• Kevin Hart accumulated a lot of debt after opening his own insurance branch.
• He got out of the red by flipping homes and now does real estate full-time.
• Hart recommends new investors get started with a flip, but cautions against costly mistakes.

Kevin Hart found himself in the red when, after working as a sales rep for State Farm for a few years, he opened his own branch in 2017.

"I was dead broke and at a failing insurance business," the Louisville native told Business Insider. "I had a $50,000 business loan I had to pay back at some point. I had a bunch of credit card debt from trying to get that business going."

Hart wasn't in a financial hole for long. In 2019, he flipped his first home. He said it profited about $30,000, which he split with his business partner at the time. Before the end of that summer, he purchased two more flips and left insurance to work in real estate full time.

He said that his success flipping, and later wholesaling, helped him pay off his debt in two years: "There's not much else out there where you can make lump sum checks to help you pay off that debt."

Hart now works alongside a different business partner, Mike Gorius. They formed an official business partnership in 2024 under the Joe Homebuyer franchise and, in their first full year working together, did 50 transactions between wholesales, wholetails, and flips. They also own more than 20 rental properties, including short-, mid-, and long-term, in the Lousiville area. BI verified their property ownership and deal history by looking at settlement statements and closing documents.

They agree that rookie investors should consider starting with a flip for a "quick capital boost to help you get going," said Hart, whose two-pronged real estate strategy involves flipping and wholesaling to bring in cash, and then buying and holding rentals.

Of course, when it comes to flipping homes, there's always risk involved. To minimize risk and avoid losing money on your first flip, Hart and Gorius highlighted three costly mistakes.

1. Hiring the first contractor you find. Unless you're planning on doing all of the renovation work yourself, you're going to need to work with a general contractor — and finding the right person for the job is key to a successful flip. This is the person you'll be relying on to transform a fixer-upper into a marketable home.

Avoid selecting "some random contractor you find online," said Hart. "You definitely don't want to hire the cheapest one you find. They're probably cheap and available for a reason."

Instead, interview multiple contractors, call references, and look at their previous work. The more due diligence, the better off you'll be.

Keep in mind that there are residential contractors and contractors who work with investors. You want to work with the latter because "they understand what flippers are looking for," said Hart.

2. Biting off more than you can chew. "Don't take on a project that's way bigger than you can handle," said Hart, acknowledging that it's easier said than done, especially if you draw inspiration from HGTV shows that tend to feature full gut renovations. "That's not what you want on your first flip."

If he was starting from scratch in Louisville, he said he'd target a 3-bedroom, 1-bath ranch-style house that could use cosmetic upgrades: "Floors, paint, kitchen cabinets, update the bathroom and a few minor things like light fixtures and call it a day. You don't want to start a huge construction project when you have no experience doing construction."

Stick to the basics, added Gorius: "Don't pretend that you're the one moving into this house and start putting finishes on there that are overpriced or don't make sense. Stick with what works, talk to contractors, and walk other people's flips to see what finishes and paint colors and materials they're using, because they're doing that for a reason."

Their goal with a flip is to create a home that appeals to the most amount of people possible, which means neutral colors and flooring.

"In reality, if you're doing a lot of flips, flipping is a pretty boring business," said Hart. "You're using the same paint colors, you're using similar flooring. Whatever's in style that year, we're like, 'Okay, for the next five houses, this is what we're doing.'"

3. Running your numbers too optimistically. Assume the project will cost more money and take more time than you think.

"Get really good at running your numbers, and be realistic about it," said Hart, who built his own flipping calculator in Excel. That means, if you're running comps and see that one home in your market sold for $250,000 but the rest are selling for $220,000, "you can't get too excited and think, 'my house is going to be worth 250.' More likely, it'll be 220 or 230. Don't try to force the numbers to work."

Allow yourself a financial cushion because, especially as a new flipper, "something inevitably is going to go wrong or you're going to miss something in the rehab," he said. "It always happens. You can't go out there and project a flip is going to make $10,000 off the bat, and all of a sudden, you buy it and miss this $10,000 foundation issue and now you're in the hole. So you just have to make sure you're buying correctly and getting your rehab cost as accurate as possible."

• I attended Day 1 of the One Rental at a Time (ORaaT) conference in Las Vegas.
• The real estate conference incorporated guest speakers, Q&A, and networking.
• My main takeaway was: Who you surround yourself with — your 'social sphere,' as one speaker put it — matters.

When interviewing successful real-estate investors and asking their advice for rookies, a common suggestion is to find a meetup group or join an online community — do something that gets you in the same room as people who have already done what you hope to achieve.

The advice made sense to me conceptually, but I didn't fully understand it until I experienced it.

In February, I attended Day 1 of the "One Rental at a Time" conference, a two-day event hosted by investor, author, and early retiree Michael Zuber. I drove from my home in Los Angeles to the venue in Las Vegas on a Saturday morning and arrived highly caffeinated just before the opening remarks at 8 a.m.

Having never attended a conference, I had no idea what to expect. I was there as a journalist — to keep my finger on the pulse, talk to investors, and generally observe — rather than jump-start a career in real estate. But, after 10 hours in a room with hundreds of real-estate enthusiasts, it was impossible not to at least flirt with the idea of owning property in some capacity.

Here's what my day looked like.

By a quarter to 8, the line of attendees had spilled out the door and into the parking lot.

I found the 8 a.m. start time somewhat surprising — that's an early Saturday regardless of where you're commuting from — until I arrived. There was energetic chatter. People were excited. And, of course, they were! They're hooked on real estate. They listen to podcasts like "BiggerPockets" and consume hours of YouTube content from investors like their host, Zuber, and other speakers on the agenda. They're spending their own money and an entire weekend of their time to be in this conference room. I'm sure they wouldn't have minded a 7 a.m. start.

I checked in, topped off my cup of coffee, and settled into one of the folding chairs neatly arranged for the 300 or so attendees.

The format incorporated guest speakers, Q&A, and networking. A financially independent couple kicked things off, discussing how they went from not being able to afford groceries to building a robust portfolio of rental properties over a span of two decades. They were followed by a YouTuber who spoke about the power of content creation.

We broke for 20 minutes — I chatted with a woman looking to buy her first rental in Tucson — before hearing the self-proclaimed "lazy landlord" discuss his unconventional but effective strategies, from writing leases that end in the winter to looking for properties that aren't located in good school districts. His reasoning is, "You age out your tenants if you're targeting good school districts," he said. When their kids graduate, for example, they may move, "so I specifically look for places where tenants are going to be for a long time." Plus, good school districts tend to have higher property taxes, he added.

Following the morning speakers was a 90-minute "millionaire panel," which was essentially a Q&A. Attendees lined up to the left of the stage and, one by one, took the mic to ask about general market trends or specific questions about their individual properties and dilemmas.

At 12:30, a two-hour lunch (tacos and churros) and networking session commenced. The venue was open seating, and the round tables encouraged conversation flow. This is when things started to heat up.

When you put like-minded people who share similar goals in the same room — or at the same table — it creates stimulating conversation that further propels the preexisting buzz of energy. I imagine my tablemates felt the way I would if I found myself in a room with other tennis nerds who, like me, eat, sleep, and breathe the sport. Though my passion for real estate doesn't run as deep as many of the attendees, the energy was contagious.

The conversation at my eight-person table jumped from strategies for remodeling a kitchen on a budget to helping one investor weigh the pros and cons of selling off one of her rentals. The group consisted of investors at different stages in their journey, including a widow with the goal of growing from two rentals to five (one for each of her grandchildren) and an investor in his 30s who is building a portfolio of cash-flowing rentals so he can retire early and tackle extreme endurance challenges like hiking the Appalachian Trail.

This is when the advice of surrounding yourself with other people looking to do what you're trying to do clicked. I saw networks expanding, connections forming, and momentum building. One woman told me that she could never talk about real estate with her friends because they were indifferent and borderline unsupportive. In this room, though, she could ask any question she wanted and be met with support and feedback.

After lunch, we settled in for three more sessions, including the keynote speaker: Graham Stephan, an investor and popular YouTuber with nearly 5 million subscribers. There were audible gasps in the audience when Zuber introduced the surprise guest. I imagined how I'd feel if Roger Federer unexpectedly came on the stage.

Each of the day's speakers gave good, tangible advice about how to acquire your first property and grow your portfolio — look at listings in your market every single day, don't obsess over interest rates, and buy and hold for the long term — but my main takeaway didn't have anything to do with acquisition strategies or market trends.

This is what stuck for me: Who you surround yourself with — your "social sphere," as one speaker referred to it — matters. It sounds simplistic and a little clichéd, and it's something that we all know to be true, but knowing and experiencing are two different things.

If you're a prospective real-estate investor, being in a room with other investors — whether it's a virtual room by way of an online community or a physical room by way of a meetup or conference — does a couple of powerful things:

One, you learn — from people who are smarter and more successful than you.

Two, you connect — with people who could become your business partner, lender, wholesaler, or client.

Three, you gain momentum — perhaps just enough to finally take that first step.

Stephan's keynote wrapped around 6 p.m. and Day 1 concluded with a two-hour dinner. That's around when I ducked out to jot down some notes and reflect on the day. Had I been looking to buy my first rental, I absolutely would have stayed.

• Business partners Kevin Hart and Mike Gorius have built a robust and diverse real estate portfolio.
• Their strategy involves flipping and wholesaling for cash and holding rentals for long-term gains.
• Their advice to new investors is to start with a flip to bring in cash and then expand to rentals.

Kevin Hart started thinking about real estate as a viable business in college when he was renting a duplex with his fraternity brothers.

"We had both sides, there were 10 guys, and we were all paying 500 bucks a month to this landlord," the University of Kentucky grad told Business Insider. It seemed like a relatively simple way to bring in thousands of dollars a month, "so I always had that in the back of my head."

He graduated, started a career in accounting, and found his mind wandering as he sat in his cubicle all day "mindlessly sending spreadsheets," he said. "I was daydreaming about real estate or other businesses, thinking, 'How do I get out of here?'"

His curiosity led him to websites like BiggerPockets. He learned about various investing strategies, "but I put real estate on the back burner because I just thought it was too hard to get started. I didn't have any money and didn't think I could do it."

A career pivot to insurance in 2017 ended up putting Hart in the red. He started working as an independent contractor for State Farm and took out a business loan to help with marketing expenses.

The one major silver lining was that it introduced him to home flippers in his area in Louisville.

"They were clients of mine on the insurance side and motivated me to flip a house and see if it's really for me," said Hart. "I started working with some local wholesalers, found a good deal, and bought this first house with $8,000 down using a hard money lender. My wife was super freaked out about what I was doing because I'd never done it before. Luckily, it went really well."

He said he and his first business partner bought the property for about $70,000 in March 2019, put roughly $40,000 of work into it, and sold it for around $160,000.

"Together we split probably $30,000 of profit," said Hart. He was hooked, bought two more flips before the end of the summer, and quit his job later that same year. "I had these paychecks coming in that were triple what I was paying myself at State Farm as a self-employed insurance agent. That was super exciting."

Hart's current business partner, Mike Gorius, took a different approach at the beginning of his real estate career, which began as a side project to help alleviate credit card debt and car loans. He started by purchasing a duplex in Louisville, despite living in Phoenix at the time, and turned it into a long-term rental.

