[00:02:14] Ali Lupo: Thank you so much. We’re so excited to be here today. 

[00:02:17] Josh Lupo: Yeah, such a pleasure. 

[00:02:18] Patrick Donley: I’ve been having a great time just talking to you for the 10 or 15 minutes prior to the interview hitting record here.

[00:02:23] Patrick Donley: So this is going to be a lot of fun. I wanted to start off. I listened to several interviews and kind of preparation for our talk here today. You guys grew up in very different environments and grew up with very different money blueprints. So I want to go into that a little bit. And then I’m very curious about how you’ve married those as a couple.

[00:02:42] Patrick Donley: I’ve recently been married for the last year and a half, two years, and marrying money blueprints can be a challenge. So I first want to. Start off just hearing about your different backgrounds growing up in the money models you had, and then we’ll get into trying to get those to meet up and work together with a similar vision.

[00:02:58] Ali Lupo: That’s such a great question. And it’s so important. I think that often when we think about coupling up with someone in a romantic sense, are you attracted to them? Do you have fun talking to them? We think about all of the fun stuff, but we don’t necessarily talk about what was your upbringing and what baggage do you bring to the table?

[00:03:15] Ali Lupo: And do you have challenges with money? What is your money mindset? And I think we certainly did not have that conversation prior to coming together. It ended up working out, but we could not have grown up in more different backgrounds. I grew up relatively middle class. We had everything we needed.

[00:03:34] Ali Lupo: I remember money was always like a stressful thing, but we always had enough money to pay our bills. And I definitely had everything I needed growing up. I was taught The importance of saving, the importance of having a job, but aside from that, we didn’t talk about money. Investing wasn’t a conversation, but I had some baseline fundamentals of that type of stuff.

[00:03:57] Josh Lupo: Yeah, so for me, it was quite the opposite. There was incredible money stress and we never talked about money simply because we never had it. We couldn’t pay our bills. I was raised by a single mom of three in a small rural town in upstate New York. We got evicted from mobile home to mobile home.

[00:04:14] Josh Lupo: I moved, I don’t know, six or seven times before I was 10 years old. In and out of foster care a couple of times. And what I will say though. is that growing up in that environment forced me to realize that if I was going to have any type of lifestyle that I was happy about or proud of, I was going to have to make it happen.

[00:04:34] Josh Lupo: No one else was going to come in, wave a wand and make my life better. And thankfully too, I also, there’s the expression, it takes a village to raise a child. What I did have. I had a village, especially in terms of coaches, mentors, teachers, people who took me under my wing.

[00:04:49] Josh Lupo: And so I learned the value of work ethics really early on in life. But I also carried a lot of money baggage with me late into my twenties, especially when it came time to if you had money growing up where I come from, you spend as fast as you can, because you don’t know when it’s going to happen again.

[00:05:05] Josh Lupo: So you don’t save, you don’t think of the future, you live for the now. 

[00:05:09] Patrick Donley: So did you have jobs growing up, Josh? Were you always hustling? Did you have a chip on your shoulder a little bit? My dad grew up very poor and he has definitely had a chip on his shoulder where he was like, I’m going to prove to the world that I’m going to make a difference and change things financially for myself and my family.

[00:05:26] Josh Lupo: Yeah, I think I was 14 and I got my first job quote unquote like off the books because I’m not even sure if I had my working papers yet, but there was a, an event company by us that did like corporate parties for companies when they were celebrating and I, they would be like, Food and rides and stuff like that.

[00:05:43] Josh Lupo: And I would ride my bike and have a car. So I would ride my bike to the business. One of the employees would pick me up and three or four other of us, and we would go to work events. And that was, say I was 13 or 14 years old. Once I was old enough, I knew I wanted to have a car one day when I turned 16.

[00:05:58] Josh Lupo: No one was going to buy it for me. So yeah, I would work two or three jobs. So I’d go to school. I participated in football and different sports and then after the sport I would go work a job for as many hours as I could to make the money that I needed to then find a car because I knew that having a car would give me greater access to more job opportunities so that I could work my way through high school and beyond.

[00:06:19] Patrick Donley: So you definitely learned to be a hustler and develop grit at a pretty young age. 

[00:06:24] Josh Lupo: Yeah, it was a, survive or die kind of thing and work, for, I knew that if I was going to get out of my environment, I needed to find ways to work my way out of my environment. And thankfully, higher education was also a huge resource there.

[00:06:38] Patrick Donley: So let’s get into that. I know we both went on to college, but was that pushed for you, Josh? Was that like, this is your path out of how you grew up or tell me about that. 

[00:06:48] Josh Lupo: No, it was military. It was more prominent or just working or jail. And I actually, through the kind of stars aligned for me, if you will, like I said, I played every sport a kid can possibly play growing up.

[00:07:02] Josh Lupo: And as a result. I always tell people I had four or five different quote unquote moms, if you will, people who always looked out for me, and I’m sure behind the scenes, they all talked about which sport I was in. And, they looked after me. But anyways, one of those women, her name was Lenore.

[00:07:15] Josh Lupo: Lenore’s son got accepted to a college through what’s called an educational opportunity program for disenfranchised youth. And she spoke to me, we were getting ready to graduate high school. So this is probably like May or June. And she said, Hey, her son, Eric got accepted into a program.

[00:07:29] Josh Lupo: What’s your plans for after high school? And I had no plans. I was like, Oh, maybe there’s a two year college one day, but I don’t really, 

[00:07:37] Ali Lupo: he didn’t take his SATs. Like it wasn’t even on, wasn’t on my radar 

[00:07:40] Josh Lupo: on the radar. Thankfully she grabbed me that day and it was like, and I didn’t have a computer.

[00:07:46] Josh Lupo: So she had a computer. at her home, and she said, you’re going to apply for the educational opportunity program. Acronym is EOP. And I was like, okay, if Lenora says I should do it. And I applied to one college and it was called the Oneonta State College in upstate New York. And subsequently I got in frankly, because of the economic conditions that I went into.

[00:08:06] Josh Lupo: And that was my college courting experience. And then two months later, I was in a town and city enrolled in college I’d never heard of, but I just figured it was better than where I grew up. 

[00:08:16] Patrick Donley: That’s awesome that you had that kind of influence. Lenora, was that her name that pushed you in that direction?

[00:08:22] Josh Lupo: Yeah. She was one of those moms who made sure I got to every single practice that she could. She had three other sons herselves, but she would always pack like a sandwich or a power bar. I did. I competed in wrestling growing up and those are like seven, eight hour tournament long days. And she would always make sure I had different snacks and stuff like that.

[00:08:40] Josh Lupo: And yeah, she fulfilled that all the way up to when I was getting ready to graduate high school. And she made sure I got into college. 

