Learn About Us

What Should You Expect?

We package useful material with quippy and smart-ass commentary. Our past posts cover everything we’re interested in at the time, but now we’re focusing a little more on our real estate passions.

Every post isn’t intended to be life-changing, but they should all be entertaining and all bring humor and a little light to your day! Cumulatively, if you put into action all some of our suggestions, we promise that you will create room in your life financially to pursue more of the things you love. To us, this is what life’s all about.

10 Fun Facts:

  • Retired at 27 & 28 years old
  • At one point the two of us owned 5 cars at the same time
  • James’s favorite music artist is NF
  • Emily’s favorite genre is EDM
  • Bought 11 rental units in 2 years
  • We are both the youngest of three kids (James, a twin, is technically the youngest)
  • Set 18 State Records between the two of us in two states in Powerlifting
  • Both of us are huge Harry Potter fans
  • James shamelessly knows every word to ‘NSYNC’s debut album
  • Emily’s favorite video game is Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Emily

I am a former systems engineer with a passion for leading a happy, healthy life and a goal of having an unconstrained life to travel the world with the freedom to take advantage of every opportunity that life brings. My father is from Cyprus, so I have Greek heritage and Mediterranean roots. I grew up in a family where my father supported our family. My mother was a stay-at-home mom due to developing MS (Multiple Sclerosis) while I was growing up.

My parents have always been conservative with money and lived well within their means. They always followed a budget, and only bought used cars. However, like many kids, no one taught me about successful money management. Ever since I started working at 16, I tried to save. However, with no financial skills to keep me centered, shopping and spending money got the better of me. Luckily, I have a husband who drug me along on this journey and taught me how to save money. Now, we have reached our goal of financial independence and early retirement. We reached financial independence by tracking our expenses & net worth, saving as much as possible, and putting our money to work by investing in real estate.

James

I’m a former medical district manager who is obsessed with financial and physical health. Both my parents are deaf, which means that I am a CODA (child of deaf adults) and I am fluent in ASL. My parents divorced when I was 6. Unfortunately, my father passed away when I was 12 from complications due to his unmanaged diabetes.

So, raised by a single mother, who worked at Wal-Mart to afford to raise three kids, it’s safe to say that my family was pretty poor growing up. My grandmother was kind enough to watch us while our mother worked third-shift. However, she didn’t contribute much in the way of finances other than helping my mother manage the little money that she had come in. I couldn’t count how many times the water or electricity was cut off, and we had numerous cars repossessed.

For a while, I overcompensated for my humble upbringing by spending every dime I had to buy nice things to prove that I wasn’t poor, which just perpetuated the cycle and made me poorer. I had plenty of examples growing up on how to not manage your money or your health. Once I saw the light, it was relatively easy to make the changes I needed, which was to go back and live like I was poor again to invest as much as possible. Except this time was by choice!

These are a few reasons why I am passionate about maintaining health and building wealth. Luckily I found a wife who is not only supportive but also open-minded and willing to work toward a common goal of retiring early. Now that we have reached this goal, we have years to focus on traveling and living long, healthy, happy lives.