How to Buy Your Way Out of Work With Real Estate Cash Flow

Mike Stiskin (00:00)
It’s really purchasing income. So we live in a capitalist society, and to survive, you need some money. And you have a certain amount of bills and you have to pay them. So you either have to trade your time for money or you purchase enough income to pay those bills. Right? So if you had a hundred thousand dollars coming in a month and you’re 20 years old, you could retire. Retirement’s not an age, it’s an income. All right.

Cody Crabb (00:27)
Mm.

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Cody Crabb, and today I’ve got Mike Stiskin with me. Mike is a real estate investor from Orlando and the host of Monetary Therapy, the podcast, where he shares practical lessons on building financial freedom. Mike, thank you so much for coming on the show. Appreciate

Mike Stiskin (02:18)
Thank you, Cody. Good times.

Cody Crabb (02:20)
So something we were chatting a little bit before the podcast started and something you said to me, a phrase that you kept using really kind of stuck out. I’d never heard anybody say it, but I love the way it sounded, and that was buying your way out of work. I don’t know if that’s a common phrase I’ve just never heard, but I love that. tell us a little bit about that, th what what you mean by that, and tell us about your, you know, where did that mindset come from and and how did you get to that?

Mike Stiskin (02:43)
It’s really purchasing income. So we live in a capitalist society, and to survive, you need some money. And you have a certain amount of bills and you have to pay them. So you either have to trade your time for money or you purchase enough income to pay those bills. Right? So if you had a hundred thousand dollars coming in a month and you’re 20 years old, you could retire. Retirement’s not an age, it’s an income. All right.

Cody Crabb (03:10)
Mm.

Mike Stiskin (03:12)
So a couple of years ago I thought my buddy retired. He was fifty, his wife was fifty, they didn’t have kids and they saved and invested all their money. So compounding interest took care of them. But they still have to be disciplined, live below their means. We didn’t do that. My wife and I, we had a few properties, but I was working construction all week and she does real estate. I’m like, this is terrible. So let’s figure out how to buy our way out. And when you learn about money, you don’t have to worry about money.

And the linchpin is that lifestyle, you cannot increase your lifestyle. Actors, athletes, lottery winners, people who get inheritance, that is the problem, is they increase their lifestyle. It creeps up a little bit nicer car, a boat, and then a you know, more garage space. And then all of a sudden you’re living on a lake, and then you have a Rolex, and it just never ever ends. So one of the keys is not doing that. And one of the things I got on my

Podcast there on monetarytherapy.com is the 40 to freedom, 80 to freedom. So if you’re single, it’s 40 hours you’re trying to defeat. If you’re married or partnered up, it’s 80 hours. It’s two people 40 40, which pay for your life. So you have to figure that out. And so we just bought enough income to replace those hours. And now we have financial freedom. We can kind of do whatever we want within reason, and that’s what we did.

Cody Crabb (04:36)
Hmm. Yeah, that’s when someone hears that, it sounds a little bit like I’m sure a lot of people that are listening are like, ⁓ that sounds like a dream. I would love to do that someday. That sounds incredible. But I think a lot of people probably think that’s super out of reach. Like, yeah, sure, of course you did that. Like, of course that was possible for you. I would wonder what would you recommend for people that are are hearing this that are maybe starting out and they are like not in a

super great position. They’re wanting to take control of some things, but maybe you’re not super heavy in the way of assets. they’re looking to invest in some real estate or or something close to that. Can you give us like how what does it look like for someone that’s that early? I mean, you can’t I mean if even if you’re putting money away, it’s not that much, right? So I’m I’m curious what you would say to those people that kind of want to get in follow in those footsteps but are kind of not in the the means to do that.

Mike Stiskin (05:29)
Well, you don’t need that much to get started. You know, I use a lot of metaphors when I talk. So if you do a hundred scoops in the backyard of dirt every day in a year, you’ll have a pool. It’s like that. You just have to get started. And you have to have some idea of what you’re trying to achieve. So if you are living with your parents, there’s nothing wrong with any of that. You’re renting. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’re trying to figure out life. You’re younger. You have to

Talk to people like yourself or myself or people in the industry and get some idea of what there is out there. You know, talk to the computer. ChatGPT is very helpful, all these different apps and LLMs and say, all right, I I’m broke, I’m living check to check, I go into more debt every month, and I want to do what you’re doing, Mike. So what do I do? It’s like, all right, well, first of all, calm down. You’re young, you have plenty of time.