[00:08:46] Patrick Donley: So did you guys, Ali, I wanted, you’re both in kind of social work careers going into college. Was that kind of thought out? That’s the direction you guys both wanted to go?

[00:08:55] Patrick Donley: You wanted to help people? Or did you consider other options like to make a higher income? It’s unfortunate, but human services that just the income often is not very great. I worked in human services previously. It was like, horrible, but fulfilling, like you’re doing important work and it’s rewarding.

[00:09:11] Patrick Donley: But I wanted to hear about that. Like how you guys choose your majors and careers. 

[00:09:15] Ali Lupo: I have a jaded view about that, but if you asked me at the time, it was, I wanted to help people, I wanted to do something that I was passionate about and have a meaningful impact. I think that looking back, we both had a good amount of trauma in our lives, and we were maybe put in that role.

[00:09:33] Ali Lupo: Early on being a helper, and I think that it was just a natural evolution to want to pursue that as a job. And I think that very often when you have an 18 year old that has no concept of money or finance and you say, you’re going to have a lot of student loan debt. They’re like, Everyone has debt. It’s okay.

[00:09:52] Ali Lupo: You just can’t possibly conceptualize what that really means. And I remember our professors were like, you’re not in this for the money you’re in it for, helping, and you’re not going to make a lot of money. And I was like, who cares? Why do I care? And then like you graduate and you’re like, holy crap, I have so many bills to pay and I have so much debt and I actually do want a nice life.

[00:10:13] Ali Lupo: And the money that I’m making here is not going to give me the life that I want. And I think. Looking back, it completely makes sense why we went into those fields. But I think that ultimately yeah, we weren’t thinking about the income. We weren’t thinking about the ripple effects. And I think passion is so important, but passion doesn’t pay the bills because.

[00:10:32] Ali Lupo: In my experience, a lot of those human service careers, especially the entry level ones, there’s a high level of burnout. So in the beginning you’re making an impact and then it’s challenging for you as a person and then the income really hits you. So yeah, I think I definitely have more of a jaded perspective on our early years in human services, but of course it’s important and meaningful work, but I wish that industry was appreciated more.

[00:10:58] Patrick Donley: Sure, looking back on things, would either of you study something else, like finance or accounting, or any thoughts like that? 

[00:11:06] Josh Lupo: No, it’s actually, I think it’s played a pivotal role in who we are today, and the work that we do today, because a lot of the schooling that we had, and then The careers that we both worked in for, I think, almost 10 years.

[00:11:18] Josh Lupo: A lot of it came down to just understanding human behavior, human psychology, and understanding how to communicate effectively. I always tell people, cause we, I think collectively amassed over 102, 000 of student loans and people were like was it worth it? Absolutely. In the sense that, it’s also where we met.

[00:11:33] Ali Lupo: In the same degree, that’s how we met. 

[00:11:35] Josh Lupo: Yes. I would take that all over, but I don’t know, knowing what I know now too, I don’t think I would have wished I, we actually, we started in different majors. I started off as an environmental science major and I realized I didn’t want to examine dirt for the next 30 or 40 years.

[00:11:49] Josh Lupo: And so then I transitioned into human services. No, I don’t think I would do anything different. 

[00:11:55] Ali Lupo: So I’m a big person that likes where I’m at in my life now. And I think that every micro decision I made led me to this point. So I’m not big on. Would I do something different? Because I feel like I truly believe everything happens for a reason.

[00:12:09] Ali Lupo: Would I encourage our daughter to go into that field? It’s a hard no for me. I would dissuade her because now I think, again, I have a different perspective about the purpose of employment and generating money and what it can do for you in your life. So I think you need to have a balance between providing value and feeling good about yourself, but also being able to afford to exist in a way that gives you the life that you want.

[00:12:34] Ali Lupo: So I don’t think we had a balanced perspective when we went into it, so I would hope to instill more of that in her. 

[00:12:41] Patrick Donley: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I wanted to get back to you guys as a couple, get engaged. You’re seeing a therapist. We talked about that a little bit. I just came from couples counseling and I think there’s a lot of benefits to it.

[00:12:53] Patrick Donley: My wife and I did the same thing prior to getting married. We started with a therapist just to get on the same page and we’re not like we have different financial blueprints and there’s some headbutting that happens. I want to save. She wants to buy a new couch and sometimes there’s conflict with that.

[00:13:07] Patrick Donley: So tell me about how you guys have managed that. Just having

[00:13:18] Ali Lupo: It’s so hard. It’s so hard. I think it can be a make it or break it for couples. I think number one, it comes down to communication because you have to realize that most couples don’t even communicate about it. Our heads are in the sand and I spend how I want and you spend how you want. You have two independent humans and now we have to merge ourselves and it’s not just love, it’s a business relationship.

[00:13:38] Ali Lupo: So how do we have this new business together and navigate it appropriately? I think in the beginning. It was so hard. Josh brought a lot of money mistakes into the relationship, just impulsive spending, bringing on a lot of things like credit card debt, that kind of stuff. And I was way more cautious. So from a negative perspective, like that’s what we were staring at.

[00:14:03] Ali Lupo: From a positive point of view, I have never met someone with more grit and resilience in my life. And Josh is like such a dreamer and he’s so goal oriented and I think it’s because of his upbringing. So you can look at it two ways. Wow, Josh was really bad with his money and he’s irresponsible or like Josh is so motivated and he’s so hardworking.

[00:14:23] Ali Lupo: So it was important to view both of those perspectives. But I think that our differences are ultimately what led to our success because I am very like them. calculated and cautious and I want to make sure we’re doing what we need to do. Josh is very like a big picture dreamer and I think combining those two things it was actually like a really good balance and a strength.

[00:14:46] Josh Lupo: Yeah, I think, too, for us, prior to us being able to effectively merge our kind of money mindsets, if you will, we both had to do a lot of deep work with ourselves. We’ve had couples marriage or marriage counseling for the better part of 6 years. We’ve also done individual therapy.

[00:15:02] Josh Lupo: And so I wanted to understand why I think and operate when it comes to money, spending, what my values are, and so on and so forth. Ali’s done the same, and then in doing so, it allowed us to have I think, more productive dialogue, and then it became less of a me versus a we type of venture that we started doing together, especially when we started casting out our joint vision for the life that we wanted to have versus what my vision was versus her vision, and that was really helpful.

[00:15:30] Patrick Donley: How did you do that visioning process? Was there a book or any exercises that you guys did together to try to get on the same page? 

[00:15:38] Ali Lupo: 100 percent bribery. There’s no other way about it. Josh got way more into personal finance in the beginning than I did. And he needed a way to rope me into it. So he enticed me with let’s have a bottle of wine and get our favorite takeout and have a financial date night.

