rent. And then you build on it. We bought the next property and then there's two rents going in and the next property and there's three rents going in. But each one took micro steps to get to the next action to build the bigger portfolio we have now. And this is kind of what we're alluding to with the micro steps, the micro actions and the micro freedoms. ⁓ I know the next one's a big one for us and that's time.
time, micro freedom moments, because that was our biggest goal was to just have more time freedom for us and our family. ⁓ And our big one was to be able to spend more time with our kids, right? And now, like for example, this year, our oldest graduated grade six and the grad was at 1030 in the morning on a weekday and we got to go. mean, don't get me wrong, the gymnasium was full. So a lot of parents were there, but.
guessing many of them how to take the time off and you have to use your vacation day or or it's unpaid or whatever but when you got real estate funding your your life you can it's there's freedom there. Yep.
Brian Persson (09:17)
And I think that comes into a little bit of the personality of a real estate investor where I find them to be a little bit unreasonable in the sense that like they're unreasonably going and ⁓ attacking life. So like they go out of their way to get to their son's grade six graduation. They go out of their way to get that next property. They go out of their way to make sure that the management of their properties are ⁓
you know, really well handled. And I think, you know, that shows up both in your real estate investments and it also shows up in your life where you take on life just more than perhaps another person. So there's kind of like a duality of skill sets there when you're being a real estate investor that you also not only need all those skills to manage your real estate investment, but they just, they just provide you with a
a bigger, better life because now you can do all those things that you maybe didn't think you could have done, like take a mid-week off at 10.30 and go to your son's graduation.
Jessilyn Persson (10:23)
Exactly. Or taking an extra Friday off without financial guilt, right? Because passive income doesn't need ⁓ paid time off, which is what most typical employees need. They got to take a vacation day, a sick day, something like that, which is paid time off or even sometimes business owners, right? It's like they take a day off. Generally speaking, they're not making money.
Brian Persson (10:48)
Yeah, and this is a point I've been actually introducing into some of my talks ⁓ where there's different types of real estate investing and sometimes people call fix and flips and Airbnb and wholesaling. They label it real estate investing and in some of my talks I argue against that saying they're not really real estate investing because as soon as you take your foot off the pedal of a fix and a flip, your income goes to zero.
Yeah. And if it's a buy and hold, like what we do, it's a true investment and you can take your foot off the pedal a little bit and you still have income coming in. If you properly set it, set your real estate investments up, then you can take your foot off the pedal almost entirely and you still have an income coming in. So there's a big difference between pulling back that freedom through an investment versus still being stuck in a job through something like a fix and a flip.
Jessilyn Persson (11:42)
Yeah, I would agree that a fix and flip is a job. It's active. If you're not actively working in it, you're not actively making money, whereas you can have real estate and own it and you actually don't have to actively work in it. I mean, you can outsource certain components like management and you still make money.
Brian Persson (11:59)
Yeah, and for those of you out there who are doing fix and flips, nothing against them. No. Fantastic way to build capital. The problem is that if you ever do want to reclaim your time, if you ever do want to, to like get these micro freedom moments starting to build up in your life, you need to find a way to take that capital and put it into something that's going to work in your sleep and that you don't have to keep having your foot on that gas of your fix and flip to, to make sure that it keeps going and keeps going and keeps going.
Jessilyn Persson (12:28)
Yeah, maybe take a few fix and flips, take the cash from that and do a burr. ⁓
Brian Persson (12:32)
It's a fantastic strategy,
Jessilyn Persson (12:33)
Yep.
And taking more vacations. That was another big one for us with our family multiple times a year. We kind of put a little bit of a hold on taking a family vacation when our boys were very young. We just couldn't be bothered with completely filling the trunk with all the gear you need for babes. It was way too much. It was so much. And, you know, they need so many naps. They got to eat certain times. It's like you're practically staying in your
condo or your hotel anyways, I'm like, no, we're gonna wait till they're a little bit older. But now that they're older, ⁓ we take many vacations and some of them are what might be deemed like a micro vacation. So, for example, last December before Christmas, we went to the mountains for four days. And then after Christmas,
We went to different mountains for another four days. Yeah, right and then in February then we went to Costa Rica, so we're taking which was a little bit of a bigger trip, but it's like Here's a break. Here's a break. Here's a break, you know in July we took a week into to travel in August We're taking a week to travel in November like it's just we're going more often again only about a week to ten days two weeks at a time just based on kids are in school and our lifestyle, but before we take
week or two. Yeah. Right? Total. Now we're taking on average a week every couple of months somewhere or an extended long weekend somewhere with the boys and it's amazing to just relax that much more and then come back and do the work and then keep going. Yeah.