Okay. Any one

Cody Crabb (07:16)
You’re talking to me a little bit ’cause I’m I’m a little bit like I’m thirty four, you know what I mean? I feel like that’s old. Like I’m I’m an old man now. I have an eight year old. My eight year old thinks I’m like like father time over here. Like

Mike Stiskin (07:28)
Yeah, I know what you mean. Right. Yeah. I have a granddaughter and my hip hurts and I go to bed healthy and I wake up with a sprained ankle. Yeah. It’s it’s upsetting. the stuff I I used to do capoeira, Brazilian martial arts and I could spin it. I can still do it, but you know, some of the body parts are creaking, you gotta put some oil on but it’s never too late until you’re dead.

It’s never too late to get started. And the sky is the limit. You’re literally bound by nothing. There’s nothing you cannot achieve. You just have to get started doing it. And you need some knowledge. And if you’re living check to check, you’ve got to examine that. And if your credit’s bad, okay, well, that’s because you’re not paying your bills. So one of the things people have to do is restrain their lifestyle. They’ve got to get that under control. And if you looked at

Cody Crabb (08:02)
Mm.

Mike Stiskin (08:19)
your credit card statement or if you keep track of what you spend, all your money is going to the cable bill and to Starbucks and to eating out and your monthly subscriptions and things like that. I used to do debt consolidation. I was a like you’d have a headset on and people would call and they’re like, man, I have no money. I’ve got I got to consolidate. I’m like, all right, let’s write it down. And it was always like five hundred dollars a month for cell phones and cable and all this other stuff you don’t need. And you know

Everybody wants to do that, but there’s a time and a place. And what I say is nine to five pays for your life. Five to nine nights and weekends pays for your future. And like Dave Ramsey says, what you spend your money on is what’s important to you. And if you’re spending it on just stuff and junk, which we all have, I’ve made every mistake you could ever invent, and I still do. But I try my best to keep moving forward.

Cody Crabb (08:59)
Hm.

Mike Stiskin (09:17)
in a positive direction and say, I’m gonna invest in my family’s future. You know, so you need to fix your credit. You need to learn how fixing credit works. You need income. So you need, you know, water to throw on that fire, that debt fire. So you’ve got to stop spending. You got to stop the bleeding and not, you know, live for the weekend, hey, we’re gonna go to the beach. We’re gonna go out partying. You know, there’s a time for that. You can get back to that.

Cody Crabb (09:38)
Mm.

Mike Stiskin (09:45)
But maybe at some point you say, all right, I’m done with that. I want to move forward. You got to fix the credit. You got to pay off those debts. You can learn how to negotiate with the credit companies. All right. Then you got to figure out, all right, I want a house. All right. Well, you got to make a down payment. You’re a first time home buyer. How do you do that? Well, if you have parents, you can borrow. If you have savings, if you have retirement, young people, not always, 401(k), Roth. There’s so many programs, down payment assistance.

So you look into those things. They’re not gonna come find you and knock on your door. You have to get started working on it. And if you make it a full time job, you will get there.

Cody Crabb (10:23)
Hmm. I like this line of thinking because I feel like in s instead of saying like it’s impossible, you’re just like it just adds more items to the to do list. Like if you if the if one of the items is you know have X amount in your bank account, then some for some people that’s step one, for some people that’s step twenty five. But your point is like it’s still on the it’s on the list, it’s just further down. It’s it’s possible. You might have a longer way to go, you might have to wait longer, you might have to d work harder than some people, but it’s technically it’s possible.

Mike Stiskin (11:24)
Yeah, it’s like Nelson Mandela. You said everything is impossible until it’s done. And you just have to get started. You know, I’m lucky. I have no fear. I have tons of ambition and motivation. I’m very positive. I get down days. There’s days I don’t like people. I but I know nothing is impossible and I know I can do it. I have a belief like people who go to church have faith.

I’m going to do it. And if you tell me I can’t, I’m going to do it right in front of you. And just like dribbling a basketball, if you start and you’re not very good and you do it every day for a year, you’re going to be better. I think you can practice positivity. You can practice being motivated and being ambitious. And you also have to accept there’s going to be some setbacks. Life, unfortunately, might happen to you. It’s happened to me. I almost died a few years ago. And

Cody Crabb (11:58)
Hmm.