"I spent about $35,000 on the down payment of my own money. When I got my first rental check, the profit was like $400," said Gorius, who worked in sales and recruiting throughout his corporate career. "I remember thinking, 'Oh man, it's going to take a lot of $35,000 down payments for me to retire off this."

Gorius and Hart, who initially connected when Gorius was looking to buy in the Louisville market, have been doing deals together since 2022. They formed an official business partnership in 2024 under the Joe Homebuyer franchise and, in their first full year working together, did 50 transactions between wholesales, wholetails, and flips. They also own more than 20 rental properties, including short-, mid-, and long-term, in the Lousiville area. BI verified their property ownership and deal history by looking at settlement statements and closing documents.

Thanks to real estate, Hart says he's completely rid of bad debt, and Gorius, who quit his corporate job in 2023 to work in real estate full-time, expects to have paid off his in 2025.

"There's not much else out there where you can make lump sum checks to help you pay off that debt," said Hart. "It's a good business to help you build your savings account."

Their next major milestone is financial freedom and the option to never have to work for income again, though they're not the types to be on the golf course five days a week. They said the flexibility is more intriguing.

A two-pronged wealth-building strategy: Flip to bring in cash, then buy and hold rentals

Hart and Gorius have narrowed in on a real estate strategy that works for them — and they encourage new investors to use a similar approach: Start with a flip for a cash infusion and then use that money to buy and hold rentals.

"If you have 10 grand you can typically go find a deal, put the down payment down, and hopefully you're making $15,000 to $30,000. That's a quick capital boost to help you get going," said Hart. "If you start flipping a few houses a year, whether you've got a W2 or not, that's definitely going to put you in the right direction to be able to do other things like buying rentals."

It's easier said than done.

A common and costly mistake in the flipping world is going with the first contractor you find, rather than interviewing a few.

"Try to get referrals from other flippers. That way, hopefully, you're not getting burned on a bad contractor," said Hart. "You definitely don't want to hire the cheapest one you find. They're probably cheap and available for a reason."

Another rookie mistake is taking on too big of a project. You don't want to be gutting the house or moving walls on your first flip. Instead, start with more of a cosmetic flip where you're updating the flooring, paint, cabinets, and light fixtures.

"In reality, if you're doing a lot of flips, flipping is a pretty boring business. You're using the same paint colors, you're using similar flooring. Whatever's in style that year, we're like, 'Okay, for the next five houses, this is what we're doing,'" said Hart. "We're doing neutral colors, neutral floors, and just making everything fresh and clean so that it appeals to the most amount of people possible."

The money coming in from their flips and wholesales funds their lifestyle and savings.

"Flipping and the wholesaling, that's what I love to do. That's my day job, so I've turned that into my 'salary,'" said Gorius — and it can be lucrative.

He cited their most recent deal: "We got a property under contract 16 days ago, closed on it today, and wholesaled it for $24,000. Because it's a wholesale, that's pretty much gross profit. That's an extreme case. That's a fantastic deal. I will say there are other deals and flips that have been in our pipeline for two, three months now, so they're not all like that. But that is the power of this business."

A successful flip or wholesale can help you build enough savings to start adding rental properties to your portfolio. The problem with starting with a long-term rental is that it likely won't generate much cash flow, if any. In their market, for example, they can profit about $100 to $200 a month per unit.

"If you don't have any money in the bank and a tenant calls you because the water heater went out, there goes a whole year of your cash flow," said Hart. "You really have to be prepared to be able to make these repairs."

They look at their long-term rentals as their retirement funds.

"They probably won't make a ton, if any, money in the short term, but if you hold it for that 20, 30 years, then that's your retirement plan," said Gorius.

As Hart put it: "Buying rental properties is like a slow burn to retirement. No one is getting super wealth immediately, especially not in Louisville." But over time, "The tenants pay the mortgage, we build equity every single month, and eventually, we can sell off and have a nice retirement plan with it."

• An LA-based couple has figured out how to do day trips to Las Vegas on the cheap.
• They book $39 roundtrip tickets through Spirit Airlines and pack a backpack for the day.
• Credit card rewards and loyalty points from free apps allow them access to hotel pools and airport lounges.

Ryo Furukawa was intrigued by the Mandalay Bay pool — or, the 11-acre "aquatic playground," as the Las Vegas-based resort describes its popular amenity.

It has a wave pool and a lazy river, neither of which he'd ever experienced.

He and his fiancé, Jenn Dinh decided to make a day trip out of it. It was a bit of a tall order, considering they lived nearly 300 miles away in Los Angeles, but they managed — and, thanks to a cheap Spirit flight and a handful of travel hacks, they did it on a budget.

Since then, the couple has replicated the low-budget day trip to the entertainment capital of the world four more times. They spoke to Business Insider and broke down the cost of their typical 16-hour trip to Vegas, which they can do for less than $100 per person, not including food.

Airport parking: $30 total ($15 each)

The couple typically flies out of the John Wayne Airport (SNA) in Orange County. They drive themselves to the airport and leave their car in the lot.

Furukawa said the daily parking rate recently jumped from $20 to $30, and joked that he needs to "figure out another plan there."

Flights: $39 per person

Furukawa is a member of the Spirit Savers Club, a $70-a-year membership that offers discounts for him, the primary passenger, and up to eight additional guests on the same reservation.

"It paid for itself by just purchasing two tickets. We saved over $70 that one time," said Furukawa, who joined in the summer of 2024. For each subsequent trip, they've saved a couple of bucks.

"There's more savings when the tickets are more expensive — not as much savings when they're already cheap," he explained. But it bumps their ticket prices below $40.

Here's an example of a roundtrip flight for $38.60:

They typically depart SNA at 6:45 a.m. and arrive in LAS at 7:55 a.m. Their return trip leaves at 8:30 p.m. and arrives at 9:39 p.m. Spirit allows one personal item. They both pack a backpack.

Prices do fluctuate, said Dinh, but they've agreed on a cap: "If it's $50, we're not going to go. It has to be like 40-something or under."

Transportation in Vegas: $0 to $40 total ($20 per person)

Technically, the airport is walking distance from the Strip — and they've done the walk before.

"We only have one backpack each, so not many things to carry," said Furukawa. Though, "it's a little deceiving — probably three or four miles of walking."

While the active commute is free, and a nice option on a good-weather day, they prefer to save their legs. They've used rideshare apps and taxis — the taxi fare is set based on the part of the Strip you're heading to, making it easy to price compare with Uber and Lyft — but their favorite way to get around is by renting a car, which gives them more flexibility and the option to explore beyond the Strip.

On their most recent trip in January, they said the car cost a little under $40 for the full day — and they didn't have to top off the gas, either. They drove so few miles that, by the end of the day, "the meter was still past the full mark," said Furukawa.

Taking advantage of free activities and saving their food budget for LA

There's more to Vegas than pricey buffets, shows, and nightlife.

One of Furukawa and Dinh's favorite free activities is visiting the Conservatory at the Bellagio. It features displays that rotate seasonally. In January, they saw the Lunar New Year display; in late 2024, they experienced a holiday-themed display.

They've also explored Circus Circus, a hotel and casino (with free parking, they said) just north of the Strip that has an arcade with carnival games.

Vegas is a walkable city — particularly the Strip, which stretches a little over four miles — and they find themselves doing a lot of sightseeing on foot. They've also used the free trams that operate between Mandalay Bay and Treasure Island.

As for food, they consider themselves "spoiled" with the cuisine options in LA. They'd rather splurge on food at home and keep things simple and less expensive in Vegas. On their last trip, they spent about $20 on breakfast at a café off the Strip. They said it would have been double or even triple had they eaten on the Strip. For lunch, they spent about $30 at Taco Bell Cantina.

They're aware that buying food on the Strip can easily add up, but it doesn't hold them back from the occassional splurge.

They've done a classic Vegas buffet, which is "worth the experience if you have the time," said Furukawa. "Obviously, you want to stay there as long as you can!"

Travel hacks: Flexibility, credit card rewards, and free gambling apps

Flexibility will save your wallet. When planning their Vegas dates, Furukawa and Dinh prefer to take a day off from work and travel on a weekday. There's less traffic and fewer crowds, and it can be cheaper. They're constantly looking at Spirit flights, and if a cheap ticket aligns with a day when they can also land a free hotel room through rewards points — another hack of theirs — they'll jump on it.

In Vegas, use apps to earn free hotels, discounts, and rewards. Furukawa has discovered several apps that anyone can play for free, including POP! Slots, myVEGAS Bingo, myKONAMI, and MGM Slots Live.

Without spending any of his own money, he earns "loyalty points" for the time he spends playing, which can be redeemed for a comped room at MGM properties on select days (you still have to pay a resort fee, he said), discounted food or shows, and "Freeplay," a form of credit that allows you to play casino games.

"You can only redeem three rewards per about 30 days," he said. "I usually redeem 100,000 loyalty points for $25 myKONAMI Freeplay at three different properties. Most Freeplay on their app usually requires a minimum of a two-night stay, but this $25 Freeplay requires no stay."

On their latest trip, he said he was up $50 from Freeplay. It made the trip even more affordable.

Take advantage of credit card points and perks. One of their top hacks used to be using the Wyndham Earner Business Card, which allowed them to match earned Wyndham status to Caesars Rewards, which got them free parking and a waived resort fee. The Points Guy was also a fan of this perk, which is no longer effective as of January 31, 2025.

On their most recent trip in January, the couple booked a comped room based on their play. Thanks to their Caesars Diamond status, which was still effective at the time, they could park their rental car at Caesars for free and didn't owe the $54.95 resort fee. It allowed them a place to store their backpacks and leave the car for the day.

Another credit card benefit they have is Priority Pass, which grants them access to lounges in various airports, including the one in Vegas. They like to arrive at the airport early enough to get a free meal at the lounge before heading back to LA.

They said they're looking forward to the Capital One Lounge coming to the LAS soon.

The couple hasn't selected their next Vegas date yet, but at this point, the planning is minimal. "We just copy and paste," said Furukawa. "I pick her up, we go to the airport, park my car, and then get on the flight with our one backpack. It's a nice escape."

• Carmelo Camilleri credits his financial success to money lessons from his father.
• His father emphasized the importance of owning rather than renting and letting your money grow.
• The lessons helped Camilleri become a homeowner at 27 and are setting him up to retire early.

Carmelo Camilleri will never forget the time his dad yelled at him for buying Diet Pepsi at Walmart when it was on sale at ShopRite.

He and his fiancé were preparing to host his parents when they realized that they had forgotten to get soda the night before. They swung by the nearest grocery option, which happened to be Walmart, and word of the detour got back to Camilleri's dad.

"He actually yelled at me. He said, 'What's wrong with you? It's on sale at ShopRite,'" the Staten Island native told Business Insider. "I said, 'I know. You were on your way, and we were going to be late.' He goes, 'You could have gone there. We would've waited for you. It's OK. Get the cheaper price.'"

Camilleri says his dad is the reason he price-compares everything from gas to ground turkey — and his personal finance lessons are the reason the 31-year-old is a homeowner with robust savings and financial options.

"My goal is to have the option to retire at 35," said Camilleri, who has been working as a salesman since college and now runs a sales business. The path to early retirement would mean selling the business, he added, "so if and when that happens, I'll definitely have the opportunity to move on with my life."

Here are two money lessons from his dad that "put me in the right mindset," said Camilleri.

