Un-Retiring After Two Years | MHFI 337

Mile High FI Podcast

Dusti Young shares her experience of un-retiring after two and a half years of financial independence following unexpected rental property d

Key takeaways

• Dusti Young faced a significant loss in monthly cash flow after a long-term tenant stopped paying rent and damaged her property.
• Her investment portfolio is structured with 65% investments (90% equities) and 35% real estate.

Main topics

• Un-retified after two years
• Rental property management challenges

Notable quotes

I don't want anything to be my identity.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a practical case study on how unexpected externa

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:04) Hey, what's going on? Welcome to the Mile High Five podcast. I'm Doug Cunnington, and today we're talking to Dusty. This is an update of your two and a half year retirement. Is that about right? Yeah. And then Rox is joining me again to co-host. How are you today? Speaker 1 (0:22) Hey, yo, I'm good. Hi, everybody. Speaker 3 (0:25) And is that your new signature? He threw me off. Hey, what was that? Speaker 1 (0:30) Yellow. What up? Speaker 3 (0:33) So you two were on about a month or so ago. And as we were talking, Dusty's retirement journey popped up. And I was like, oh, this is a whole other episode. So we got sort of the main ideas and then put a placeholder in it. And we're catching up today. And you guys are roommates, just to catch everybody up. And how long have you been roommates? Speaker 2 (0:58) Since February. Yeah, so about Speaker 1 (1:00) six months. Speaker 3 (1:00) Okay. And you wanted to emphasize something about the roommate relationship, just to make it clear. That it Speaker 1 (1:07) was five stars. Five out of five. Yeah, five thumbs up. Out of five thumbs for some reason. I don't know. I still don't know why. I've slept on it many times and I still don't know why. On the note of sleeping, we do sleep separately, separate bedrooms, separate bathrooms. It's a platonic thing that's come up a few times since. So to clarify for friend friends. Speaker 3 (1:28) Okay, perfect. Thanks. Thanks for clarifying that. And we talk about it more in the sound check. So that's, that's fun. So. The main idea here is, Dusty, you retired about two and a half years ago. You went back to work. And we're going to hear the story of what happened and why you went back to work. And I think it's a great example of the flexibility that you have when you are financially independent. And plus, you have things that are completely outside of your control. These are external forces that happen to everyone. You don't know to expect them, but you have a strong foundation with financial independence, so it does give you options. So we'll talk about that, how you adjusted, the challenges that you ran into. And this is a big request from the audience. So I do hear often people, I mean, maybe it's a morbid curiosity. They're like, I want to hear the failure stories. But we can learn and see examples of what's going on and how people react and how they adjust. So that's kind of the main idea here. And secondarily, we will talk a little bit about being single in the Phi community, like along your journey. And that was a topic that Rox wanted to bring up. And you're both single, just to be clear why it's an interesting topic for us to talk about, right? Speaker 1 (2:53) Yeah, it came up for me just because I'm kind of newly single. So then... You know, I'm like curious about Dusty's experience and if she has like advice for people who are doing it solo. And I think it's Speaker 2 (3:07) an interesting topic. We talked about it a little bit on our walk today. We do a Wellness Wednesday walk. And I think getting to FI as a single person is different than if you're doing it with someone. And for me, that journey has been a solo journey. So the idea of failure is. You know, like you don't have someone else to help you out. You don't have kind of some of those shared expenses or conversations. It is on you. And when there's an emergency or things go awry, it's like, oh, I have to figure this out. What am I going to do? Speaker 3 (3:43) And we'll talk a little bit about it for sure towards the end. And I was going to say this obviously could be like a whole, not just a podcast episode. You could do a whole podcast just. For that specific audience, because obviously there are single folks out there. Okay. So one of the things that you mentioned was you retired and then you went on a trip and then you were on that trip for a little while. Can you sort of lay the foundation and feel free to mention it was a couple of years ago and maybe the job that you were coming from full time to nothing. So talk about that a little bit. Speaker 2 (4:21) So to give people a little bit of backstory, Elizabeth, your wife and I retired at the same time. We did it very differently. So Elizabeth had a very clear plan in terms of I'm going to retire. This is my timeline. This is my financial foundation. I've had the conversations with my work. I'm ready to do this. I worked at the same job for many, many years, and I really enjoyed that job. I got promoted to a position that I didn't enjoy and wanted to switch. So I left that job after 18 years and I went to a different company. And that new company was not fun. It wasn't even remotely fun or ethical. It just felt, I didn't feel