[00:15:54] Ali Lupo: And It made it so fun, and we’d talk about, just what do you want your life to look like? What do you want the next 5 years, 10 years to look like? And we didn’t get into the nitty gritty dollar thing, more just like a big picture of what are our hopes and dreams? And when we mapped out our hopes and dreams, I remember then it was like, how do we get there?

[00:16:13] Ali Lupo: And it was glaringly obvious that Everything we were doing was going to prevent us from getting there. It’s not really Josh being this dictator telling us how we need to adjust. It’s us saying, if this is the life we want, we need to do things differently. So we changed our shift of Hey, Josh, I want to buy this.

[00:16:31] Ali Lupo: Ali, you can’t. Hey, Ali, I want to invest in this. I don’t want you to. These are our goals and here is how we need to get here. And the money problem was both of our problems and how can we work collaboratively to solve it? 

[00:16:45] Josh Lupo: And one person I want to shout out too, is his name is Andy Hill from a marriage, kids and money and Andy and his wife and their family.

[00:16:52] Josh Lupo: They, Andy shared their story from a lot of debt. To pay off all our debt to become, I think, millionaires in their 30s. And he and his wife went through a lot of these types of similar activities. And they’re a few years older than us. And so it was really helpful learning from them. But an activity that Andy and his wife, Nicole did was Andy sat down with Nicole and said, paint a picture for me.

[00:17:11] Josh Lupo: Talk to me, describe to me like your perfect day. And I think they have, I think they have two little ones now and they were just about to become parents at the time. And, for Nicole, family was a big value. And so Nicole said, I’d love to be able to be a stay at home mom. I’d love for us to be able to travel as a family.

[00:17:27] Josh Lupo: Andy was working. 70, 80 hours a week. He was traveling all the time. I’d love for you to be more home. So instead of Andy just coming at her with Excel sheets and podcasts, which he did copious amounts of times, he stepped back and said, how can I speak Nicole’s money language? And for Nicole, it wasn’t, the Excel sheets and the 4 percent rule and stuff like that.

[00:17:46] Josh Lupo: It was more so envisioning the lifestyle or as Ramit Sethi would say, like her rich life. And then reverse engineering from there. Ali said, That was really transformative, and as like a student, if you will, of like real estate and finance, I took that, I brought it home one day we sat in our apartment back then, and we did it, and that, I think, was a real fork in the road moment for us.

[00:18:08] Patrick Donley: I was listening to an interview you guys did, and weren’t you on a little bit of a different page? You were working a ton Josh? And then, Al, you wanted to focus on family and friends. How did that unfold once you realized you were, your time, how you wanted to spend it in two different ways.

[00:18:23] Ali Lupo: Yeah. Honestly, this was a fluke stroke of luck because I guess we would have figured it out, but what ended up happening, Josh was working 60 plus hours a week at a company. He was mid level management. He took his career very seriously, but it really detracted from our quality time with each other and family.

[00:18:43] Ali Lupo: And I cared about my work, but I cared more about working to live, not living to work. That was the delineating factor. Like I was working so that I could live in. Josh, it felt more like you were living to work. His life was his work. So I remember we were heading towards our wedding, and I was like, dude, I don’t know if I can marry this person in the sense of I don’t want a partner that’s so obsessed with work in that way.

[00:19:09] Ali Lupo: And there’s nothing wrong with that, but we weren’t aligned. I think if both people have a good understanding of how the other person is and they’re happy with that, great. I wasn’t happy with the dynamic. As fate would have it, Josh got laid off. And at the time, it felt like our world was crumbling, but it actually was one of the best things that ever happened to us because I think it gave you the perspective of you have this job that you pour your life into and very quickly on a Friday, you’re throwing all your stuff in a black garbage bag and whatever.

[00:19:37] Ali Lupo: But I think that was such a pivotal moment for us and that helped us get on the same page. So really it was dumb luck because it’s nothing that we did. It was an external force, but that really helped us get more aligned. 

[00:19:50] Patrick Donley: Once you got laid off, Josh, didn’t you like taking Ali to her master’s program and you guys had a lot of time to talk to and from in the car?

[00:19:59] Josh Lupo: Yeah so I, the year prior to getting one, the year prior to our wedding, and then the year prior to me getting laid off, Ali actually had graduated with her master’s, and that was in the planning of the wedding. That was actually, and we’d been together five years or so at that point. The act of planning a wedding, I think, was the first time we ever actually sat down and started to calculate our income, our expenses, because we’re like how are we going to pay for this wedding?

[00:20:22] Josh Lupo: And she had just graduated with her master’s. It was our first time actually. tallying up car loan, credit card loan, massive student loans. And then at that time too, Ali and I were talking. I’m gone all the time. We’re about to get married. We have all this debt. How does life ever change? And that kind of thrust us into the world of personal finance.

[00:20:41] Josh Lupo: And we started with Dave Ramsey. How do we pay off this debt kind of stuff? And so we made that commitment of 2017, but I was still working all the time. And then Ali was working out too. So then I get fired. Now I’m unemployed. I’m driving Uber. Eight hours a day. And so for the first time ever, yeah, I would bring Ally to work in the morning and during those, whatever it was, 30 minute car rides, we would just talk about our goals and our vision and then I’d drop Ally off to work.

[00:21:07] Josh Lupo: I would drive for Uber for seven or eight hours a day. I’d go pick up Ally. And it was more time I feel like that we had spent together and us actually talking about our goals. That was more time we’d ever had in, five or six years that we’d been together at that point. And that, again, that was really transformative.

[00:21:23] Josh Lupo: Instead of, this is what Josh is doing, this is what. Ali’s doing. This is what we could be doing. And specifically that we thought was real estate. 

[00:21:31] Patrick Donley: So when you first started getting, you had what 102, 000 of debt, I think was the number that I heard you got into Dave Ramsey and the debt snowball payoff thing.

[00:21:41] Patrick Donley: Talk to me a little bit about that. Like how your understanding of personal finances has changed since you got into Dave Ramsey and how it’s evolved over time. 

[00:21:50] Josh Lupo: Yeah, I’m really grateful. We found Total Money Makeover because I think it was as simple as how do you pay off debt? And Dave Ramsey popped up.

[00:21:57] Josh Lupo: And we found that and that kind of learned to coach us into talking about finances, having a budget, which we’d never had prior to delineating between needs and wants. And so we started that and we took it really seriously. So we were doing the rice and beans lifestyle for a few months there.

[00:22:12] Josh Lupo: And of course, at that point I was like, Ali, we need to sell our cars. We need to sell of our, A lot of our material things, we need to pay off debt, blah, blah, blah. And we skipped going out on date nights. And we realized that while there’s some value to it, and I’m really thankful for some of the fundamentals that taught us, it wasn’t sustainable for our life.