Mm.

Mike Stiskin (12:21)
You’ve got to use that. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and really believe it. And you know, you you come across people who are cynical, who are jaded. I’m cynical and jaded, but I refuse to give in to it.

Cody Crabb (12:34)
Mm. Yeah, everyone has the thoughts. It’s a question of what it does to you. Yeah.

Mike Stiskin (12:38)
That’s right. I refuse. I I heard Matthew McConaughey say that after I thought about it. So he stole it from me. you refuse to be cynical that everything’s negative, everybody’s against me, the government, the president, the interest rates. No. You’ve got to fight that back down and you can win.

Cody Crabb (12:58)
Well and I guess the the what you’re really s what I’m really hearing you say is even if all that’s true, like even if everything that ev every negative thought you’re thinking is true, that doesn’t get you any closer to accomplishing what you want to do. So like it it’s really unproductive too, to because it it’s not really gonna inform anything what what your what your choices are or how you do or how long it takes. Like your perception of how things are is that’s a completely separate thing.

Mike Stiskin (13:25)
Yeah. Perception, manifestation. You know, I’m not I don’t get political. One of the things that Trump said that was great, he said, if you’re depressed, you know, get busy, just keep working. If you work seven days a week, you’re gonna accomplish something. And if you, you know, get to work at nine thirty and take an hour for lunch, you get home at four thirty, you’re on the couch watching Friends or Big Bang Theory, you’re not gonna get anywhere. You have to grind it out. There’s no other way to do it. There’s no hack to getting in shape.

There’s no hack to success. And that’s acceptance. So you accept this is going to be my life. And I’m going to accomplish something. I kind of work for my headstone when I’m dead. Kind, generous, sweet, loving guy who really tried hard, helped his family, was flawed. But man, did he go after it and try and do good things and be a good person? That’s the whole shooting match is sh is going for that. What

Are you trying to achieve when you’re gone? What are people gonna say about you? And also when you have responsibility, like you have a youngster, right? Okay, two, there you go. Jordan Peterson, a mentor of mine, says, take some responsibility. Once you have people to care for, you do not have the option to give up or not succeed. That is off the table. When it’s just you and you’re struggling, all right. But once you have other people

You do not have the option to fail them.

Cody Crabb (14:56)
Mm-hmm. Well even internally, as like I it externally it’s not an option. But I also I remember the feeling of like I could you know, I’m even when I just got married, I remember being like, Well, I could eat ramen noodles every day for a month, but I’m not making my wife do that. Like it’s you know what I mean? Like it’s it you’re you’re it’s really it’s c it’s comfortable to say I’m gonna sacrifice some stuff. It’s less comfortable to say I’m gonna have my l loved ones sacrifice on on my behalf. So but but that’s that’s a really good point. I think that

For a lot of people, they have decided what they want in their life. And so for people that are early starting out, I’d be curious to to kind of bring it back to real estate a little bit. when you were kind of getting off the ground, you know, you talked about buying your way out of work, but you said you owned seven rental properties today. what was it that made you kind of choose real estate as one of the ways to do that? and how like what num like how far was it down the list? Was it like

Real estate first or were there other things that happened before that?

Mike Stiskin (16:33)
yeah, it’s a good question, man. you know, I was an absolute disaster. I went to college, I was a tennis player and I’ll try and make this quick and get back to real estate. And I, you know, got the college dean’s list, tennis team, and then in about three months I was drinking and partying for the next three and a half years. Barely graduated, got out, I was still teaching tennis, but not doing anything. I kind of stumbled in it. I could always fix things.

I liked fixing cars and and houses. My grandfather, my mother’s father was a mechanic in World War II, and I was fascinated he could fix anything. So I had that. And then I was teaching tennis to Pocahontas at Disney, who the girl who played Pocahontas, and her fiance was starting a home like maintenance business, and he liked my work ethic. And then I said, All right, forget tennis. It’s not going anywhere. I’ll start working for him. Then the 08 crash happens, his business folds.

So I started fixing things privately and my dad kind of forced me to buy a bunch of real estate because everything was so cheap, but I didn’t get it, you know, I didn’t know. So it’s this slow evolution that got me there. Weren’t it wasn’t the greatest choices on my end or the smartest path like some people have. It just sort of stumbled that way. And then I noticed that, well, these rental properties pay you every month.