'Always own. Never rent.'

Camilleri lived at home with his parents for years after college, partly thanks to an early principle that his dad instilled in him: "Always own. Never rent."

In his mind, renting equates to throwing money away.

"You put a dollar in, that dollar is gone forever," said Camilleri. "When you're renting, you're building someone else's dream. You're building someone else's asset."

Living at home not only allowed him to save the majority of his sales income, which would eventually go toward a six-figure down payment, but it also meant he could be patient and diligent during the homebuying process.

"I was always going to buy a home. It was just a matter of when — not if," said Camilleri, who started seriously considering buying in 2020 and closed on a $670,000 five-bedroom in Brick, New Jersey in 2021. He paid $25,000 under the original asking price during a time when most homes in the area were going for above asking, he said.

"I probably spent a little over a full year looking. There were times when I would just stop, like two or three months at a time, because I wasn't getting anywhere — and I wasn't going to overpay," he said. "I wasn't willing to spend more than I would need to, and it's not that I financially couldn't do it — it's just not smart. I'm always looking for my money to grow, not the other way around."

Camilleri, who moved out of his parent's home and into his own at age 27, is proud to say, "I never paid a dollar of rent my entire life."

'Keep investing your money. Keep letting it grow.'

Camilleri didn't fully grasp his dad's second main money lesson — "Keep investing your money, keep letting it grow" — until he earned money for the first time.

He was 19, had just finished his freshman year of college, and landed a summer gig as a sales rep. In a two-month span, he made about $7,000 selling Cutco knives.

"At the time, I thought I was rich," he said. But before he had a chance to touch it, "The first thing my father said to me was, 'Don't spend it. Put it away.' And I said, 'What do you mean? I have this money. I should be able to use it.'"

His dad responded by teaching him about what happens when you overspend, accumulate debt, and incur interest. Rather than having compound interest work against him, he could take advantage of the phenomenon by investing his money, which he's been doing ever since. Most of his invested money is in the stock market, he said: "Obviously, nothing's guaranteed in life, but when you're investing in companies like Apple and Google, and using ETFs, these are long-term plays that are pretty much always going to pan out."

Camilleri, who refuses to pay for cable and subscriptions, buys ground turkey in bulk, and price compares gas using an app called GasBuddy, hesitates before agreeing that he's "frugal." At this point, his habits are ingrained.

"This is how I live my life. I get the best deals on everything, and I never buy at the first price. I'm always trying to negotiate. I'm always looking to get the best price I possibly could," he said.

His friends and fiancé say they don't think they could live like he does. They tease him about not being human. His response is that anyone can save and invest like he does and achieve financial independence.

"I am a human. I'm no better. I don't have superpowers," he said. "I just have a different mindset."

• Jack Schrupp left teaching and coaching to grow his protein powder company, Drink Wholesome.
• The business, which began as a side project to address his own dietary needs, brought in seven figures in 2024.
• Schrupp likes that entrepreneurship offers freedom, but it can feel isolating and lonely at times.

Jack Schrupp fell into entrepreneurship more so than he sought it out.

"I had this plan to teach for a while and then become an administrator and possibly even head of a school. That was a dream of mine," the former French teacher told Business Insider.

But when his side project — making and selling protein powder for sensitive stomachs — started to take off, juggling the business with life as a boarding school teacher and coach became impossible.

"It turned me into a fried human that didn't have enough time to brush his teeth," said Schrupp, who started making his own protein powder in college when he couldn't find a product that agreed with his stomach. He blended his early concoctions on top of the mini-fridge in his dorm room and, eventually, partnered with a granola company to produce his recipe in bulk.

It turned out that other people were interested in an easy-to-digest protein powder. He sold through his first batch of inventory, which cost him $20,000, and started offering more flavors and products.

As the company grew, so did his stress levels.

"I was doing too much, and I felt like I wasn't doing anything well — or, as well as I could have — and that was discouraging," he said. "I felt like I was just spread too thin. My life was very rich and rewarding, but I wasn't sleeping enough. I was very stressed."

Schrupp, 27 at the time, had to decide between the two career paths. He chose his company, Drink Wholesome, and quit teaching at the end of the 2023 school year. Sometimes, he wonders if it was the right call.

The challenges that come with entrepreneurship that not everyone talks about

Schrupp says that life as an entrepreneur versus life as a boarding school teacher "couldn't look more different."

As a "dorm parent," he lived in the same building as students. He didn't have "a whole lot of privacy," he said, but, at the same time, being surrounded by students and other teachers was energizing. "I loved teaching. That was my life, that was my community, that's what grounded me and made sense to me."

As the owner of a small business with one employee — his sister, who works remotely from the opposite side of the country — he now spends most days by himself.

He lives and works from his home in Hanover. It's a productive setup, and he considers himself "pretty relaxed," he said. "But it's professionally lonely."

Running your own business can feel isolating, "especially if it's a hard journey, which it often is," said Schrupp. "You feel like you are doing it alone with no one to turn to for help or advice. So, I wouldn't say that entrepreneurship is like a hack or should be the ultimate goal for everyone. If you're ever considering it, you should definitely take into account the loneliness that comes along with being an entrepreneur."

It's also harder to set boundaries when you're building a company versus working for an employer.

"I have the potential to work way more. I could probably work all day, every single day," he said. "There's no end to growing a business because, it's growing, right? It's ever-evolving. And if you're someone like me who is constantly looking at it with a critical eye and looking for ways to improve it, then you'll never finish your workday."

That said, he recognizes the perks, such as the freedom that comes with being your own boss: "I will say, it would be hard for me to start working for someone else, just because I do have almost unadulterated freedom. I'm accountable to no one."

For now, at 29, Schrupp is committed to continuing to grow his brand. He feels obligated to provide a good product to his customer base.

"I am motivated now more than ever to create a robust and long-term business because Drink Wholesome really helps people. We're pretty involved in a lot of people's health and well-being," he said. "But I don't know if the current iteration of the business is a great fit for me in the long term, and that is something that I wrestle with often."

He's learned the importance of consistently evaluating his relationship to his business.

"You have to ask yourself, as an entrepreneur, what you want to get out of the business. Because if you're not happy and you're not fulfilled, the business probably isn't going to do well," said Schrupp. "Having that conversation often and then making changes as needed is a really important part of the process. There's no playbook. You can't watch a YouTube tutorial on that. It's something you have to learn."

• After years of diligent saving, Carmelo Camilleri bought his first home at age 27 in 2021.
• He credits his savings habits to his dad, who also taught him to 'always own, never rent.'
• Thanks to smart negotiation and patience, he bought the home for $25,000 below the asking price.

The first time Carmelo Camilleri made a significant amount of money, he was 19 and had just wrapped up his freshman year of college.

He landed a summer gig as a sales rep and, within two months, made about $7,000 selling Cutco knives, he told Business Insider: "At the time, I thought I was rich."

His dad quickly shot down that notion.

"The first thing my father said to me was, 'Don't spend it. Put it away,'" recalled Camilleri. "And I said, 'What do you mean? I have this money. I should be able to use it.'"

His dad responded by teaching him about what happens when you overspend, accumulate debt, and incur interest. Rather than having compound interest work against him, he could take advantage of the phenomenon by investing his money.

It resonated and, from that point on, Camilleri adopted a new savings philosophy: "I just said to myself, 'If I make a dollar, I can only spend 10 cents of it at most.'"

That early money lesson, plus one more from his dad — "he taught me, 'always own, never rent,'" — led to Camilleri becoming a homeowner at age 27 when he purchased a five-bedroom in Brick, New Jersey in 2021. BI verified his ownership by looking at a copy of his mortgage statement.

"I was always going to buy a home. It was just a matter of when — not if," he said.

Saving up for a down payment: Living at home, using price comparison apps, and refusing to pay for subscriptions

Camilleri financed his home purchase with a 20% down payment, drawing from savings he'd accumulated throughout his early 20s.

He maintained the disciplined savings habits he established in college even as his income grew in his full-time sales role — and he avoided paying for housing for years. He lived with his parents in his childhood home until he bought his own place, meaning "I never paid a dollar of rent my entire life," he said.

Camilleri refuses to pay for subscriptions, which he considers "the biggest scam out there." He does have access to YouTube TV — his cousin gave him his login — and, "I jailbroke my FireStick," he said. "There's always a way to watch things for free."

He also refuses to pay top dollar for gas and groceries.

"If it's not the cheapest gas in the area, I'm not getting gas," said Camilleri, who uses the GasBuddy app.

As for groceries, ShopRite tends to be the cheapest option in his area, but if they raise the prices on one of his staples, like ground turkey, he'll shop around.

"If I see it went up 50 cents a pound, I'll take out my phone, and I'll start looking at other stores," he said. "I'll look at Stop & Shop, and if I see that it's 50 cents less or even 25 cents less per pound, I'm getting into my car, and I'm driving five minutes away. It's worth it in my head, especially because I like to buy in bulk."

At this point, his frugal habits are ingrained.

"This is how I live my life. I get the best deals on everything, and I never buy at the first price. I'm always trying to negotiate. I'm always looking to get the best price I possibly could," said Camilleri. That said, there's a time and a place to splurge, he added, pointing to his upcoming wedding. "I'm not being frugal when it comes to the wedding, but that's also because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Paying $25,000 under asking thanks to patience and smart negotiation

When Camilleri started seriously considering buying a home in 2020, interest rates were low, but the market was hot.

"At least in New Jersey, so many of the houses I looked at were going for $100,000 over asking price, $50,000 over asking price," he said. He wasn't willing to overpay, and living at home allowed him to be patient. "It's not like I had to move out."

Camilleri's patience paid off after a year of house hunting. He not only avoided a bidding war — he landed on a price that was $25,000 lower than what the seller was originally asking. He paid $670,000 for the 2,300-square-foot home.

It was part skill and part luck.

"I'm literally negotiating over the phone and making sales all day long. It's what I do for a living. I understand how negotiations work," he said. "I knew they weren't going to accept my first offer, but I started about $50,000 under asking, then they came back with a little bit higher than I wound up paying, and then we found some middle ground."

He added that lowballing wouldn't work in every situation: "It really depends on the demand for that home. If there were 10 people bidding on the home, I'm sure it wouldn't have worked out in my favor. In this instance, I do actually feel like I might have gotten lucky because it is a beautiful home."

He locked in a 2.875% interest rate, which still seems surprising to him: "You don't get that in New Jersey."

Even though his rate was "a steal," he said, "if I had no other choice and I had to pay 7%, I would still do that every single time over renting."

The way he sees it, it's much more costly to rent than to own.

"When you're renting, you're literally building someone else's asset. You're paying 100% interest is the way I like to describe it — because you're literally getting nothing back: You put a dollar in, that dollar is gone forever," said Camilleri. "Even if the interest rate is high, it's still something you own. It's still something that will build in value over time and that you have control over."

• Dexter Zhuang achieved Coast FIRE by increasing income and reducing expenses.
• Moving to countries with a lower cost of living increased his savings rate.
• He believes that anyone can use a form of 'geo-arbitrage' to keep more of their income.

Dexter Zhuang achieved what's known as "Coast FIRE" — an offshoot of the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement that means he no longer has to add to his retirement savings — with a simple, two-pronged approach: increasing income and reducing expenses.

He negotiated raises throughout his tech career and experimented with a variety of side hustles.