[00:22:28] Josh Lupo: And so conveniently at that time in 2017, this was the author, Scott Trench, he’s the CEO of BiggerPockets, released a book called Set for Life. And I remember discovering this book and it was honestly perfect because It felt like it was a roadmap that we could follow that worked for our values and our lifestyle.

[00:22:47] Josh Lupo: And it didn’t feel as extreme or limiting as the total money makeover. And so once we used that book as our roadmap, if you will, it felt, yeah, we now had a clear path or a more clear path by which we could achieve our financial freedom goals. 

[00:23:04] Patrick Donley: So is that reading set for life in Scott’s book?

[00:23:07] Patrick Donley: Is that when real estate really came online when you started to pursue goals towards acquiring some properties and building a portfolio? 

[00:23:14] Josh Lupo: Yeah, absolutely. Our biggest thing was, we were, as we expressed earlier, we were pretty low income professionals, even with Ali with a master’s degree.

[00:23:22] Josh Lupo: And so now that we had a budget, There was a clear, glaring number in our budget, which was rent. And we didn’t really have the capacity back then to earn much more. And so we can’t really earn more. So what levers can you control? If we can’t earn more, we can try to spend less. So we were cutting out, like I said, the date nights, the Starbucks, the Netflix and stuff like that.

[00:23:42] Josh Lupo: And it, Those are valuable. We talked a lot about using spoons versus shovels to get out of debt. So when we actually read that book and we realized, I think 70 percent or so of the average person’s budget is housing, food, and transportation. Food, we tightened up a little bit, but really it was our car payments and rent.

[00:23:58] Josh Lupo: And Our kind of push into real estate wasn’t necessarily to build a portfolio as much as it was. What’s the most expeditious way that we can greatly reduce or even cancel out our rent so that we could pay off our debt faster? And that was how we got started in real estate. 

[00:24:14] Patrick Donley: And that, Ali, that was house hacking, right?

[00:24:16] Patrick Donley: Your first purchase was a house hack. Tell me a little bit about that, what that looked like. 

[00:24:21] Ali Lupo: We were very interested in getting a first house hack to reduce our cost of living, but in 2018, which is crazy to say, because now the market is even crazier, but the market was very competitive, so we didn’t really have any money, so we scraped together like every dollar we had, we planned to put 5 percent down, and we were looking at Properties on the MLS on Redfin that everyone else was seeing, and we were putting in offers and we were getting outbid by people that were putting in $50,000 more they were paying in cash.

[00:24:53] Ali Lupo: It just seemed outrageous. . So we like to painstakingly put in probably half a dozen off. Eventually finding our first house hack, it was an off market deal. Our realtor at the time found it for us. It was one of his clients that was selling, and it just was like the perfect situation. I think often when we think about House Hacks, we think about, you must be living in a bad area.

[00:25:16] Ali Lupo: It must not be nice. This was an upgrade from our quote unquote luxury apartment. It was a three bedroom, private, backyard, garage. It was beautiful. It was so nice. And I think that was where Josh got the buy in from me because I saw that our quality of life didn’t have to diminish. I think one thing that I’ll add is very often when couples are trying to get on the same page, and we’ve talked to so many couples about this, one person is super gung ho about.

[00:25:43] Ali Lupo: investing money, whatever. The other person is being dragged along. And I think that’s not sustainable because it creates more of a power imbalance in a relationship. Like we should both be equals, but somehow it reverted to Josh being my manager and he’s telling me what I need to do and how I need to manage my money and what I can spend.

[00:26:04] Ali Lupo: Spend money on, spend money. And I don’t think that’s a healthy dynamic for couples because you should be 100% equal. So I think that getting on the same page and getting buy-in from your partner is so critical because no one should feel like their spouse is their manager. They should feel like they are completely equal partners and we’re making these joint decisions.

[00:26:23] Ali Lupo: So the buy-in is. duplex was like the first piece of buy in that Josh got from me because I was like, oh, it’s really nice. I’m excited to live here. Real estate doesn’t seem that bad anymore. And that definitely helped. 

[00:26:35] Josh Lupo: One thing I’ll add to that is I was very much on the Excel sheet. This is, it’s got a cash flow.

[00:26:41] Josh Lupo: What’s the return on investment? Thankfully, Ali has a better perspective than I do because full disclosure, I was bringing us to the worst neighborhoods. I was just trying to find the best return on investment. I was completely Negating the value of feeling comfortable where you live. And early on, there was a lot of, I think that caused a lot of strife.

[00:27:01] Josh Lupo: And so we go back to the importance of having a joint vision, sharing your values, and communicating. And so the first property that we got, I think was a home run, but a lot of that was because we jointly agreed upon it versus me leading the charge and just going through what the Excel sheet said. 

[00:27:18] Patrick Donley: And like you said, doing a househack, just pursuing FI takes a lot of sacrifices.

[00:27:23] Patrick Donley: Ally, were you on board with the house hacking idea? Because you’ve got roommates or you’ve got somebody living next to you and a duplex. What did you think about that? 

[00:27:32] Ali Lupo: It sounds dramatic. But I really felt like Josh was borderline ruining my life. I was so so. So opposed to all of it. I was going to get my state job and work it for 30 years.

[00:27:44] Ali Lupo: And I wanted to get a nice midsize SUV and a nice two story colonial home. And just we went on one family vacation a year and it was this nice cookie cutter life. And I think. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the only route that I really saw because it’s the only thing that I thought existed.

[00:28:02] Ali Lupo: So when Josh started saying crazy things like investing and being landlords, it just seemed a little too wild for me. It seemed a little too exotic. I was like, I don’t know what this is. It seems scary and it just doesn’t seem like the life that I pictured and I think when we have a vision of what we want our life to look like and then we take a hard left turn, it’s hard to get our brain into that new reality of life and look different.

[00:28:28] Ali Lupo: So I was super opposed. Even when we bought the house hack, I liked it, but I would not call us real estate investors. We’re doing this to pay down our debt. We’re not going to be like people that own a lot of rentals. So it was a lot of fun. a lot of painful conversations and disagreements before I drank the Kool Aid and got really into it.

[00:28:48] Patrick Donley: So tell me more about that. Like at what point did you decide we want to build a portfolio? We want to do more than just this one simple house hack. We want to build your empire, let’s say your portfolio of real estate that is going to fuel your financial independence. Talk to me about that process, like how the steps you took and the strategies that you had for that.

[00:29:07] Ali Lupo: I think that all along Josh wanted that. He wanted it, but he knew he had to temper his approach with me. So we bought the first rental property and in my mind I’m like after the first rental, we’re going to get a single family home. And then we ended up finding a second rental that we hacked again.

[00:29:24] Ali Lupo: It was six houses down from our first. It was great. And then I was like, after that one, we’re going to get a single family home, but that’s, Second rental was a game changer because we lived for free. The cash flow from property one plus, everything from property two, we were now living for free.