Brian Persson (14:09)
Yeah,
and the lesson we learned there was that we should actually do what you're saying we're doing now because only a couple years ago did we ever decide like, hey, you know what, why are we busting our humps in all this real estate investing and not taking anything from it? We were just constantly recycling the money back into the real estate. We were constantly, you know, trying to build the portfolio more. ⁓ And then we were like, we're working our butts off here and this real estate is not really paying us anything. I mean, ⁓
It was. There was this large real estate portfolio out there, but really none of it was coming into our own pockets or providing, you know, a bigger, better life. And so we're like, that's it. We're taking a portion of this real estate investment and we're pushing it into things like vacation. And we chose vacation as, the number one thing because it adds value to the whole family that, you know, it gives value to our boys, gives value to us. And like you said, now
now they're older, they appreciate it. we're lucky as well. We have two friends that have two boys that are the exact same age, so we go on vacation with them. And that just makes the whole experience a whole lot better when the four boys can just go off and do their thing and the adults can have their adult time. It's a really good way that real estate has started to pay us.
Jessilyn Persson (15:29)
you
Yeah, that's great. ⁓ Having vacations with our kiddos and with our friends, just gives you that greater appreciation for life and who you're with and your loved ones, ⁓ which lends well into our next micro ⁓ moment, which is emotional and mental micro freedom moments. That feeling where you're no longer stuck in your job that you don't love, ⁓ it gives you peace of mind.
Brian Persson (16:02)
Yeah, and we talked about it earlier in the episode that the idea that real estate can take care of you and can pay your bills and ⁓ maybe not all your bills right away, but like a lot of your bills and just that feeling that you just like don't have to be in a job if you don't need to. You can, for us, the big thing was we actually took pretty well two years off ⁓ with very little income, but our real estate funded a lot of that.
so that we could go and start ⁓ actually two different businesses, one with partners and one on our own. And ⁓ that would not have been possible if we didn't have that freedom to have that lack of expenses, that lack of a ⁓ need for a job and not living paycheck to paycheck.
Jessilyn Persson (16:50)
Yeah, and that that lends well into how to find peace in every moment. And I say that because after that two year hiatus we took to build up some other properties, I shouldn't say hiatus, we were working hard. ⁓ But we decided to go back and get contracts from our previous industries in our fields. And I remember back in 2019 when I left that industry, at that time, I decided I'm out, I'm out for good. I'm leaving it. I'm done. I was I was so burnt out. So when I went back,
Three years later in 2022. I went back with a different mindset a different mentality around it and I am pretty sure we talked about this in previous episodes as well, but Now I'm just at peace. I'm still doing the contract and I love it so much more than I would have before just based on finding peace in the moments of what it offers and all the opportunity it brings me including
funding our real estate, right? Like it helps me invest more when I'm making that money. But I also, you know, enjoy being around people and mentoring. And it gives me the platform to work with ⁓ tons of individuals. I mean, my team's over 20 right now and it's growing. And I'm just, and before I probably would have been a little more angrier about it or like resented some of it or some of the people on the team. Whereas now I embrace it going, I get the opportunity.
work with these people and have some influence and some positivity in their life. And even if there's some things about some of them that I don't particularly love, because we all get those in the workplace, I look at, okay, well, instead of being before where I'd be like, why are you like that? Like, stop, stop, you know, like, and it's like, well, I can't change them, but I can accept the parts of them that I do appreciate and what they offer and bring to the project and just realize that
We all have our quirks and it's nothing personal and just learning to live with it gives you so much more peace in your day as well.
Brian Persson (18:56)
Yeah, and so you over those two years really what happened is that we built ourselves up we we we created new Jessilyn's and new Brian's to be the people we needed to be into the future. So we didn't have that time and that freedom that the real estate allowed us
then we would never have been able to like build ourselves up into the people we wanted to become. Because you're stuck in the rat race. know, you're going to work, you're coming home, you're making supper, you're getting the kids ready for the next day, you're doing whatever. You maybe at the end of the day have like a half an hour to an hour to do whatever. Well, the real estate allowed us like that freedom of time in order to like
be who we needed to be. And now you go back into the exact same situations and same thing with me, like stuff just doesn't bother you in the same way because you were able to like build yourself up into a bigger, better person. yeah, it is very difficult to do when you have life coming at you constantly.