As for the reducing expenses component, "geo-arbitrage" helped. This strategy, which became increasingly popular during the pandemic when remote work allowed employees to essentially work from anywhere, involves earning an income from a higher-payer country while living in a lower-cost country.

Zhuang, 33, started his career in San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the US, where he worked as a product manager for Dropbox and growth-stage startups. He quit in 2019 to travel the world and experiment with the digital nomad lifestyle. It was his first taste of geo-arbitrage — he was doing remote consulting, charging the hourly rate he earned from his employer in the States while living in less expensive places throughout Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

In 2020, he moved to Singapore to work at a regional fintech startup. He explained that, while he was earning a lower salary in Singapore than he would have earned for a comparable role in the States, he ended up being net positive due to a lower cost of living and lower taxes.

In San Francisco in 2018, "my average expenses were about $6,422 per month," he told Business Insider. "Fast-forward to Singapore in 2022, my total monthly expenses were $4,945, on average, in terms of the USD."

These numbers don't take into account inflation, he noted: "If you adjusted for inflation, the San Francisco expenses would be even higher." As for taxes, "that was also lower for me in Singapore than in San Francisco, in terms of my effective tax rate."

Even though he was earning a smaller base salary, the cost-of-living difference allowed him to save and invest more of his total income and, ultimately, hit his Coast FIRE number sooner than he would have if he were still living in the Bay Area. Zhuang prefers not to share his exact net worth, but BI confirmed that he has accumulated six figures by looking at screenshots of his savings and investment accounts.

As of 2025, his cost of living is even lower. He and his wife moved to Mexico City in 2024, and their average monthly expenses are about $3,500, he said. His income is also less — he left the Singapore startup in 2023 after growing his side hustles to the point where they were bringing in full-time income — but has more flexibility and feels less pressure to earn a certain amount now that he can coast into retirement with his current portfolio.

How anyone can use geo-arbitrage to fast-track their financial goals

There are a variety of geo-arbitrage strategies anyone with flexible work can use to save more, said Zhuang.

He relocated from a higher-cost-of-living country to a lower-cost-of-living country but pointed out that it's possible to relocate domestically — either to a less expensive city or even a more affordable neighborhood within your same city.

"It's good for most people, especially families with kids, who would find a global move to be disruptive," Zhuang wrote in his newsletter Money Abroad.

Another option is working remotely for a global employer that offers competitive salaries regardless of an employee's location.

"As a hiring manager in the Asia tech industry, I saw wildly different salary ranges for people who were hired in Singapore (mature market) vs places like Indonesia (emerging market)," he wrote, adding: "To plug the gap, I've seen high-performing tech workers successfully petition their global companies to benchmark their salary based on the more competitive market (e.g. instead of benchmarking to Malaysia, use Singapore)."

Keep in mind that "the global tech talent market is still inefficient. If you're a top performer in an emerging market, look for companies that do benchmark their salaries globally."

• I've spent hours talking to college students about personal finance.
• Many of them don't fully understand how compounding works and, importantly, how to benefit from it.
• More high schools in the US are requiring students to take a personal finance class, but we need to keep talking about it.

Every January, Middlebury College invites me to its campus to talk to a group of students about money.

The guest lecture ranges between 90 and 120 minutes in length and is titled "Good Financial Hygiene — Lessons in Personal Finance."

I'm not a financial advisor, nor do I pretend to be, but in my decadelong career reporting on money and asking wealthy people, "What do you wish you'd known about money in your 20s?" I've learned some key lessons.

Most of these lessons — pay yourself first, automate your savings and investments, etc — are surprisingly simple and don't require a finance degree, or even a degree at all, to understand and use to your advantage. Had I understood them earlier and started building smart money habits in my late teens and early 20s, I'd be in a stronger financial position now at 32.

I try to convey that to the students: Time is on your side. Don't wait. Start now!

A two-part lecture: The reason we save is to invest

The crux of the lecture is that putting your money to work is a powerful way to grow your wealth over time.

But before we pull out the compound interest calculator and discuss investment strategies, we start with two prompts: How do you feel about money? How do you want to feel about money?

I ask them to pull out their notebooks and do two to three minutes of independent thinking.

The answers to the first prompt represent their starting point. Everyone has a different starting point — we all come from different financial backgrounds — but where they start from really isn't all that important. What matters is that they have some level of control over their trajectory, and they get from what they wrote down for prompt No. 1 to what they wrote down for prompt No. 2.

Next, we get into two components of personal finance that can impact trajectory: Saving — how to keep a portion of your income — and investing, which is the key to building wealth.

I acknowledge the importance of paying yourself first. When they ask how much, I point to the 50/30/20 rule of thumb, which suggests putting 50% of your income toward needs, 30% toward wants, and 20% toward savings. I emphasize that starting with a small savings rate of even just 1% is better than nothing.

Most students are familiar with the concept of budgeting, even if they don't actively budget. I challenge them to think about budgeting not as restrictive, as it's often portrayed, but as liberating. If they successfully divvy up their paycheck according to the 50/30/20 rule, for example, they have 30% of their income to spend on whatever fills their cup.

Part two is all about growing your savings by putting it to work, taking advantage of compound interest, and understanding that time is on your side as a young investor. Every year, without fail, this is the moment when the energy in the room shifts. Ears perk. Hands shoot up.

This is when I'm reminded that young people are fascinated by the concept of investing — and data shows this generation is curious enough to take action: Gen Z started investing at a much earlier age on average, 19, than baby boomers (35) and millennials (25), according to the 2024 Schwab Modern Wealth survey.

Still, a handful of my students don't fully understand how compounding works or how it relates to an investment account. They're smart kids, but chances are that they didn't engage with this material in high school: In 2022, just 23% of high school students in the US were required to take a personal finance class, up from 16% in 2018, according to research from Next Gen Personal Finance. That percentage has continued to increase: As of 2024, more than two-thirds of all states require personal finance classes for high school graduation.

We analyze compound interest charts that show just how much of an edge they have simply by starting young, including this one from the St. Louis Fed comparing an investor who starts at 25 and another who starts at 35. The one who starts early ends up with a significantly bigger portfolio, even though they invest for 20 fewer years than the investor who started at 35.

We also plug numbers into a compound interest calculator and figure out how much money they'd have to save a month to become millionaires by 50. It's often less than they think.

The tricky lesson to convey is how to actually take advantage of compounding: How to start investing.

This is where there seems to be a significant lack of understanding. The common misconceptions I've picked up on are:

• Investing is for rich people
• Investing is for people who know a lot about finance and economics
• Investing means buying individual stocks
• Investing is risky

As we discuss passive investing strategies and how anyone can invest in funds that track the S&P 500 with a small amount of money, I can sense the eagerness and excitement as the students start to understand that they can actually participate — that investing isn't just for rich people — and that they can contribute starting today.

I'm reminded every year I step into the classroom that there's an appetite for financial literacy. We just need to keep talking about it.

• Jack Schrupp always had a hard time digesting protein powder, so he decided to make his own.
• After years of refining his recipe, he launched Drink Wholesome as a side hustle in 2020.
• After overcoming several business challenges, he quit his teaching job to run the company full-time.

When former collegiate athlete Jack Schrupp couldn't find a protein powder that suited his stomach, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

He bought a spice grinder and a small blender, loaded up on ingredients such as oats and eggs at the co-op market a mile from campus, and became a bit of a "mad scientist" in his dorm room. "I would make a powdery mess and, oftentimes, it was on top of a mini fridge — like in a bedroom, not even in the kitchen," the 29-year-old Williams College alum told Business Insider.

The taste "left a lot to be desired," recalled Schrupp, "but it didn't upset my stomach, and that's what mattered most to me."

He graduated in 2018, took a teaching position at a boarding school in New England, and moved onto a different campus, his protein powder equipment and ingredients in tow.

"I lived in the dorm and I didn't have a whole lot of privacy — as in, my life spilled over into the lives of my students and vice versa, so they knew what I was up to, and they were very interested. At some point in time, we had a little tasting, if you will," he said. "And that was honestly very helpful feedback because they are brutally honest."

Schrupp continued tinkering with his recipe, testing variations with honey, date sugar, and maple sugar.

Partnering with a local bakery and spending $20,000 on his first round of inventory

Schrupp figured that other people with sensitive stomachs might be interested in his product. After years of experimentation and recipe refinement, he decided to test his hunch and launch a protein powder company called Drink Wholesome in early 2020.

The first thing he did was cold call manufacturers and ask if they could make his product in bulk. He connected with a small, local granola company that did contract manufacturing for other local businesses, and they agreed to make his first batch in two flavors: mocha and peanut butter coconut.

"In hindsight, those are ridiculous flavors to launch with because, today, 80% of my sales are for vanilla and chocolate," said Schrupp. "But mocha and peanut butter were my favorite flavors. That's just what I liked the best and so that's what I started with."

His startup costs amounted to about $20,000, which he pulled from his savings.

"I didn't make very much money teaching, so it was a very significant investment for me," said Schrupp, who had a loose sales plan of pitching his product to local grocery stores and setting up booths at local sporting events.

Selling online was never on his radar, nor did he want it to be — until the Covid-19 pandemic forced his hand.

Overcoming the 2020 pandemic 'curveball' and the 2021 bird flu outbreak

Schrupp received his first round of inventory in February 2020, weeks before the COVID-19 outbreak shut much of the world — and his sales strategy — down.

"The pandemic really threw a curveball my way," he said. Two months into lockdown, "I really had not sold many bags at all, and I was genuinely convinced that I was just going to have to throw it all out and move on with my life."

What initially appeared to be a setback turned into an advantage: His inability to meet with customers in person forced him to turn to online sales. He started selling on WooCommerce and Amazon, and while his initial customers were all friends and family, strangers eventually started finding his product. As of 2025, 99% of his sales come from those two platforms.

As a small-business owner who's never sought capital from investors, he's grown to appreciate e-commerce, even though it's not his ideal way of finding and interacting with customers.

"It allows you to reach an incredibly large number of people with a small, finite amount of resources," said Schrupp. "E-commerce is incredible. What I will say, though, is it's not very rewarding. It's faceless."

His faceless customers kept returning, though, eventually wiping out his initial inventory. He ordered a second round — this time he made vanilla and chocolate flavors — in the summer of 2020. The next year, another unexpected event nearly put him out of business.

"In 2021, there was a massive, unprecedented bird flu outbreak that, almost overnight, drove the price of egg products up in some cases 500%," said Schrupp. "Because I was only selling egg white-based protein powders, my profitable business essentially became unprofitable overnight."

It forced another pivot: He launched a vegan, chickpea-based protein powder that he no longer makes, but it introduced the idea of diversifying his product line. He now makes an almond-based vegan powder and a collagen-based powder.

"Through the challenges, we've adapted, we've iterated, and ultimately come out better, more resilient, more flexible," said Schrupp.

Leaving education to run Drink Wholesome full-time

Schrupp never imagined his life as a full-time entrepreneur running his own business.

"I had this plan to teach for a while and then become an administrator and possibly even head of a school. That was a dream of mine," he said.

After three and a half years of juggling teaching and coaching with a growing business that was starting to feel more like a full-time job than a side hustle, Schrupp had to decide between the two career paths.

"I was doing too much, and I felt like I wasn't doing anything well — or, as well as I could have — and that was discouraging," he said. "I felt like I was just spread too thin. My life was very rich and rewarding, but I wasn't sleeping enough. I was very stressed."