[00:29:39] Ali Lupo: We had a 0 housing payment and that’s when it got a little more fun. We were aggressively paying down the debt. We had more disposable income. We were able to travel more and we were seeing those quality of life ripples from making more prudent financial decisions. So then from there it was like, where do we want our life to go from here? And I think once you get into it and you see the potential, your mindset kind of opens up to like, how far can we take this? And I think that second property definitely opened me up to more possibilities. 

[00:30:13] Josh Lupo: And I would say too, that second property came in October of 2020.

[00:30:17] Josh Lupo: Seven months prior to that, the world shut down and similar to 2018, when I got fired and Ali and I had more time than we’d ever had prior to that to really sit down and just talk, but actually listen and cast this joint vision. We were both home from March of 2020 until 

[00:30:36] Ali Lupo: April or May.

[00:30:37] Josh Lupo: So we had two, maybe three months or so. It was our first time being home together for extended periods of time and not just for the purpose of vacation. And I’m not saying that it was a good thing. Obviously, we all know what happened. That was a life changing experience for us in the sense that we said we own a couple of properties now.

[00:30:56] Josh Lupo: Our debt, I think we had paid off maybe half of our debt at that point, but we said, this is nice. How can we craft a lifestyle where we’re home together all the time? Because again, prior to that, we were both back to working nine to five jobs. Prior to that, I would drive with Ali to her job.

[00:31:11] Josh Lupo: I dropped her off at work. We would talk about our visions and yeah. So then I feel like that kind of further instilled in us the importance of, we need to buy as many deals as possible, as well as keep our expenses low. Cause we’d Gotten rid of car payments too. So we were living at that point on, I think, 24, 2, 500 a month, because our housing and transportation were almost nothing.

[00:31:32] Josh Lupo: And so then it was just like, okay, we need to do whatever we need to do to build a portfolio such that we can be together at home all the time. And at that point too, we began the conversation of starting a family and how could we make that happen as well? 

[00:31:46] Patrick Donley: Yeah, I mentioned my wife’s a therapist and when COVID hit, she saw that couples went, it was a real test for all couples, right?

[00:31:53] Patrick Donley: You’re home together day in and day out. You really learn whether you like your spouse or partner or not. So it’s a really great test to see, can you run a business together too? Because running a business, as you guys know, like you’re doing the grind together and it’s, you’ve got the marriage, but it’s also like Ali, you said it’s a business relationship too.

[00:32:10] Ali Lupo: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it absolutely is. I agree with you 

[00:32:13] Josh Lupo: that you’re constantly, especially now as young parents in the span of a 60 minutes, we could rotate where husband and wife were co CEOs, were parents all in the span of 60 minutes. So it’s constantly being able to compartmentalize this work talk and transition to family or.

[00:32:29] Josh Lupo: Interpersonal talk. Yeah. 

[00:32:30] Ali Lupo: Mom Ali is really pissed off at you right now, but business Ali needs to make a decision with you and problem solve effectively. Being able to take those hats off and put a pin in something. Yeah. 

[00:32:44] Patrick Donley: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I wanted to hear during this time, Josh, were you reading, you mentioned Set for Life, but were you listening to a lot of podcasts?

[00:32:51] Patrick Donley: Were there other books that were making a big influence on you as you were thinking about how we can escape traditional employment and get financial independence? 

[00:32:59] Josh Lupo: Yeah, I remember reading the book, Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, and I think one of the things that they talk about in the book is like basically turning your car into a virtual library, if you will.

[00:33:11] Josh Lupo: So I will say in, this was 2017. So from 2017 until now, anytime, unless it’s Ali and I, if I’m in the car, I’m learning. I always have a podcast going. I haven’t really listened to the radio in the better part of seven years per se. So yeah, I am voracious, I could say. say reader, full disclosure.

[00:33:29] Josh Lupo: I struggle with sitting down with an actual book. Now put it on audio or different means of listening to it. I’ll consume the same book five times and hear it six different ways each time. And yeah, I’m constantly learning, constantly studying. I’m grateful for the fact that so many folks like Set for Life’s author, Scott Trench, and Chad Carson. He’s another real estate investor, author, and podcast host.

[00:33:51] Josh Lupo: A lot of these people have become good friends of ours, and so along with learning from their content, also learning from them directly has been really helpful, just as our life in business and real estate has evolved. 

[00:34:03] Patrick Donley: So I want to hear how you guys actually made the move completely away from traditional employment.

[00:34:10] Patrick Donley: Two full time, real estate investors supporting your life and being able to work from home and being able to have the freedom to, essentially do what you want. Tell me a little bit more about that. 

[00:34:20] Ali Lupo: COVID changed everything and I don’t want to minimize the global trauma that COVID caused for so many people and like the negative things, but like for us, a lot of there was some positive that came from.

[00:34:33] Ali Lupo: COVID in the sense that we were home together for three months and we wanted more, we were obsessed. We loved being able to have time with each other. Then I’m grumpy in the morning and I’m exhausted in the evening. I think that I was a school social worker. The schools were hit so hard from COVID, So going back to the schools was really challenging and I was really burnt out.

[00:34:56] Ali Lupo: So the career that I thought I wanted for 30 years, I was like, I don’t know if I can do 30 more minutes. So immediately I was like, I need to craft my exit plan. And Josh was like, this is great. 

[00:35:07] Patrick Donley: Okay. Let’s do it. I’ve been waiting for this moment. 

[00:35:10] Ali Lupo: Yeah, exactly. So I think for us, it was, we’re very data driven and numbers driven.

[00:35:17] Ali Lupo: So it was very like, what do we spend every month? We spent 2, 500. How can we make 2, 500 not from jobs to replace our income that we need? So it was really like Josh and I have been hustlers. We never had money. We never had, family money resources network. So it was literally like. Let’s network our butts off.

[00:35:38] Ali Lupo: We both had full time jobs and multiple part time jobs. We launched the Fi couple on Instagram, not really thinking much of it, but then realizing this can become a business within itself as well. So we just did everything we could to find different types of income streams. We continued to buy some more rentals, but slowly because we were paying down so much debt.

[00:35:59] Ali Lupo: And it was really just doing it in slow motion. I think so often we had 100, 000 of debt. We need to pay that off. No, let’s pay off 5, 000. Then let’s do it again. Then let’s do it again. So with replacing our income so that we could leave our full time jobs, it was the same thing. It was, how can we make 1, 000 not from W 2s?

[00:36:18] Ali Lupo: How can we make 2, 000? And just building it from there. 

[00:36:22] Josh Lupo: And I think, too, in entrepreneurship land, there’s the old adage: jump out of the airplane and build a parachute on the way down. We’re way more conservative than that. And as Ali was saying, as we did all the math, we started okay, we’re 25 percent of the way there, 50 percent of the way there.