Jessilyn Persson (20:02)
Agreed. when you when you can get that time to look at people from a different lens, it's just an incredible feeling. And just the gratitude I know I feel even where I'm a volunteer and on the board that I'm on again, remembering on boards, I've been on boards off and on for years, just remembering sometimes just being so frustrated with some of the people on the boards. And now, while there are frustrations that come through,
I don't really let them get to me now and I'm just looking and being like, okay, no big deal. How do we work through this? What are some solutions? And now I'm finding in the current position I'm in ⁓ for my volunteer work, lot of the women are coming to me being like, wow, you're so patient. How do you do it? And now I get the opportunity to mentor them.
right? Because I remember being one day back in their shoes being where I was I had zero I was not going to tolerate that crap. Right now I'm just like, no, just look at it from this angle and if you can do it like this and now more and more women are coming to me, you know, asking for advice to help them figure out situations and how to deal with things and their patience and their mindset. So it just comes full circle and it's a great space to be in.
Brian Persson (21:20)
You mentioned something too, looking at people through a different lens. And I think that time that we had allowed us to look at ourselves through a different lens. Yes. Which goes to ⁓ things like imposter syndrome and other stuff where, you know, now that you are a real estate investor and if you become a real estate investor, if you're listening to this podcast and you're thinking about becoming one or you are one, there are many different layers to
and levels to being a real estate investor. And every level you get to just like hacks a little bit more of that imposter syndrome away. And you just become more confident and more fluid in your life and less things bother you. It's just a great feeling to just be able to move kind of powerfully through life rather than a little bit more hesitant and perhaps even scared.
Jessilyn Persson (22:12)
100 % and you definitely want to be looking ⁓ through a lens at yourself before other people because if you can really figure out you I can tell you everyone else will not bother you nowhere near what they do. Alright, gonna roll into our final micro freedom, which is lifestyle which kind of wraps up everything we've been talking about because doesn't matter if it's financial time, emotional, mental,
Brian Persson (22:28)
Circle line.
Jessilyn Persson (22:42)
that all is going to impact your lifestyle one way or another. But lifestyle, micro freedom moments like using, like we said, rental income to fund a short getaway. Before we mentioned we rarely took a holiday and we definitely didn't utilize our rental income for it. We'd use our active income where we were working. But now we're like, wait a minute, we're working hard for this. This can fund our getaways.
Brian Persson (23:09)
Retirement sooner than expected is another micro freedom moment. For us, it's a great feeling to just know that the minimum retirement we're going to have is equal to our current property value right now today. And that's assuming no appreciation, no anything happening into the future, which is absolutely going to happen. Real estate prices always go up. So the minimum retirement we're going to have is already looks really, really good.
you basically just can get a lot of freedom knowing that that's already in existence and it's really just playing itself out.
Jessilyn Persson (23:47)
Absolutely, and I want to expand on this word retirement because you know, I can get I pushback in so many different levels right from the people are like, well, I got to be 65. I got to wait till I'm 65 to retire right up to I'm never going to retire. And we're not saying retire as in we're never going to do anything or any work again. But the freedom you have when you can sit there and go, I don't need to go to a day job. I don't need to run a business. I can choose.
to do what I want with my day to me is retirement. And if I choose in that day to buy more real estate or to help someone else invest in real estate, that's okay because I can do it. I can choose not to do it, but it's the freedom of choice there is where I love instead of the word of what people are traditionally known for when it comes to retirement.
Brian Persson (24:40)
And that's what, that's how I define retirement. It's like being able to choose what you want to do. I would not choose to sit around and do nothing in retirement. That would make me mental. So I don't believe I'll ever retire, but at least I can choose like the volume and the, the difficulty, like how difficult whatever task I am taken on is and not have like the sometimes what happens in life is just too much stuff happens and not have that half.
to happen to me, rather I can choose to have it happen to me and I can pick and choose what is actually going to be in my life.
Jessilyn Persson (25:19)
Absolutely. So the most important takeaways from what we discussed today, I'd say mine is Remember micro it's small so taking one small action every day adds up to big wins and every win gets you more freedom
Brian Persson (25:35)
And for me, it's ⁓ just that most people wait for the big payoff of real estate investing, and I would encourage you to embrace all the micro freedom moments of real estate investing, like we mentioned earlier, having real estate pay for your mortgage payment. Just stack those little wins up day after day.
Jessilyn Persson (25:54)
Thanks so much for tuning in. Listen for more real estate investing stories in the next episode of the Life by Design podcast.
Brian Persson (26:01)
Before you go, don't forget to visit WeekendWealth.ca to take our quiz to discover what type of real estate investor you are. We release new episodes every two weeks, so be sure to hit that subscribe button on your favourite podcast app. Thank you for joining us on this journey to create your life by design.
Jessilyn Persson (26:18)
Thanks again for listening. It's been a pleasure being with you today.