And that I didn’t have a problem renting them. Yeah, you have tenants, I had to evict people, and that’s you know, sucked. But as it went on and on, it was going pretty well. And then they were appreciating in value. Then you look at people like a Robert Kiyosaki, you can borrow against them to buy more. So you can borrow against your your assets to buy other assets. then I stumbled onto something that a co-living, which is a lot more cash flow per property. I was like, wait a minute, we can really do this.

And then it’s like as you go, these steps happen. Then I talked to my fiduciary. I said, I really want to do this. How do I buy my way out of work? He’s like, take all your retirement accounts and put them in brokerage, and then you can borrow against them tax-free, which created more money to buy cash flowing assets. So then the cars, the houses, and that’s just what we keep doing now is the cycle of making sure we stay out of debt, we don’t increase our lifestyle, and we continue buying.

The cash flowing real estate. And that’s maybe what we’re always going to do. We might do development down the line if we get so many rentals that we don’t want, you know, too much of that responsibility. If you have 550 doors, that’s fifty humans. That yeah, that’s fifty beds, and that’s you know, you know, if you put a fridge in every room, that’s fifty fridges plus the main ones, and you’ve got eight properties, eight ACs and stuff like that. So

Cody Crabb (19:03)
Minimum.

Mike Stiskin (19:14)
We might get in development where you buy a piece of land, you build a fourplex for six fifty, you sell it for eight fifty, you know, in a perfect world. Or you do spec houses, you tear down an old one. We saw one yesterday. You buy one for four hundred grand in a beautiful area, but it’s an old place. You level it, you build a million dollar house for seven hundred thousandths, you’re one point one million in, and you sell it for one point four. So that might be the future of it. yeah.

Cody Crabb (19:42)
Yeah, I think that’s that’s cool. I I think when I whenever I talk to people about that are kind of in in the finance space or kinda like financial help type space, something that often comes up is like it’s it it’s you a lot of times it starts with real estate. Like it’s it’s such a it’s a thing that people kinda understand already because it’s this tangible thing, you know, everybody’s rented before, so they kinda get how it works just naturally and

On top of that, like it’s you know, everybody needs somewhere to live. So I I feel like a lot of people kinda go, well, it’s a there’s a need for it and worst case scenario, I could live there if I had to. And so yeah, I think there’s there’s a lot of things that go into it, I think, but I think people understand real estate kinda innately in a few wit different ways, which is why they kinda start that way.

Mike Stiskin (20:30)
Yeah, and you wanna you wanna know what you’re doing, what you’re trying to achieve, and you want to have the facts. You know, that what’s that old statement my grandfather used to talk about about the congressman? You’re entitled to your opinions, but not your own facts. Your own private home is not a great investment. You know, if you took all that money and invested it compounding interest in stocks, you’d have more money. One of the issues is

Let’s say rent is is two thousand dollars a month with all expenses and owning a home is five thousand. You’d say, Well, I should rent because I’d make three thousand dollars more a month, that’s thirty-six thousand a year, I’ll invest it. It’s like, yes, on from a mathematical basis, renting would be better in that case, but human nature, you’re not going to invest that three thousand. You’re gonna waste it on junk and Starbucks and Netflix and Gucci bags or whatever else you’re gonna do. So

Cody Crabb (21:25)
Yeah you don’t look at it i in you look at it s with like the ideally not in a

Mike Stiskin (21:29)
Yes, not the reality. You look at it with the rose colored glasses, and and so you’re better off owning because then it’s forced savings. You have to pay your mortgage or you won’t be living there. Mm-hmm. so that’s better. You can borrow against your house if and buy some assets. What you don’t want to do is borrow against your house and buy a bunch more junk, you know, jet skis and and stuff like that. You use the assets to buy the toys. That’s what everybody does backwards. They buy all the toys and they don’t have any assets.

Cody Crabb (21:58)
Yeah, that’s that’s how you end up with like designer clothes, brand new MacBook, and zero dollars in your bank account. Which is very familiar with that. Yeah.

Mike Stiskin (22:04)
Yeah, Mike.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That’s that’s a passport to go broke. And if you study money and listen to people talk about it, you’re just gonna learn so much more. I mean, that makes perfect sense. And so I’m kind of obsessed with it. And you learn, you know, hey, my house went up in value, isn’t that great? Well, yeah, but your property taxes and insurance went up with it. Yeah. Yeah, but

I’m I’m building, you know, it it’s up in value. No, it isn’t. When you go to sell it, you’ve got to buy a house that’s went up in value also. So there’s a reality to things that you want to be aware of. and you know, your taxes and insurance go up anyway, you know, so you gotta plan for that. You know, you gotta think about your home values, you’ve got to watch, like putting in a pool.

