hey there Tiffany Thomas with wealthy Tiffany dot com and in today's video I'm
gonna be sharing how I am able to live free of charge because I know housing is
usually the most expensive expense that people have so if you can reduce that
expense you are going to be saving a lot of money and if you guys have been to my
channel before you'll notice the background is a little different I'm
actually house-sitting slash dog studying cat setting for my sister so if
you hear dogs in the background you'll know why and if you see a cat go across
the couch you'll know why so if you guys are ready to dive in click that like
button and I am going to get started alright so how am I able to live free of
charge I want to give you a little backstory first
so I actually purchased my first property back in 2005 and it is a
townhome with three bedrooms in it and when I purchase that I was fortunate
enough to already be living in the place my roommate who had owned the place
ended up getting married and moving out of course and she wanted to sell the
place because they were moving to Texas and it was around the same time that I
was looking for a place to buy so I ended up buying the place where I was
already living and I already had two roommates in there so I ended up leaving
those two roommates in my townhouse and they were able to help me pay my
mortgage back in 2005 rent prices weren't quite as high as they are now so
I was able to still save a significant amount of money by having roommates but
my mortgage payment and my HOA payment the homeowners association payment which
is a fee that is charged a few owning a townhome or a condo or even some
single-family homes so they weren't quite covered by what my roommates were
paying me but fast forward a few years later quite a few years later to 2016 I
ended up moving into another place and I kept my old place left my roommates
there and then moved into this new place which was also a 3-bedroom townhome but
it had an unfinished basement there's the cat tell you guys so I was able to
finish my basement and ended up moving into the basement and rented out those
three rooms upstairs another guest appearance by
penny the beautiful cat but I finished my basement moved into the basement
rented out those three rooms upstairs and by doing so I was able to have my
mortgage payment and my HOA all covered by what my roommates were paying me my
taxes are also included in my mortgage payment and I do pay my entrance
separate but that is still covered as well I actually end up being that
positive with this property because of my roommates so I'm getting paid a few
hundred dollars to live in my place so let me share how I was able to acquire
this property so I had my first property from 2005 and I had roommates there so
they were helping to pay for the mortgage payment and then I bought
another property a condo which is just a strictly rental property I never lived
in that property and that was giving me positive cash flow so I had money coming
in and I had a full-time job so I was saving a good portion of my money and by
doing so I was able to save up to purchase another property and since I
was going to move into this property I didn't need to put 20% down because it
wasn't strictly a rental property I could put down 5% or there are some
lenders that will even do lower but I put down 5% on this property so I was
able to move into this property and get roommates in there and then ended up
finishing my basement so it would be a four bedroom property instead of just a
three bedroom property which made it easier to put another roommate in there
and increase my cash flow from my rental income so by being willing to sacrifice
a little bit right now and have roommates living with me I'm able to
live free of charge which is a huge savings because like I said before
that's typically the largest expense that people have is housing so if you
can reduce that cost or make it zero or even make it positive then you are going
to be saving so much more money and you can put that toward something else
that's more important to you maybe you need to pay off some debt or you need to
build up an emergency fund or you want to start investing or even invest more
so by essentially using this house hack and having roommates move in with me I
am able to live free of charge and it's also nice because I have this property
that is appreciating over time it's becoming more valuable over time and I
can write off a lot of the expenses so I can write off the interest that I pay
for the property and the taxes that I pay all while the property is
appreciating over time I plan to hold my properties for the long term and I
really love this idea of house hacking because if you're able to purchase a
property you can just do a small percentage for the down payment
like I said aided 5% for my property my current property and some lenders will
let you do even less than that for a fraction of the price that the house is
worth you can move into that place and get tenants in there or roommates and
create a cash flowing investment and if you have that long-term mindset then
you're able to build that equity in the home over time and eventually pay it off
which will increase your cash flow because you won't have your mortgage
payment anymore of course you'll have to pay taxes on it still but that mortgage
payment will be gone so the principle and interest that you're paying will be
gone and that will drastically increase your cash flow and if you guys are
curious about the actual numbers I have another video which I will put a link to
below and you can check that one out and I go over how much I paid for each
property and how much the value is right now and how much income I'm receiving so
you can get more details if you're interested in that but I just wanted to
share this quick idea with you guys that you can live free of charge you can
house hack and reduce that largest expense your housing expense right now
and put that money towards something else and honestly I don't mind living
with roommates I am single so I don't have children or anything like that and
some of my roommates have become some of my best friends there's actually four of
us that are really really tight and they're all married actually but we
still do stuff together and we have a little group text message so I have
built these great friendships by having roommates so I don't really mind doing
that and I'm giving them a nice place to live and if you're curious to know how I
run things in the household with roommates I have
another video that I created with more detail about that so I will leave a link
below and you can check that video out so you can think about little different
sacrifices that you can make now that are going to make a really great impact
over time and I think house hacking is one of these things because housing is
the largest expense typically for most people so if you can reduce that or even
eliminate that expense you're going to have so much more money to put towards
investments or whatever it is that provides the most value to you reducing
my housing expense has been one of the most impactful many decisions that I
have made because that can cost you so much money and it's actually recommended
to spend 30 percent of your income on housing but can you imagine if you're
only spending 20% of your income even 10 percent or zero what you can do with all
of that money instead of putting it toward your housing you can put it
towards something like travel if that's something that you're into or starting
your own business you can have startup funds for that and another options would
be buying a duplex for example or even a triplex living in one unit and renting
out the other unit or even doing an air B&B
you could rent out maybe the basement of a house that you're living in there's
just different options so I just wanted to share this information with you guys
to kind of help you see you know different ways that you could reduce
your housing expense the more you can reduce your housing expense the more
money you're going to be able to put towards something else and while yes
it's important to reduce the little expenses focusing on the really large
expenses is going to be the most impactful and I've talked about this in
another video recently so I'll leave a link below and you can check out that
video too but just think about what's really important to you and you know if
paying off debt is really important to you then seriously consider a house
hacking because you'll be able to pay off that debt so much faster and this is
a short-term thing you don't always have to have roommates if you don't want to
or always rent out a basement or do air B&B this can be a short-term thing until
you reach certain financial goals and then you could live by yourself if you
want to but just you know start to think what's
really important to you and where do you want to put your focus where do you want
to have most of your money going right now that will be most impactful and help
you become financially free or even just become more stable with your finances so
if you found this video helpful please hit the like button and don't forget to
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content out to more people and don't forget to little bail to get notified on
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that out if you're interested thanks so much for watching and I'll see you guys
in the next video
you