In 2023, at the end of the school year, he quit to run Drink Wholesome full-time.

The decision wasn't challenging from a personal finance standpoint.

"I'd spent five years teaching at boarding schools with free housing. I didn't earn a lot of money, but because I didn't have to pay for housing, which is a huge cost, and I lived pretty modestly, I'd saved money and did certainly have a safety net," he said.

Plus, he could always go back to teaching if he needed to.

Based on the trajectory of his company, which did seven figures in online sales in 2024 according to screenshots of his sales dashboards viewed by BI, he won't need to return to a teaching career anytime soon — but he might want to.

"Running your own business is isolating and, especially if it's a hard journey, which it often is, you feel like you are doing it alone with no one to turn to for help or advice," said Schrupp, who works remotely from his home in Hanover and has one employee: his sister, who is based on the West Coast. "So I wouldn't say that entrepreneurship is like a hack or should be the ultimate goal for everyone. You should definitely, if you're ever considering it, take into account the loneliness that comes along with being an entrepreneur."

There are perks, of course — he says he's earning more money as a business owner and remote work allows him to travel much more than his teaching career did — but he's figuring out if the money and flexibility are worth it.

"It's not so much that I'm lonely, but I'm professionally lonely. That's certainly the case, and I'm OK with it for now," said Schrupp. "But I don't know if I would want to do this for the rest of my life."

• Dexter Zhuang left the 9-to-5 world to pursue a portfolio career with multiple income streams.
• The most effective way he's found to make money is through a service-based gig, such as coaching.
• He recommends niching down and leaning into your network to succeed with coaching or consulting.

Dexter Zhuang spent a decade in the corporate world, working at large firms like Dropbox and smaller startups, before calling it quits to work for himself in 2023.

At that point, he'd experimented with side hustles for years. His first attempt at making money on the side was an e-commerce business selling sampler tea boxes. He was living in San Francisco at the time and working at Dropbox as a product manager.

"I learned a lot about, OK, what is it actually like to build something on the side?" Zhuang, 33, told Business Insider. "I also learned that e-commerce wasn't something that I was particularly interested in doing a lot of afterward. I would say it didn't work out, but it was a good lesson learned for future side hustles."

He quit Dropbox in 2018 to take a yearlong travel sabbatical.

"For much of my life up until that point, I felt like I had been a chronic high achiever of sorts. I had grinded hard in my career to pursue what I thought was my definition of success at the time: to become a high-paying tech executive or the founder of a unicorn startup," Zhuang said.

When Dropbox went public in 2018, "I felt like I had 'made it' to some extent. I felt like I had checked off a milestone that was important to me, but I felt burned out, and I struggled to decide what I actually wanted to do next."

He decided to tap into some of his savings and live out a dream that he'd tucked aside: traveling the world.

Zhuang didn't necessarily need to bring in any income while traveling — he'd budgeted enough to last a year — but he had the time and missed working, which led to his next side hustle: remote career coaching. Unlike e-commerce, coaching clicked for Zhuang and, "really opened up my eyes to what's possible with a service kind of side hustle."

Transitioning to a 'portfolio career'

Zhunag's travel sabbatical took him to 20 countries in Southeast Asia, East Asia, Europe, and Latin America. On one of his trips, he met his wife.

The couple moved to Singapore in 2020, and Zhuang jumped back into the workforce. He worked for a fintech startup through 2023, at which point he hit Coast FIRE and quit to pursue what he calls a "portfolio career."

A portfolio career involves multiple income streams. In its simplest form, it's a full-time job plus a side hustle, which Zhuang has technically been doing for years; for him currently, it means working on various side projects rather than having a full-time role with one employer.

His revenue streams include three main categories: services such as consulting and advising, a cohort-based course that derived from his newsletter Money Abroad, and affiliates for various financial software and services.

Among his income streams, "the most lucrative is the consulting and advising — the services piece — for sure," he said.

How to make money with a service-based side hustle

Zhuang has followed three principles to scale his coaching and consulting business.

1. Start broad and niche down. "Niching down" is fairly common advice in the business space, noted Zhuang; what often gets glossed over is how to niche down, which starts with fully understanding your market.

"You need to know exactly what all the niches are," he said. "In my experience consulting and coaching, I didn't know exactly about the market initially so I started out broad to test different hypotheses and learn about the market before narrowing my focus."

His broad market was Series A and B startups. After testing various industries within that space, over time, he found his niche: "I discovered that, generally, the type of companies that tend to reach out to me are fintech startups — those are ones where I add a lot of value."

2. Lean into your network to land your first client. Zhuang said that his first three clients came from his network: "Client one was a referral from a VC friend of mine, client two was a referral from a colleague at work, client number three was someone in my direct network."

His fourth was his first inbound client — a founder who contacted him through his website.

"It's definitely not just me that experiences this. I've interviewed over 20 other side hustlers, and what I discovered is that roughly 50% of them get their first client from referrals or their immediate network as well," he said.

He noted that his data is "not statistically significant or anything," but the point stands: "Tap your referrals or your network for that first client."

3. Win 'the game of one.' When Zhuang first meets with clients looking to grow their side business, oftentimes he finds that they want to sell multiple products or services. He always advises them to "win the game of one offer first."

It makes it easier to validate, he explained: "If you launch four offers and then it doesn't work, you may not have a clear idea of what's working and what's not. Whereas, if you just launch with one offer, then the validation is a lot easier because there's only one offer to accept or decline."

Start with what you think is your strongest product, test it on your first client, and then iterate, he said: "Then, test that same offer with the second client, iterate it, then test it again with a third client, and iterate. The point is really on focusing, and resisting the temptation to add unnecessary complexity when you don't have to."

• Dexter Zhuang achieved Coast FIRE, meaning he doesn't have to continue saving for retirement.
• He determined his 'number' using an online calculator that considers things like age and spending.
• Zhuang used conservative estimates for future expenses and is planning for potential family costs.

Dexter Zhuang doesn't have his eyes set on early retirement. But he likes the peace of mind and career flexibility that comes with financial independence.

That's why "Cosat FIRE," an offshoot of the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement, appealed to him.

Achieving Coast FIRE means you don't have to continue contributing to your retirement accounts — the current amount will grow and compound enough over time to support your retirement goals, allowing you to "coast" into your golden years.

"Coast FIRE is a place where I get more flexibility, but it doesn't mean that I can stop working because I still need to cover my expenses on a day-to-day basis," Zhuang, who quit the corporate world and ultimately took a pay cut to work for himself, told Business Insider. "For me, that's fine. It's motivating, and I can still work on something that I enjoy to pay for those expenses. Anything that's extra, I can continue to invest into retirement or for saving for a family or whatever other saving goals I have."

Calculating his Coast FIRE number

Zhuang determined his Coast FIRE number using an online calculator from WalletBurst. The calculator considers your current age, retirement age, annual spending in retirement, and other factors.

When he first used the calculator in 2023, he was 31 and assumed he'd work well into his 60s.

"I don't see myself as someone who wants to retire early and stop working. The retirement age that I put into the Coast FIRE calculator is 67," said Zhuang, who does freelance consulting for startup CEOs and runs a newsletter called Money Abroad.

As for retirement expenses, he assumed he'd spend $60,000 a year — or, $5,000 a month.

"I used our annual spend while we were living in Singapore as the basis," said Zhuang, who moved to Southeast Asia in 2020 after starting his career in the Bay Area. He doesn't consider Singapore an inexpensive city, though it was cheaper than San Francisco, where his average monthly expenses came out to about $6,500.

"When I moved from San Francisco to Singapore, I ended up with a higher take-home pay due to that lower cost of living," he said, noting that taxes were also "lower for me in Singapore than in San Francisco, in terms of my effective tax rate."

Zhuang says that his average spending has decreased to about $3,500 since moving to Mexico City with his wife in 2024. Still, he prefers to be conservative with his Coast FIRE calculations and is assuming he'll spend $5,000 a month in retirement.

The calculator asks for an annualized investment growth rate. Zhuang, who has 65% of his portfolio invested in stock funds like VTSAX and VOO, assumed 7%. It also asks for an inflation rate — Zhuang used 3% — and a safe withdrawal rate, which he set at 4%.

The last two inputs are your current invested assets and monthly contribution.

Zhuang prefers not to share his exact net worth but said that he earned an average income of $133,000 between 2013 and 2022 and was saving roughly 35% of his income. BI confirmed that he hit his six-figure Coast FIRE number by looking at screenshots of his savings and investment accounts.

Here's an example of what someone in their early 30s expecting to work into their mid-60s may need to save to hit Coast FIRE, using the WalletBurst calculator:

Planning for a more expensive future

Zhuang recognizes that his expenses may change in the future, especially if he and his wife start a family.

"I had achieved the number based on my current spending," he said. "We would like to have a family so, of course, those numbers may change. This is really a number that applies to my current situation versus the family situation. But it does give me more flexibility now."

He's actively saving for kids and other future costs. He keeps about 15% of his portfolio in cash — he prefers high-yield savings accounts and four-week US treasury bills — and those savings do not count as retirement money. He also has a small percentage of his portfolio invested in startups, which he also excludes from his retirement calculation.

"I think about it as safely Coast FIRE-ing," he said.

While he plans to continue growing his newsletter and freelance consulting business, that could also change and lead him to pursue early retirement.

"Maybe I'll hate work at some point," he said. "But for now, I see myself as enjoying it."

• Dexter Zhuang hit Coast FIRE, meaning he doesn't have to contribute any more money to his nest egg.
• He still has to earn income to cover his daily living expenses and expects to work into his 60s.
• Coast FIRE, which he hit with a simple strategy, has provided peace of mind and career flexibility.

Dexter Zhuang has achieved what's known as "Coast FIRE," an offshoot of the Financial Independence, Retire Early movement.

It's defined as having enough in your retirement accounts that you don't have to contribute any more money — the current amount will grow and compound enough over time, allowing you to "coast" into retirement.

Zhuang calculated his Coast FIRE number using an online calculator that allows you to input assumptions such as your current age, expected retirement age, annual spending in retirement, and invested assets. BI verified that he hit his six-figure number, which he prefers not to share, by looking at investment account screenshots and statements.

He still has to earn enough to cover his day-to-day expenses, but he doesn't mind working — and expects to do so well into his 60s.

"I don't see myself as someone who wants to retire early and stop working. The retirement age that I put into the Coast FIRE calculator is 67," said Zhuang, whose career has included a high-paying Silicon Valley job and working at growth-stage startups. He said his average cash compensation, including base salary and bonuses, was $133,000 between 2013 and 2022.

In 2023, he walked away from his 9-to-5 career to grow his newsletter, Money Abroad, and do freelance consulting for startup CEOs.

For Zhuang, the appeal of Coast FIRE was the peace of mind and career flexibility that it provided. Knowing he didn't have to worry about retirement allowed him to "pursue a different type of work, career path, and to experiment with something different," he said.

The 33-year-old has lived in San Francisco and Singapore throughout his career and currently resides in Mexico City with his wife. He shared the investment strategy that's allowing him to coast into retirement.

Investing early and diversifying over time

Zhuang started putting his money to work in his early 20s after landing his first full-time job as a product manager. He kept things simple, he said: "When I started investing after college, I was mainly buying boring index funds through my 401(k) retirement account and my taxable brokerage account."