[00:36:36] Josh Lupo: Eventually, especially once we began the family planning process, and we began the process of in vitro fertilization, and frankly seeing the toll that it was taking on Ali, we got to the point where we knew. Maybe we can’t yet go, leave our jobs full time, but at the least we could drop down to 50%, so maybe work 15 to 20 hours a week for maintaining our benefits, but also, let’s see how this feels, kind of part time, financial freedom, entrepreneurship, if you will, and it was amazing.

[00:37:06] Josh Lupo: And I think we made that transition, was it 2022? 

[00:37:09] Ali Lupo: Everything we’ve done has been in steps. Like we quit our full time, now we’re part time. We quit our part time jobs, now we’re full time entrepreneurs. So we’ve been very cautious with it and calculated. And I think that’s helped us. 

[00:37:22] Patrick Donley: That’s a really good way to think about it.

[00:37:23] Patrick Donley: Instead of just going cold turkey from a W2 job to nothing, scale it back, take some part time work, take some side gigs, work your way towards that. That’s a really smart way to do it. I wanted to talk a little bit about how you thought about paying down debt. versus making investments in real estate, let’s say.

[00:37:40] Patrick Donley: So let’s say you had a high credit card, 18 percent you’re paying. That’s a pretty good return to pay that off. Talk to me a little bit about your strategy for how you used your money, whether to decide to pay off debt or to use it to buy a new investment property. 

[00:37:54] Ali Lupo: I think the first challenge that we faced, as we’ve alluded to, was we had limited income and we weren’t in industries where we could radically increase our income.

[00:38:04] Ali Lupo: So number one was how can we reduce our expenses? Because that’s something that felt like it was more in our control. So we invested money to reduce our cost of living by house tax. So that was number one. We optimized our expenses and got it as low as possible. From there, it was this cool scenario of having some disposable income.

[00:38:23] Ali Lupo: Now, do we use it to further pay down debt or to invest to make more, more disposable income? We balanced it with quarterly goals. So Josh has 20 whiteboards and we’re big on goal planning and setting this kind of stuff. So we do it by quarterly sprints. Quarter one, we’re focused on debt payoff.

[00:38:41] Ali Lupo: Quarter two, we’re going to save money towards rental properties. Quarter three, we’re going to recoup. Quarter four, we’re going to pay some more debt. So instead of, again, looking at it like we need to pay off a hundred thousand, by breaking it up into smaller, manageable chunks, it helped maintain momentum and motivation.

[00:38:58] Ali Lupo: And it kept it fresh. It wasn’t so monotonous. Like every 90 days, we were shifting focus a little bit. I’d agree with you. We always prioritize very high interest debt, but it got there. to the point where like student loans are at 5%. So we wanted to pay those down because there was the emotional component, but we were pretty good with pivoting back and forth to have a balanced approach with that.

[00:39:20] Josh Lupo: And we also knew, frankly, our debt to income ratio, especially when we got started, our lenders were very transparent with us. They’re like, I think we can underwrite you. This is pretty tight. But if you shave off some of that debt, Knowing what you guys want to do, it’ll help you. So yeah, we would buy a piece of real estate and then, which inherently would add to our balance sheet, yes, good debt, bad debt, but either way, it didn’t always help our debt to income ratio.

[00:39:44] Josh Lupo: So then it just became a matter of, we were almost interest free agnostic. It was just like, what’s the thing that’s going to increase our probability of getting another mortgage? Oh, we have to pay down X amount of debt. And sometimes we had it down to a specific number. Okay. Let’s pay that down.

[00:39:59] Josh Lupo: So that when we go to buy that next rental property, our probability of getting qualified so we can subsequently buy would go up. And then we kept doing that until I think it was February of 2022. We submitted our final student loan payment. And again, that was a pivotal moment because no longer was it to pay off debt or do we buy more real estate?

[00:40:19] Josh Lupo: It was just now we can just invest. 

[00:40:21] Ali Lupo: It was exciting. 

[00:40:21] Josh Lupo: And that was like one of those hockey stick moments for us. 

[00:40:25] Patrick Donley: So I wanted to get into your buy box. Like when you guys are looking for properties to buy, what are you looking for? Are you interested in doing a value add? Are you looking for something right out of the gate that’s going to cashflow?

[00:40:35] Patrick Donley: Talk to me a little bit about what your strategy is. 

[00:40:39] Josh Lupo: Yeah. So for us, we always joke, we’re not chipping Joanna Gaines in the sense that we’re not doing these heavy value add, full gut rehabs and stuff like that. It looks great on the internet. For us, it would just be really overwhelming.

[00:40:51] Josh Lupo: So for us, we always would try to find properties that. weren’t so much distress, but maybe the owner had some type of distress. Are there problems that we can help solve? And in a roundabout way, that’s actually something, from our human services background our focus was never the property, it was on the person.

[00:41:08] Josh Lupo: And so that kind of gave us at a time when real estate gets progressively more competitive, that was always something that kind of gave us a unique edge, if you will. But we like properties that are in, I would say, B class neighborhoods. Small multifamily, so two to four units within close proximity to a walkable downtown.

[00:41:25] Josh Lupo: I joke, but I’m pretty serious about it too. I always like to buy within say two to three miles of a Starbucks as well as maybe like a Target or Home Depot, these big economic drivers, because they have a bunch of data that says this is a fortuitous area for us to operate. And then, if there’s ways for us to improve the property from a cosmetic perspective, great.

[00:41:44] Josh Lupo: A lot of the properties that we buy, the owners have had it for a long time, so the rents are quite a bit below market, so we can improve the operating efficiency from there. 

[00:41:52] Ali Lupo: I want to say, too, for folks that are listening that might be, like, aspiring investors or new investors, Josh just very articulately rattled off the buy box that we have.

[00:42:02] Ali Lupo: When we were looking for our first, even second rental property, it was like, I want to feel safe here and I don’t want it to be like a totally horrific property. We did not even know what the word buy box was. It was really like, I think that oftentimes we ask investors, what’s your buy box? And if you’re new, that can feel overwhelming.

[00:42:25] Ali Lupo: Like you may not know what your buy box is. We didn’t realize certain aspects until we got a few properties under our belt. And we’re like, Oh, we definitely need to look for this in the next one. So I think I am more experienced. Experience and time you have in the game, you really refine what makes sense for you as people and investors.

[00:42:42] Ali Lupo: As Josh said, there are many people doing more like exotic and crazy things in real estate. Like we’re pretty basic and we’re going on fundamentals and it works for us. Like we’re not doing crazy gut rehabs, we’re not buying mega complexes. We’re constantly buying one to two properties a year and it’s gonna get us to our goals just fine.