like I was making a difference and I didn't enjoy the work. I had the Sunday scaries all the time. And the more that Elizabeth and I talked about retiring, the more I thought. I'm just going to do this. And so I ran my numbers. I had my best friend look at my numbers. He confirmed that I was in a position where I could retire. It was going to be, you know, potentially a little bit tight, potentially like a little bit harder at the beginning and things needed to go well. And I just was that miserable at the job that I thought, yeah, I'm going to do this. Speaker 1 (5:35) So Speaker 2 (5:36) we picked a date. We were, Elizabeth and I retired. We had a retirement party. And then As a celebration, I went to Spain on what was intended to be a 10-day trip to several different locations in Spain and Portugal. And on day three, one of my dear friends fell and got hurt and ended up needing to stay in Spain. And so I stayed for about six weeks. We were in Spain. And when I was in Spain, it kind of took a different turn. We went from being on vacation and celebrating to, hey, we now are unexpectedly here. And how do we make the most out of every day? Because we need to be here. And it kind of replaced what was a job where you have structure. That's what Spain was for me. Like Spain had a lot of structure because my day was essentially like, how do we. Make the most out of this day. What are we going to do? What kind of fun adventure can we go on? How can we just make this a really magical day? And I think we succeeded in doing that. We had just so many great memories. We did escape rooms and went to museums and we walked around. We found jazz piano concerts and great food. And we went to like all these different places and ended up being a wonderful experience. I was also living with two of my dearest friends and. having a great time every day. And then I came back to Longmont and it felt... Very empty. You know, I went from like having these big full days to coming back and being like, oh, I don't have a job I'm returning to. I am completely out of sync because I've been gone for all this time. So I don't feel like I'm in sync with my friends. I don't feel like I'm in sync with the community. I'm not quite sure what to do next. And while all this was happening, so while I was in Spain, my long-term tenant told me, hey. We are planning to move out. We bought a house, which was exciting and left this whole of, okay, I need to now coordinate and get someone new into this property. So I ended up hiring, and this is kind of a long story, I guess, but I ended up hiring a company to place the tenant. Speaker 2 (7:56) That was part of my plan was to have this cash flow. And essentially my monthly income comes from Airbnb income and then long-term rentals that are located out of state. So when I was in Spain and found out that they were going to be moving, I thought, okay, I know I'm not going to be going back to Michigan. I'm not quite sure when I'm going to get back to Longmont or how that's going to look. So I'm going to hire a company to put a new tenant in and I have plenty of runway. So I did that. They placed a tenant and that tenant paid one month's rent, which went to them, went to the company for, for placing them. And then they paid the next month and then stopped paying. So I'd come back. I was feeling a little lost. I was feeling a little like, gosh, I don't know. I didn't prepare well enough for this. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. And now I have this loss of monthly cash flow plus increased expense because you have to start going through the court process to get them out. And that is in many ways expensive. And the person, she did not leave. in any type of expedited fashion. She wasn't like, hey, I get it. It's okay. I can't pay my rent. I'm going to move out. Instead, she fought everything that I filed with the court, ended up getting a delay approved because she was in a mental institution. And then I had to hire the bailiff to move her things out. And even on that day, they had to call the police to have her moved out of the house so that they could move her things out. And then when I went to Michigan, I found out that she had destroyed much of this fully renovated property. And so that was an additional expense. Speaker 3 (9:52) A lot of that seems like it sucks with the rental. And I'll give you a pause so that you can catch your breath for a second. And I'll ask a couple sort of quicker questions. When you moved to the second job that you didn't like, how long did you stay before you quit? Speaker 2 (10:09) I was there a little over a year. Speaker 3 (10:12) Okay. So you actually gave it a decent amount of time for something that sucks. I Speaker 2 (10:18) did. And it was run very much like a startup company. And he knew my financial situation. So there were periods that I would go without getting a paycheck. You know, like he would just say, oh, we can't make payroll. And that's fucking bananas. Speaker 3 (10:31) I would have quit. It's like that. I don't know. Well, I remember this time period. So anyway, looking back, would you have been like? Go fuck yourself. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's like, that is unacceptable. If you just like didn't show up a couple, they would just fire you. So anyway. I Speaker 2 (10:47) tend to be a people pleaser. And so saying no or quitting is very hard for me. Yeah. And yes, in hindsight, I should have been like, no, this is not acceptable. Speaker 3 (10:57) Yeah. Yeah. And then the other is what more FI related, what percentage of your expenses are covered? by your real estate income? Just roughly, I know you may not know off the top of your head, but about how much? Well, Speaker 2 (11:13) I actually did run these numbers. So I cash flow about $3,600 a month from real estate. And that's a combination of Airbnb and then rental income from Michigan. And so I lost about a third of that when my tenant wasn't paying. Speaker 3 (11:31) Okay. And does that include the... Whatever you throw in, like 10 % for maintenance and then vacancy, does that include that portion? Yeah, that's like Speaker 2 (11:41) after those. And it can adjust a little bit because my Airbnb here in Longmont is, you know, sometimes that's, it has averaged different things depending on the year and how busy it is and how much we can charge. Speaker 1 (11:56) I know there's the thing where when you accomplish a goal, sometimes you have like a depressive state after. And I know that you've experienced that with like, you know, you train and then run a big race, right? And then you experience that. Do you think that you would have still felt like kind of the emptiness and kind of feeling lost even if you hadn't end up getting in being in Spain for six weeks? Like, do you think that still would have happened regardless of how long? I feel like Rox has a front row seat to this Speaker 2 (12:22) because this just happened where I. trained for a big race, I finished. And then I did go through kind of this empty state or this like, hey, I hit this goal. And now what? Now what am I working towards? I think I absolutely would have. I think it was kind of blunted by my time in Spain. And then what replaced it was like, I came back from Spain, and I felt like I had accomplished this goal of, we had a really successful trip, and that felt great. And now what? And so it was just. Yeah, different timing. But I think my personality is very much prone to that. Speaker 1 (12:55) Yeah. Because I've been working on some content since I'm very newly Fi. I've been working on stuff like how to transition, right? How to transition from work to Fi. And I think having projects lined up is good. And then you can like. scale them up and down so then it's like you can scale your projects down over time and then like your regular living life if that's what you would call it like goes up you know like just the things that you do on a day-to-day basis like fills that time right so yeah you did have a thing you went to Spain but then there wasn't anything like after that so yeah really being intentional I think about having a place to put that energy your creative energy your mental energy To kind of help prevent that. Speaker 2 (14:07) my job. And back to your point, learning to say no, or learning to recognize things that don't feel good or don't feel value aligned has been a big part of the work that I'm doing. Because I can, I know I'm prone to being like, hey, this needs to get done. So I'm just going to do it. Or my job needs me. When in reality, there are other people who are happy and willing to do this job. And I could be Spending time with you guys or out on a trail run. And I don't need to feel this guilt that I'm letting someone down. Speaker 3 (14:43) Great point. We should talk more about that topic because that's what I hear a lot of and I feel bad for folks where you're like, oh, I had a purpose before. And you had a job where you were helping people out and it was very clear and you probably, I mean, you were working like one-on-one kind of thing, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's tough, especially you're a people pleaser and you're a helpful person and you like to make sure everything's kind of taken care of. One thing I heard and I've... I think I did a decent job with this anyway. But as far as saying no, especially for like a volunteer kind of thing where it's like, oh, this is a good thing. It's helping people. Just because you have time to do it, it doesn't mean you should do it. And I've volunteered for things here and there. And I have a lot of free time because I say no to almost everything because most things that come. and we have an option to do it or not, it's usually pretty good. Like we've arrived at a spot where we have really good options. So it's okay to turn those down. And a good example, last year I stepped up. It was something important with a prairie dog execution thing that was going on out here. That's such terrible Speaker 1 (15:56) phrasing. Speaker 3 (15:58) Huh? Yeah, there's a whole podcast about it. But I did a lot of work around that. Speaker 3 (16:07) And several people were like, hey, you should run for the board. Actually, both sides. And I was like, I'm not going to do it. Even though I have a ton of time, other people are busy. They have families that work full time. And I was just like, no, this is not going to work for me. And that was like an HOA. So it's not exactly like volunteer for like a greater purpose. But all that to say, it's okay if you turn shit down and just be like. No, I don't have time. Like right now, you can come back to it. And you've done so much. If you tally your life up, you have a lot of extra plus one points. Do you guys watch The Good Place? Yeah, I love The Good Place. That. Yeah. Roxy, do you have a follow-up