Over time, he diversified his portfolio and, as of January 2025, has his money spread across various asset classes.

His portfolio is, roughly, "15% cash, 65% public equities, 15% real estate and REITs, and 5% more high-risk assets," he said. "My current strategy isn't anything fancy. It's long-term orientation, so investing based on a 10 plus year time horizon. I consider myself moderately aggressive on the risk spectrum."

Cash

Zhuang keeps about 15% of his money in four-week Treasury bills or a high-yield savings account. This is emergency fund money and also, "a fund that my wife and I have saved for starting a family in the future," he said.

Stocks

Public equities make up the majority, 65%, of Zhuang's portfolio.

"My distribution is around 75% US stocks and 25% non-US stocks," he said. "On the US stock side, my portfolio's gotten a bit messier over the years, so it includes a number of different US stock indexes, like VTSAX, which is the total stock market index. I also have some VOO, which is the S&P 500, and VXF, which is the mid- and small-cap. So, what I try to do is diversify a mix of the large-cap, mid-cap, and small-cap within US. Within non-US, I have funds like VTIAX, which is the international stock index, and the VXUS, which is similar; it's all the non-US international markets."

He prefers index fund investing over stock picking for a few reasons.

One, he'll probably get better returns than he would if he attempted to pick individual stocks, he said: "I don't think I'm going to succeed where professional, active investors have failed in terms of stock picking."

Two, he prefers the passive, hands-off approach that index fund investing allows.

Even if he could beat the market picking stocks, "I wouldn't want to spend the time really diving into individual stocks," he said. "I see money as a tool so that I don't have to spend a whole lot of time in the spreadsheet. I value the balance of building wealth for the future versus enjoying my current lifestyle."

Real estate

Zhuang doesn't want to own and operate properties but recognizes the benefit of having real estate make up a portion of his portfolio.

He owns REITs — real estate investment trusts — which are companies that own real estate. Like stock, investors can purchase shares in REITs.

"My preference is to not have to own the actual, physical property, so I don't have to manage it," Zhuang said. "That's why I prefer to go with the REITs approach, for diversification purposes."

High-risk investments

A small percentage of his portfolio is invested in startups and crypto. Zhuang calls this his "fun money bucket," and keeps it at about 5% of his portfolio.

"In 2021, during the crypto boom, I did allocate a bit more toward crypto," he said. "But since then I've reduced my holdings to this small portion of my portfolio because I realized this is an incredibly volatile asset and, ultimately, I was just speculating."

• Kent He increased rent by $550 a month by adding a bedroom to his affordable housing unit.
• His 'recession-proof' investment strategy involves operating Airbnbs and affordable housing units.
• Benefits to investing in affordable housing include predictable, reliable income.

When Kent He's Section 8 tenant moved out of his single-family home in Fairfield, Alabama in 2024, the investor saw an opportunity to improve his property.

He decided to add a room and convert the three-bedroom into a four-bedroom — and spent about $41,000 doing so, he said.

The investment has already started to pay off.

He told Business Insider that the three-bedroom was bringing in $700 a month in rent. Thanks mainly to the additional bedroom, the Birmingham Housing Authority determined that the property can now be rented for $1,257. BI confirmed these details by viewing the certification He received from the housing authority.

That's about a $550 increase in monthly rent — or, an extra $6,600 a year.

Just because his cash flow increases doesn't mean his tenant's payment does, he noted: "For housing choice vouchers, a tenant is responsible for paying 30-40% of their income toward the rent. If they lose their job or rents continue to go up, their portion on a percentage basis stays the same; the government will come in and fill the rest."

The full-time investor, who lives in San Diego and owns two Airbnb units in Scottsdale, said that he often thinks through, "What are your value-add strategies? How can you provide a good experience to your tenant while also generating some additional cash flow by being creative with the square footage?"

He's learned that "the housing choice vouchers typically pay based on the bedroom count. And, two bathrooms — houses with two toilets — rent out easier than homes with one toilet. We knew we had a good property and thought, let's take advantage of the space that we have and create a better product."

Owning an affordable housing unit is part of his greater "recession-proof" investment strategy.

A 'recession-proof strategy': Short-term rentals for cash flow + affordable housing units for stability

After graduating from Bentley University in 2011, He worked as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers for nearly four years. He left PwC to help a family member turn their restaurant business around and re-entered corporate America in 2017 when he got a job at a major insurance company.

Eager to exit the corporate world, he decided to try real-estate investing on the side. Specifically, he wanted to set up short-term vacation rentals, which, according to his research, seemed to be higher-risk but the most lucrative real-estate strategy.

He was right: After purchasing two properties in Scottsdale in 2021 and 2022 and turning them into bachelorette-themed Airbnbs, he started earning enough from his short-term rental units to cover his family's expenses and quit his day job.

Despite his success on Airbnb — in 2023, his two units brought in more than $240,000 — he didn't want to rely on the short-term rental strategy, which has proven to be volatile. Early in the pandemic, when travel was halted and some state and local governments banned short-term rentals to stop the spread of COVID-19, Airbnb hosts saw their calendars wiped clean.

"For peace of mind, I want to know that there's always other cash flow coming in from another asset class," said He.

That's where the second part of his strategy comes into play: buying affordable housing units.

"It's a great diversification approach," said He. "You have short-term rentals with a higher risk and more active approach to managing. And then you have the long-term rental which might be a little bit passive, lower cash flow, but much more predictable and stable income coming from the government that's paying your rent every single month."

The benefits of providing affordable housing: Diversification, predictable income

There are a handful of misconceptions about affordable housing, said He, who has built a YouTube channel dedicated to the topic: "A lot of folks, when they think about affordable housing they associate it with the projects, with guns, drugs, and drama; when, in reality, it's really hardworking folks, like my parents, who just needed a stable roof over their heads."

His parents immigrated to the US from China "with about $1,000," he said, and raised him in an affordable housing unit.

In addition to providing families in need with a nice roof over their heads, buying affordable housing has unique benefits for the investor.

As a Section 8 landlord, you can collect rent reliably, said He: "Even if the Section 8 tenant loses their job, the government will come in and pay the rest of the rent. That is what I'm calling a recession-proof investment because the government will always pay their rent on time for your voucher holders."

Plus, "there's some kind of accountability on the tenant side because the tenant doesn't want to lose their voucher," said He, who explained that in some counties the waitlist for a housing choice voucher can be 12 to 15 years. "There are going to be exceptions — there are still going to be bad apples here and there — but for the most part, folks that desperately need housing for their families value the vouchers very much so, because it's essentially hitting a jackpot."

Another aspect of the program is a housing inspection every one to two years, he said: "The local housing authority will come and inspect the home just to make sure it's in good condition."

With a traditional rental, if you have a long-term tenant, "you might wait five, 10 years and you never know what's happening inside your home. It's a great accountability mechanism to make sure you are providing a great living experience for the tenant. But as a landlord, you're also understanding what's happening inside your home, so that if anything needs to be fixed, you're taking care of it right away instead of deferring that maintenance and potentially causing more issues for you down the road."

• Destanee Aiava wore vintage tennis outfits she found on eBay at the 2025 Australian Open.
• She sported replicas of dresses worn by past champions, including Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic.
• Aiava made it through three rounds of qualifying to earn a spot in the main draw.

If you've been following Week 1 of the 2025 Australian Open, you've probably noticed a lot of the same outfits.

Adidas has its players kitted out in bold red for the first major of the year, known as "The Happy Slam." Many of Nike's athletes, including Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz, are wearing green and yellow.

It's not uncommon for tennis players to wear the same kit throughout the entirety of a tournament due to their endorsement contracts.

But for qualifier Destanee Aiava, who doesn't have a clothing sponsor, her on-court styles were completely up to her — and she chose to pay homage to past champions Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki, and Ana Ivanovic by wearing their iconic looks from the late 2000s and early 2010s.

She couldn't get the gear through Nike or Adidas, though. Aiava bought the dresses secondhand online.

"I've found them on eBay — for double the price that they were originally for," she told tennis reporter Ben Rothenberg. "But yeah, I just like looking on Depop, Facebook Marketplace, eBay to find the old, vintage outfits that I loved when I was little."

Ranked just inside the top 200, the 24-year-old Australian-Samoan had to battle through three rounds of qualifying rounds to earn a slot in the main draw.

For her first match in qualies, she wore a light pink Nike dress that Sharapova sported at the 2012 US Open.

For round two, Aiava got her hands on a pink and purple number worn by Ana Ivanovic at the 2010 US Open.

She wore a different pink Ivanovic dress for her third-round match, which propelled her into the main draw of the AO.

Heading into the first round of the main draw match, BBC asked Aiava about her outfit choice. She said she'd found one of Facebook: "I might go pick that up. It's only $35, which is a steal."

BBC didn't confirm whether she purchased it. Aiava walked on court in a sky blue Adidas dress previously worn by Caroline Wozniacki at the 2013 US Open, and earned her very first Grand Slam main-draw win. Advancing to the round of 64 earned her $200,000 AUD ($124,280 USD).

"It means that I can bring someone to travel with this year, and I can afford to actually go to all the tournaments that I want to," Aiava said after the comeback victory. "I struggle traveling on my own. The fact that I get to bring my fiancé with me and hopefully one of my family members to the big ones, it makes a world of a difference."

In what would be her last match at the 2025 Australian Open, Aiava wore another Sharapova number while battling American Danielle Collins, who eventually prevailed in three sets.

"It was actually from one of the girls that I used to play tennis with when I was little," Aiava told 9News of the fit. "She reached out and offered to lend me a dress and I actually ran out of options as well, so I'm so lucky."

Aiava told BBC that she's "hoping to get a sponsor." But in the meantime, "I'm loving picking whatever I want to wear and buying whatever I want."

She told 9News that if she continues the tradition, she'd like to eventually bring back a Serena Williams piece. However, it was out of her budget for this event: "They are quite hard to find and quite expensive."

• Dana Bull plans to optimize her real estate portfolio in 2025 rather than acquiring more properties.
• She aims to increase revenue by focusing on insurance, taxes, and renovation costs.
• With insurance costs on the rise, any investor can benefit from shopping around.

Dana Bull isn't looking to acquire any more properties in 2025.

The experienced investor built wealth by buying primarily multi-family properties in Massachusetts. She's also a real-estate agent and consultant, and a mother of four. Between her various work projects and renovating her primary residence, she says she has plenty to keep her busy in 2025.

While she's not expanding her doors, she still expects to grow her revenue in the new year.

Any investor can benefit from optimizing what they already own, said Bull: "If you're not going to buy right now — for personal reasons or you just don't like the interest rates or whatever is going on — this could be a good year to just focus on your business, your expenses, and tighten up what you already have."

Specifically, she's looking to optimize in three categories, which could improve her returns significantly.

1. Insurance

Like many investors and homeowners, Bull has seen her insurance rates rise over the past couple of years.

The general trend is that "insurance is harder to get and it's more expensive," she said. "That cost for me has just jumped. It's a big line item. I have had the same provider for the past 10 years, and I need to just go out there and procure quotes and make sure that I'm not getting overcharged for what's being covered."

It can be time-consuming to keep track of each policy and its changes, especially if you own a lot of properties.

"I feel like it's the wild, wild west," said Bull of navigating the insurance world. "Many times, a program that we have a property covered by will just be dropped, or they'll no longer cover that property for reason X, Y, or Z, so it's like this revolving door of making sure that the properties all have coverage — and the right coverage."