[00:43:03] Ali Lupo: So I think it’s really knowing who. who you are and what you want to take on and what you want your life to look like. And then that will help you inform you about what types of properties and investments you want to make. 

[00:43:16] Patrick Donley: And are you guys doing your own property management or do you farm that off to somebody else?

[00:43:21] Ali Lupo: So we self manage our units in the sense that we are our main point of contact for all tenants and contractors, but we definitely hire out for the vast majority of work that needs to get done. So if we have, a property maintenance issue or something like that, we definitely hire that work out, but we are still very hands on with, Speaking to tenants and, turning over units and finding new tenants for our properties because I think that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to hand over the reins for that because I think no one cares more about your property than you and it’s really important that we have people in there that are, responsible and going to treat the spaces with respect.

[00:44:00] Josh Lupo: And then as our portfolio has grown, we still manage most of the bookkeeping, but we also have a CPA in service to help manage that as well, to optimize those tax deductions. 

[00:44:10] Patrick Donley: We talked about that. You were on the podcast with Robert Leonard about three years ago. So I wanted to hear a little bit about how Ali and Josh have changed from three years ago to how you are now, like how your mindsets have changed, how your strategies have changed, just how you’re different from those people three years ago that did that interview with Robert.

[00:44:29] Josh Lupo: I think one of the biggest things is, so I, I was an entrepreneur already, and I, in the sense of when we did that interview, but even then my understanding of, what my value was, like limiting beliefs around the value of our time and for us, we’d always been, nine to five workers and stuff like that.

[00:44:46] Josh Lupo: And other people always told us, This is how much your time is worth, in essence, and this is what will pay you for your time. And I would say that today, as predominantly real estate investors, but also entrepreneurs, understanding the earning potential, depending on the skills and knowledge and expertise that you have, I think that can be incredibly important.

[00:45:08] Josh Lupo: And something that Ali brought up prior to us. Kind of getting on is maybe early on when you’re just getting started, not having a lot of money doing scrappy things. Sure. You have to get started there, but I think sometimes what I see too much on the internet now is this: let’s just quit your job and figure it out.

[00:45:24] Ali Lupo: Quit your job. You don’t need good credit. You don’t need any money. You can buy a bunch of rentals and get rich. And I think that as Josh said in the beginning, we had no money. We didn’t have resources. We were very scrappy and we were also very fortunate. That nothing went wrong. But now on the other side of it all, it’s a little terrifying to think what would have happened if things did go wrong.

[00:45:48] Ali Lupo: We would have had to put repairs on credit cards. We would have gotten into more debt and we would have had to figure it out. But now I’m looking at it. I think we have a more balanced perspective of it is important to have savings and cash in the bank and reserves and then more reserves for your reserves and plans and systems in place for when things break and when things go wrong because they will.

[00:46:09] Ali Lupo: We have to replace a roof and we’re getting quotes upwards of 20, 000. We’ve. Ended up finding one for a lot less, but these are things that can happen and you need to be prepared. So I think that we definitely have more, I don’t know what word I want to use, but our perspective is a little more. 

[00:46:26] Josh Lupo: I think it’s a more balanced mindset because I think, yes, we have come to better understand that, your time can be worth so much more than maybe what a traditional nine to five job will pay you.

[00:46:38] Josh Lupo: But on the flip side, until 2023, so last year. We both had part time jobs, nine to five jobs. And I, which was a huge asset. I think something people don’t understand for those who are interested in real estate, they’re very eager to leave the nine to five job. Because they don’t need a job.

[00:46:54] Josh Lupo: How are you going to qualify for a loan? Banks really like W 2 work. I can’t tell you how many people Patrick I’ve spoken to who quit their quote unquote, dumb nine to five job to be their own boss. And then they thought, yeah, I’m just going to walk into a bank. And the bank said, great, come and talk to us two years from now.

[00:47:10] Josh Lupo: When you have a consistent work history, I think yes, so one, understand that your earning potential is much higher than what you thought. We didn’t really understand that in 2021. We have a better appreciation for today, but also understand what a valuable asset, a good, fair nine to five job can be and use it as long as it makes sense and build everything else in conjunction with it.

[00:47:33] Patrick Donley: So I wanted to hear a little bit about it, we talked a little prior to the interview about seller financing. So definitely I agree with you that having a W 2 in place is really important when you’re getting started. It’s really hard to find traditional financing. Otherwise you’re not going to find it probably.

[00:47:50] Patrick Donley: But talk to me a little bit about seller financing, because it seems like that’s an arena that you are exploring or have views. 

[00:47:57] Josh Lupo: Yeah, I think, I almost feel like we’re in a golden era a little bit, where the rate of people who are, I think, turning 65 or retirement age every day is like 10, 000 people.

[00:48:08] Josh Lupo: So I would wager that most of the real estate, rental real estate that’s owned by small landlords, most of those people are probably nearing retirement age, at retirement age, etc. So that’s where most of the real estate is owned. We interface with a lot of people who are at that age and most of them.

[00:48:24] Josh Lupo: They like the monthly income. They’re not interested in fully selling off their portfolio and taking on a really big tax hit right now. And so they’re open to being creative. And a lot of times they have no debt against the properties. And so for us, especially as we were, venturing into understanding how we can continue to grow our property.

[00:48:42] Josh Lupo: Portfolio, but we can’t always put down 25% or we 

[00:48:46] Ali Lupo: don’t want to, 

[00:48:47] Josh Lupo: or we don’t want to. So that kind of forced us to learn what’s often referred to as creative finance. And one of those strategies that we’ve used, we’re about to use it again here in a couple months, is seller financing. Where, instead of us having to do what a bank tells us, the owners of the property become a bank.

[00:49:02] Josh Lupo: So we can negotiate what works best for everyone. And again, to go back to our kind of our human services background and how it parlays into real estate is what problems do these sellers have? How can we solve those in a mutually beneficial way? And so we have retirees right now that act as private money lenders.

[00:49:20] Josh Lupo: And so we’re supplementing their retirement income. And we also have retirees now who are owner financing multifamily properties to us. And we’re helping supplement their retirement income that way too. So it’s mutually beneficial. 

[00:49:33] Patrick Donley: How do you go about finding those people and how do you educate them?

[00:49:37] Patrick Donley: Cause I imagine in a lot of cases, there’s a lot of questions, let’s say for a retiring baby boomer. They don’t know what You’re proposing really. So talk to me a little bit about that process. 

[00:49:47] Josh Lupo: Yeah. So our biggest thing is, we network a ton. I think sometimes people want to just spend time scrolling on Zillow and in their mind, that’s how they’re actively searching for real estate.