Hey, let’s get a pool. A pool used to be ten grand. Now it’s like a hundred and ten grand. Now, if you put in a pool, does that increase your house value a hundred and ten thousand?

Cody Crabb (23:01)
dot even kind of I would

Mike Stiskin (23:03)
No,

it maybe maybe 10,000. Maybe, maybe. All right. So that you gotta be aware of things like that. You’re you’re leveraging to get something that’s not going to pay you back. If you put 200 grand into a house, it’s not necessarily worth more unless you added air conditioned square footage or something like that.

Cody Crabb (23:22)
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that that brings me perfectly into my last point as we’re kind of running out of time here. if someone’s listening today and they wanna start kind of building some of this financial freedom that you’re talking about, what’s a couple of things that you would say maybe check on this first? Like make sure this is in place and then, you know, really dig in.

Mike Stiskin (23:42)
Your credit, you’ve got to have good credit. The banks won’t lend you money without good credit. You’ve heard these things FICO score, credit score. Those things matter. It’s like a trustworthiness scale. They’re not gonna trust you with the loan if you’ve shown that you don’t pay your bills. And you can’t get more credit unless you’re taking care of the credit that you have now. So that is vital. Financial literacy is so important.

Warren Buffett always talks about that. Improve yourself, improve your knowledge base. Know what interest rate, how does that affect you? The difference between a high rate and a low rate if you bought something. How does the world affect you, the stock market? And figure out what you’re trying to do. You can’t just be get sitting around getting older. It’s like you want to get better. You know, my grandfather would say,

Sometimes age comes with wisdom if you’re lucky, but sometimes age comes alone. Yeah.

Cody Crabb (24:39)
Yeah, that sounds like my grandpa. yeah. It’s I I like that. I think because it it doesn’t just arrive. It’s like you have to bring it with you. You know, you have to it’s yeah, that’s that’s true. And with all the experience and things that come with it, I mean, including these these negative things that you’ve brought up that are you would say I mean, I’m sure I I I’m sure a lot of investors would say this. You know, you’ve maybe lost some money, you’ve made some choices that you wish you wouldn’t have in investing, but I bet you wouldn’t trade

Because y now they’ve taught you so much. I mean it depends. I suppose that depends on how much money you lost.

Mike Stiskin (25:12)
You learn everything from failure. You don’t learn from success. Yeah. And the bumps and bruises do not kill you. You just move forward and learn how to have patience and understanding and slow down to try and lessen those mistakes, lessen the severity of those mistakes. I’ve made Herculean mistakes, legendary. I’m on the Mount Rushmore of mistakes. But

I’m still here and we’re flourishing now. And without those, you’re exactly right. I would not be here without those things that beat me down so bad. And I’m like, You gotta be kidding me. And then now is the abundance that comes out of that. And without going through that, and I’d rather go through those problems at thirty, forty, fifty than seventy five and have some major problem.

Cody Crabb (26:02)
Yeah. Yeah. Well I think everyone listening I think has really gotten a lot out of this. if people like you, like what you’re like what you’re saying, want to hear more of it, you have a podcast. tell people where they can find that.

Mike Stiskin (26:14)
Yeah. Well, we’re on YouTube. monetarytherapy.com also is a URL. I guess at Monetary Therapy on Instagram. You know, I’m older, so I have to learn all this stuff. But really, the website’s the best place to be. It’s got some videos, got a lot of tips, talks about cash flowing assets. You can reach me there. You can email us [email protected]. And I just want to help people and and learn from them, and they can learn from me and trade ideas.

And have abundance and success. We’re here to make a difference on this earth. You get one life. Why not have abundance? It doesn’t make you happy, but it gives you options. And then when things happen in your life, they’re not always a crisis.

Cody Crabb (26:54)
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for for all this, Mike. This has been really great. You’ve given us a lot of really good nuggets and motivation to to kind of tight us over. We really appreciate you joining us. And audience, we appreciate you joining us too. Make sure you don’t miss the next episode and we’ll see you there. Take care, Mike.

Mike Stiskin (27:12)
You thank you.