She says she's been more "passive" about optimizing insurance in the past, but now that prices are soaring, she plans to shop around and do her due diligence in 2025.

2. Taxes

In addition to insurance, her property taxes have gone up.

"The tax rate has not gone up, but the value of the properties has gone up so significantly that you're just paying thousands more a year for taxes," explained Bull. One of her properties, for example, will cost an extra $2,000 a year. "If I multiply that across my whole portfolio, that's a lot of money."

If you think your property is overvalued, you can appeal your property assessment.

"I think I have a few properties that are overvalued," said Bull. "Some aren't, so obviously there's nothing to do there. But if I can make a case and bring in comps and show them this is an overvaluation and now I'm being taxed higher than I probably should, I have found in the past that if you're just a squeaky wheel, they'll work with you."

3. Renovation costs

Bull has seen the availability and cost of hiring contractors vary dramatically over her investing career.

"When I first started in real estate, which was at the tail end of the recession, contractors were out of work, and they needed work, so the pricing was way different 10 years ago than it is today," she said. "And then during the pandemic, everybody was renovating their home and contractors had such a surplus of work that they could basically charge whatever they wanted, and you were going to pay it because you were desperate."

Heading into 2025, "the tides are kind of turning," she said, in that contractors won't be able to pick their price.

It's worth it to shop around, said Bull, adding that you may be surprised by the varying prices you receive. For example, she had to replace three roofs for one of her multi-family properties: "One quote came in at $30,000, another came in at $21,000, and then another came in at $12,000. And I'm reviewing the quotes and pretty much everything is the same. The product is the same."

While meeting with multiple contractors can be "a pain in the butt," she acknowledged, it could mean tens of thousands of dollars in savings.

• Dana Bull has invested in long-term rentals throughout her entire career.
• She's experimenting with a mid-term rental in 2025 to combat high interest rates.
• Generally, mid-term rentals offer higher revenue but require more management than long-term leases.

Dana Bull started building her real-estate portfolio in 2012 when she bought her first property.

Over the next decade, she expanded to more than 20 units in her Massachusetts market and hit financial independence by sticking to the same general strategy: buying quality properties with upside and filling them with long-term tenants.

Bull, who is also a real-estate agent and consultant, told Business Insider that she "swore off investing a couple of years ago." Managing properties is time-intensive, noted the mother of four.

But when a charming single-family in Marblehead came on the market in the fall of 2023, she broke her promise.

"This little place in my town caught my eye, and I really wanted somebody else to buy it," said Bull. "It was when the interest rates were the highest that they've ever been, like 7.75%, so nobody wanted to buy anything. And I was like, 'You know what, I'll do it.'"

Listing it as a mid-term rental to combat high rates

Higher interest rates mean a higher monthly payment. For an investor, that can make it more challenging to generate positive cash flow.

To make the numbers work on her latest acquisition, Bull decided to experiment with a "mid-term rental," which targets people looking to stay for one month or more, but less than a year.

"It's my first experience with something other than a long-term rental. I'm kind of in uncharted waters, but it's been great," said Bull, who plans to test out the mid-term rental strategy for at least 18 months. It's more work than managing a long-term tenant, but she said she's bringing in more revenue doing shorter leases.

She could earn even more if she had more time and could lease the unit herself, rather than working with an agent.

"I have a leasing agent who I pay a lot of money because it's a lot of work to continue to keep it leased," she said. "It's a great strategy for anybody that has the availability to do the leasing on their own."

The leasing aspect of the mid-term rental strategy is the most challenging because it's less mainstream than the short- and long-term strategy.

"If you want a long-term rental, you know you're going to be on Zillow or work with a real-estate agent. If you want a short-term rental, you also have set channels: You have Airbnb, Vrbo," Bull explained. "There's a website called Furnished Finder geared toward mid-term rentals, but it's not very well known, and it's not nearly as big as something like Airbnb."

She advertises her place on Furnished Finder, takes it on and off Zillow depending on when it's available, and sends neighborhood mailers.

It helps that she's starting to understand her typical tenant, she added: "The trend is that grandparents want to come and help out with the kids, but the parents don't have room in their home, or the grandparents want their own space, so that has been my target audience."

Mid-term rentals as a viable strategy for 2025

Bull doesn't expect mortgage rates to drop in 2025. She also doesn't advise letting rates or other factors outside your control dictate when you buy real estate.

"I wouldn't base my whole plan around, 'Well, I keep hearing rates are supposed to drop,'" she said, noting that current rates are in line with the historical average. "This is kind of where rates sit. So, if they were to drop, that would be great, but I wouldn't be banking on it."

If you're financially prepared to invest in real estate in 2025, rather than waiting, run the numbers to see if a short- or mid-term rental could make sense in your market.

"Look at some alternative leasing approaches. Usually, they're more lucrative if they're shorter," said Bull. "One idea would be to start with something like an Airbnb, with the goal of transitioning after two or three years into something more passive, like a long-term rental."

Real estate is a long-term game, she added: "You have to look beyond year one — the numbers are always going to be tight year one, no matter what the market conditions are — so, what are your projections going to be by year five?

"And then, what can you do in the interim to maybe make this property work? That would be focusing on neighborhoods and communities where you can balance both of these plays: It's going to attract a short-term rental tenant but, down the road, you can pivot into a longer-term tenant."

That's likely what she's going to do, especially if she can refinance again.

Bull has already refinanced once, which shaved about $250 off her mortgage, she said: "I'd love it if they dropped again and I could save another 250. At that point, I probably would transition it to a long-term rental because it would be lucrative enough and less of a headache, but right now I'm just experimenting for my own curiosity and I want to understand more about this niche."

• After years of writing about financially independent individuals, I've picked up on commonalities.
• One is that they have multiple revenue streams — at least one of which is from their own business.
• In 2025, I'm starting my own side business to see if the wealth-building strategy works for me.

My job involves interviewing people who are good with money — self-made millionaires, early retirees, and "super savers" who keep the majority of their income — and asking them to share their wealth-building strategies.

After nearly a decade of talking to these money-savvy individuals and absorbing their knowledge, I've implemented a lot of what they advise: I automate my savings and investments, live within my means, track my expenses and net worth, and take advantage of an HSA.

I have a lot of the personal finance basics down, but in the spirit of a new year and always trying to improve, I've decided to think bigger for 2025 and tackle one particular wealth-building strategy I've written about but never dared to try: starting a business.

One observation from talking to financially independent individuals is that they don't rely on a single source of income. They have at least two and, oftentimes, multiple revenue streams. Even the super savers tell me that there's a cap on how much you can save. But how much you can earn, they point out, is limitless.

Another commonality is that one of their revenue streams comes from their own business.

I've spoken to Amazon and Etsy sellers who have built e-commerce empires, content creators who drive passive income from courses and affiliate links, and a millennial who went from broke to seven figures by building websites and flipping domains.

Starting an e-commerce business

The business model that most intrigued me — and seemed doable on a budget — was e-commerce. Essentially, selling a product on platforms like Amazon.

I learned through interviews that there are three main ways to make money on Amazon.

There's arbitrage, which is the most basic, low-cost way to start selling on Amazon. This is when you source products from different marketplaces to sell. To be profitable, you must buy the product for less than it sells on Amazon. After reselling, you keep the difference.

The next tier is wholesaling. This is when you buy products in bulk and resell them on Amazon. Like arbitrage, you aren't making your own product — you're simply reselling an existing product — but you're spending more money upfront on inventory.

Finally, there's the private label route. E-comm experts have explained to me that starting a private label brand is the most time-consuming and costly but has the most upside. It requires actually creating a product and brand.

I went with the latter and technically started the company in 2024 when a friend and I designed a pickleball paddle and ordered inventory from a manufacturer in Asia. My goal in 2025 is to sell the 500 paddles that are on their way from China to my apartment in LA, build a brand I'm proud of, evaluate whether selling a product online is a suitable side hustle for me and my strengths, and write about every step of the process.

I don't expect building a side business to be easy. And everything I've done so far has cost more and taken more time than anticipated.

Most of the financially independent entrepreneurs I've spoken to started with a side hustle — and, in some cases, simply a side project or hobby that cost them money, let alone brought any in. They put their heads down from 9-to-5, worked for an employer to cover their bills, and then reserved 5-to-9 for building businesses.

Carving out time and energy to work on a side project that might not generate sales while simultaneously working a full-time job isn't for the faint of heart. These self-made entrepreneurs put in a lot of hours for an unknown outcome.

NeuroGum cofounder Kent Yoshimura, who worked at a music studio and as a muralist while building a caffeinated gum and mint company, admitted to pulling "an all-nighter once a week" in the early days of his startup.

Jatz Naran said he built his Amazon business between the hours of 6-and-10, after his day job would wrap up. "Forget work-life balance," he told me. At the end of the day, "you have to sacrifice one thing for another."

What's intriguing about starting a business is that you're in the driver's seat. The success or failure of the company is up to you. How much you and the company earn is up to you.

I'm reminded of something real-estate entrepreneur Dion McNeeley told me during an interview: Think beyond your day job.

His revenue streams at the time included his day job running a commercial truck driving school, long-term rental income from his portfolio of 16 properties, and a side hustle as an expert witness, which is someone who is called to testify during a trial because of their specific knowledge. He provided expert testimony for cases involving truck driving accidents.

"I make way more money spending two hours a month on real estate and one to two hours a month providing expert testimony than I make running a truck driving school," said McNeeley, who has since retired from his day job. "The mistake a lot of people make is selling their lives one hour at a time and not realizing that you make a lot more money when you get paid on the value you produce."

• Real-estate investors shared their predictions for 2025 and top advice.
• One investor says to think long-term and don't expect interest rates to drop.
• Another says to spot opportunities by looking at 'days on market' on a listing.

Experienced real-estate investors don't expect mortgage rates to drop significantly in 2025, but they tend to agree that it could be an excellent year to invest in a property.

Arguably, any year is a good time to dip your toe in if you're financially prepared.

"Some of the best advice I can give somebody is just understand that you can never perfectly time anything," said Matt Laricy, a Chicago-based investor and agent who has done over $1 billion in sales and closed thousands of deals.

His advice applies to prospective homeowners, as well: "You have to live somewhere, so is it really worth waiting one or two years to maybe get it for 10% less, but in the meantime, you spend 20% more on rent? Are you really winning?

"Just know that the best time is when you're financially ready."

Here's what Laricy and other veteran investors and agents predict will happen in the real estate game in 2025.

Dana Bull says to think long-term and not wait for rates to drop

If you're looking to buy a home or invest in real estate in 2025, don't wait for rates to drop before making a move.

"I wouldn't base my whole plan around, 'Well, I keep hearing rates are supposed to drop,'" said Massachusetts-based investor and agent Dana Bull, noting that current rates are in line with the historical average. "This is kind of where rates sit. So, if they were to drop, that would be great, but I wouldn't be banking on it."

Instead, figure out how to make the numbers work in a high-rate environment. That'll mean getting creative.

"Look at some alternative leasing approaches. Usually, they're more lucrative if they're shorter," said Bull, who has always done long-term rentals but is experimenting with mid-term in 2025 to improve her cash flow. "One idea would be to start with something like an Airbnb, with the goal of transitioning after two or three years into something more passive, like a long-term rental."

Real estate is a long-term game, she added: "You have to look beyond year one — the numbers are always going to be tight year one, no matter what the market conditions are — so, what are your projections going to be by year five?

"And then, what can you do in the interim to maybe make this property work? That would be focusing on neighborhoods and communities where you can balance both of these plays: It's going to attract a short-term rental tenant but, down the road, you can pivot into a longer-term tenant."

Matt Laricy predicts the market will 'take off like a rocket ship'

"I expect 2025 to be the best market since 2022. I think the market is going to take off like a rocket ship," said the top Chicago real-estate agent, adding that, "obviously, every market is extremely local."

In his market, rents are very high, and, "it's almost cheaper, when you factor out your down payment on a monthly basis, to buy than it is to rent," he explained. "So, you are getting a lot of people who are going to buy just as a result of that." Plus, employees should have more certainty around their company's return-to-office plan, which could promote settling down and buying: "A lot of people rented because they were uncertain of their future."

Laricy also predicts that prospective buyers will adjust their rate expectations: "I think people have now realized that 2 and 3% are never going to happen, and are like, 'At a certain point, I either have to continue to be a renter for the rest of my life, or I have to be a buyer.'"

His advice for navigating a competitive market is, first and foremost, understand the basics: where you want to buy, what type of property you want to buy, and a realistic budget.

"It sounds easy. But for buyers, it's really hard," he said.

Regarding your budget, Laricy said to assume a home will sell for higher than what it's listed at. Study your market to see how much homes typically go over the asking price and factor that in. If it's $50,000, for example, and your budget is $500,000, look at homes listed for $450,000.

If you know exactly what you want and what you can afford, you'll be able to move quickly, which is essential in a competitive market.

"Know that you have to do things on their time, not your time," said Laricy, referring to the seller. "When something comes on the market, you need to move, and you need to move fast."

Mike Zuber says it'll be a good market for investors and to focus on 'days on market'

California-based investor Mike Zuber expects 2025 to be a "unique" opportunity for investors.

"I think there are some people that will just have to sell — life events, death, divorce, all of that," he said. "And unless the house is perfect, no owner is going to buy it. The general public is basically out of the housing market. So if you have a house that's a little dated, a little old, a little bit too close to busy streets, you're going to eventually have to sell to an investor — and we're going to write offers that make sense at a high cost of capital, call it 7, 8%."

His advice is to pay attention to the number of days a property has been on the market to land the best deals.

"Go on the general MLS, Realtor.com, Zillow, Redfin, and just look for homes that have been on the market for 50 days, 60 days, 90 days, 100 days," he said. "We're seeing days on market explode, and that just tells you that that seller is eventually going to be motivated or they're going to just take it off the market. So, do they need to sell or do they want to sell?"

If they need to sell, you'll be in a better position to negotiate.

As for what number to look for exactly, start by understanding the average 'days on market' in your area. Then, look for listings where that number is double, said Zuber: "Anything that's two X the average days on market is a good sign to go fishing."

Nyasia Casey says to know the laws in your area and understand seasonality

Rules and regulations that may affect real-estate investors are constantly shifting. In New York City, where investor Nyasia Casey lives, a new law going into effect in June 2025 shifts the burden of broker fees from renters to landlords.

"Essentially, landlords have to pay broker fees now — not the tenants. So, if you're a landlord, you have to factor in that cost now," said Casey, who rents in NYC but invests in Baltimore. "A lot of landlord and tenant laws are changing in certain areas that you need to be mindful of because it will affect how much money you're putting in and how much money you have to set aside."

She also emphasized that seasonality matters, whether you're buying and holding or buying and flipping.

She said that as a general rule of thumb, "buy in the winter, sell in the spring."

Whether you're listing a rental or trying to sell a flip, you want to find a tenant or a buyer in the summer.

"Once you get past October, you're going to have a difficult time, and you may lose money, whether it be you have to lower your price for a flip, or you have to lower your rental price just to get someone in there so that you don't bleed money," she said. "So just be mindful of when you're putting that house on the market, when you're buying it, and when it's going to be finished."

Ludomir Wanot encourages investors to save up to make a move

"As of October, we're seeing about a 29% year-over-year increase in homes for sale, so what I'm seeing is the market is showing signs of balancing and the conditions are becoming more favorable for buyers compared to the last five years," said Seattle-based investor Ludomir Wanot, who built his wealth wholesaling and now runs an AI company that helps lenders communicate with their clients. "And so the best thing right now we could do is save our money for opportunities that arise."

He doesn't expect rates to drop significantly in 2025, "so learning and utilizing creative financing is going to be your go-to," he said, recommending strategies such as seller financing, subject-to agreements, and private lending could help investors lock in better terms and avoid excessive borrowing costs.

Wanot's top advice heading into the new year, however, is to actually implement what you learn about online. Taking action could be as small as joining a real-estate community and networking.

"People are buying programs, they're going to the events, they're watching people come up onstage and talk about how wealthy they got through a particular strategy. But very few people actually implement anything they're being taught," he said.

"The day we actually stop listening to and reading all these stories, podcasts, and YouTube videos and actually apply ourselves is the day we're finally going to start seeing progress in our lives."

• Real estate investors share the strategies they're using in 2025.
• One investor is buying mobile home parks for tax incentives.
• Another is leaning into mid-term rentals, which tend to cash flow more than long-term rentals.

Prudent real estate investing can create long-term wealth, and while every investor has their own unique circumstances — from how much risk they're willing to take on to how much cash they have accessible — there are lessons to be learned from veteran investors.

Business Insider asked top real estate investors who have achieved financial independence or are on their way to doing so about their plans for 2025.

Here's a look at how they are positioning themselves as we head into a new year and what trends are driving their decisions.

Ludomir Wanot is buying mobile home parks for the tax incentives

Seattle-based investor Ludomir Wanot, who built his wealth wholesaling and buying long-term rentals, is adding mobile home parks to his portfolio.

They can be depreciated at a faster rate than other investment properties and significantly reduce an investor's taxable income, he explained: "The government actually allows you to depreciate at least up to 60% of the purchase price of the value of the asset in year one. I bought a million-dollar property in New York. I was able to depreciate up to $600,000 of that in the first year, and so that basically reduced my taxable income to zero."

It's a win-win, he added: "I'm providing housing for people that only make maybe $1,000 a month and I'm providing it to them at a significantly lower rate, around $200 a month. They get to live in a good community, I get to rebuild a community, and I get this crazy incentive from the government."

Mike Zuber is looking for motivated sellers

Mike Zuber, who built a portfolio of rentals in Fresno that allowed him to retire early, is expecting to see "more motivated sellers" in 2025.

"I think there are some people that will just have to sell — life events, death, divorce, all of that," he said. "And unless the house is perfect, no owner is going to buy it. The general public is basically out of the housing market. So if you have a house that's a little dated, a little old, a little bit too close to busy streets, you're going to eventually have to sell to an investor."

That's good news for Zuber and other property investors looking for deals. He's prepared to "write offers that make sense at a high cost of capital."

Dion McNeeley is considering selling a property and capitalizing on an IRS rule

Dion McNeeley, who spent over a decade carefully building a portfolio of rental properties throughout Washington State, has never sold a property.

"I'm the slow, boring investor: Save up a down payment, buy the next place; save up a down payment, buy the next place," he said.

That may change in 2025, partly due to an intriguing tax benefit he'll be eligible for.

McNeeley's most recent real estate project was buying and rehabbing a duplex. He lives in one unit and rents the other. In July 2025, he'll have owned and lived in the duplex for two years, which qualifies him for the Section 121 Exclusion, an IRS rule that lets taxpayers exclude up to $250,000 of the gain from the sale of the property. The main requirement is that you must use the home as your main residence for at least two of the five years preceding the sale.

"I could sell it, make a couple hundred thousand dollars in profit, and not have to pay a penny in taxes — and either go and repeat the process somewhere else or go buy something with the gains and have a bigger, nicer place," said McNeeley, who plans to make a decision in July after doing an appraisal.

Nyasia Casey is testing a strategy she might want to scale: Building tiny homes

Nyasia Casey, who lives in New York City and owns investment properties in Baltimore, is excited about a new 2025 project: building a tiny home on a plot of land that her friends own in upstate New York.

"I'm going to buy a trailer and build a tiny house. I'm going to keep it on wheels so I can transport it if I wanted to go somewhere else with it — if I buy my own land," said Casey, who is starting the build in the spring.

She'll likely experiment with listing it on a short-term rental platform like Airbnb, she said: "I like the idea of it being a more affordable option for people to go and explore instead of renting something for $300 a night. So, it's something that I'm testing out and then if it works, I will definitely consider buying land and doing a couple more."

Dana Bull is experimenting with mid-term rentals

Massachusetts-based investor Dana Bull built wealth by following a specific strategy: buying quality properties with upside in solid areas and filling them with long-term tenants.

However, with the most recent property she purchased and renovated in 2023, she decided to experiment with operating a mid-term rental, which is a lease agreement that typically lasts between three and nine months.

"It's my first experience with something other than a long-term rental. I'm kind of in uncharted waters, but it's been great," said Bull, who plans to test out the mid-term rental strategy for at least 18 months. It's more work than managing a long-term tenant, but she said she's bringing in more revenue, which is helpful since she bought when interest rates were relatively high.

Bull has already refinanced once, which shaved about $250 off of her mortgage.

"I'd love it if they dropped again and I could save another 250," she said. "At that point, I probably would transition it to a long-term rental because it would be lucrative enough and less of a headache, but right now I'm just experimenting for my own curiosity and I want to understand more about this niche."

Karina Mejia is expanding her portfolio, starting with a BRRRR

Karina Mejia, who owns investment properties in Boston, where she lives, and Augusta, Georgia, sat out 2024 in terms of acquisition but plans to expand in 2025.

"I definitely would like to continue purchasing property primarily because of the tax advantages," she said. "This year, I didn't close on anything, and so I'm really going to see the effect of that on my taxes."

She's under contract for a three-family home in Boston and plans to close at the end of January.

"I'll end up renovating and BRRRR-ing it," said Mejia, who is also an agent and jumped on this property when she saw it. "I have it under agreement for 850 and the appraisal came back already at 930 in its as-is condition. I'm projecting to put some money into it and I know that the ARV, or the after-repair value, will end up being over a million so I may even be able to get back more money when I refinance than I'm putting into it, which would be great because then I get my money back and I can invest that in another property next year."

Peter Keane Rivera is leaning into his rent-by-the-room strategy

Part-time investor Peter Keane-Rivera, who owns single-family homes in the greater Seattle area, is leaning into his rent-by-the-room strategy.

"I'm looking to expand my single-family home, room rental portfolio," he said. "My strategy will be to accelerate my purchasing of real estate while learning how to scale my room rental operations."

Finding tenants to share a space hasn't been a challenge yet for Keane-Rivera, who lists his rooms on Roomster, Roomies, and Facebook Marketplace.

"There are a lot of different subgroups looking for something more economical: people coming out of college, people getting their first job, people who just got divorced," he said. "I would say everyone that rents with me is looking to save money."

The room rental strategy produces generous positive cash flow, around $1,000 a month per property, and lowers his risk, he said: "You diversify your cash flow by having four tenants under one roof instead of one. Very rarely will you have all your tenants move out, and if you do, that's indicative of some bigger problem that you should probably go fix."