[00:49:58] Josh Lupo: And in our experience, maybe more than any other industry, real estate is a people business. So Ali talks a lot about it, we let people know who we are, our backstory. We’re grateful to have the social media platform that we do now where people can learn more about us, but we’re constantly networking to meet people and then through those conversations, better understanding the type of portfolios they have, but then also what their vision is beyond real estate, what kind of lifestyle they’re looking to have, and then if we get the impression that maybe the properties they own, again, these individuals tend to be a little bit older, If they’re not really interested in managing real estate anymore, and we understand that the goals that they have align with something that would work for a seller financing, then we open up those conversations more.

[00:50:41] Ali Lupo: Yeah, I think for us, we really, and again, this is helpful because we invest where we live. So we’re able to do a lot of more personalized networking, but we’re very big on being active members. of our community, getting to know other investors, other real estate agents, people in our area know who we are and they know where we buy and invest.

[00:51:02] Ali Lupo: And that’s not an accident. And we try to communicate that pretty clearly to everyone in our life that we know. And I think when it comes to seller financing and those more creative deals, having that relationship and being what we. term ourselves as professional problem solvers. That’s important.

[00:51:19] Ali Lupo: And I think for us, whenever we’re approaching anyone about a deal, whether we’re looking for a private lender or we’re interested in seller financing, we never want to make anyone feel pigeonholed or pressured. Can you lend us money? It’s more, we’re looking. For private lending opportunities, we have this deal.

[00:51:36] Ali Lupo: Here’s the numbers. Do you know anyone in your network that may be interested? And when you frame it like that, I think it takes the pressure off of the person and it can make them more receptive to different opportunities that you may have. 

[00:51:49] Patrick Donley: Yeah, those are good points. So you, do you guys actively go to real estate meetups in town?

[00:51:55] Patrick Donley: And you’re obviously active online, but it sounds like you’ve really gotten engaged in the community with the realtors, brokers, things like that. 

[00:52:03] Ali Lupo: I will say I’m so grateful we did all of this before we had a kid because life has gone out the window with a newborn. But prior to being parents, Josh has probably taken every person in real estate out for coffee in our city and just picked their brain and connected with them.

[00:52:18] Ali Lupo: So I think a ton of networking. We did go to a lot of real estate meetups. At this point, we’re six years in it. The networking has paid off to the point where we have so many connections. We don’t need to actively network as much. But with that being said, we’re always talking to people in space and all of that.

[00:52:35] Ali Lupo: But yeah, it’s, I think that sometimes it’s I’m on Zillow or, you want that easy button to find deals. And in our experience, Finding deals comes at a cost and it’s either your time or your money. So you’re spending your time actively networking and making connections, or you’re spending your money on people that can do things like direct mailers or cold calling for you or other ways to get access to deals.

[00:52:57] Ali Lupo: So I think that there’s no easy button or like a passive way to get those deals. You’re spending something. 

[00:53:03] Josh Lupo: And something I would say too is like playing the long game. So for instance, in 2022. We bought an off market three unit deal for 190, 000 cash. Now, 180, 000 of that was someone else’s cash, and the property came to us from a lawn care service provider who I had been networking with and we had personally used their service for two years.

[00:53:27] Josh Lupo: And always putting that in their ear. Hey, we’re looking for our next property, this is what we own, if you hear of anything. And it was always, oh yeah, I’ll let you know. One day. After two years of letting them know, he said, Hey, just wanted to confirm. Are you actually looking for properties?

[00:53:40] Josh Lupo: Why? Yes, we are. We found a property and 30 days later, we had it under contract and we had simultaneously been networking with a retired couple who subsequently became the lender on that. So always working those relationships. And I always tell people like a lot of times for assets, when people think of assets, they think of maybe real estate or stock or business or cash.

[00:54:00] Josh Lupo: Social capital, social equity. It grows faster than probably anything else, especially if you nurture it. And that’s been paying dividends now for us for many years. 

[00:54:11] Patrick Donley: How do you build that trust for somebody that’s interested in a private loan and approaching people? Do you have any recommendations on how to build trust?

[00:54:19] Patrick Donley: Because that’s for somebody to give you 180, 000 and loan it to you. That’s a difficult question for a lot of people. So any thoughts on that? 

[00:54:27] Ali Lupo: I think that what’s really important is again, getting to know someone and maybe sharing your background and your story and your experience. I think for a first time investor to get private capital, it may be a little more challenging because you don’t necessarily have a real estate resume that you can show them of this is my experience.

[00:54:45] Ali Lupo: This is what I’ve done. But I think a lot of times when people are looking for private or hard money, they’re going to first maybe handshake relationships that they already have. Maybe they need to go more out beyond that if they don’t have that immediate circle, which we didn’t have family and friends.

[00:55:01] Ali Lupo: So it was more so networking. And for us, we’re very data driven. So we had a property that we were looking at. We had an entire writeup of the property. This is the cost. This is what we think the after repair value is. This is. This is what the rents are going to be and this is what your return on investment would be.

[00:55:18] Ali Lupo: So we just had all of that. So it was very, it’s not Hey, can we borrow your money? It’s very much this is an opportunity if you know of anyone we’d love to talk to. And I think that comes across in a more professional way. Yes, it’s a people relationship building, but it’s a business. So we really try to be as professional as possible.

[00:55:35] Josh Lupo: And one thing we really advocate for more now than ever is building your digital resume. I can tell you that. Over the years on our personal Facebook, whenever we were buying a property or fixing up a property or just in different real estate related activities that we’re doing, we were making posts on Facebook and it wasn’t for the purpose of getting all these likes and comments or anything like that.

[00:55:57] Josh Lupo: Full disclosure, I knew that someone would see that who was also a real estate investor and maybe it wasn’t on the first post, the fifth post, the hundredth post, but at one point in time, someone would see that and it would be the right time and the right place. And again, the prior. money lenders who partnered with us back in 2022 on that three unit deal.

[00:56:16] Josh Lupo: We’re friends on Facebook, right? So we were sharing with them. We were showing the world, if you will, 

[00:56:21] Ali Lupo: it helps with your credibility 

[00:56:22] Josh Lupo: and that paid dividends. 

[00:56:25] Patrick Donley: Yeah, I think that’s such a huge strategy that people overlook and it’s easy to do like you’re doing the project. So just take some photos and throw it up and people like you said are going to see. It does build credibility and trust.

[00:56:35] Patrick Donley: I had an interview yesterday with a guy who he’s a tax professional does Taxes for small business owners and real estate investors and he strictly built his Instagram That’s it, and it’s incredible to me like it’s a blows my mind It makes me realize I need to do more of it So I wanted to hear actually about that When you guys first became the FI couple, you’re on Instagram, sounded like Facebook a little bit.

[00:56:58] Patrick Donley: Did you have a strategy on how you were going to build out this social media presence and how many, how did that unfold for you? 

[00:57:06] Ali Lupo: I wish I could say we did, but we did not. It was during COVID. We had always said we wanted an us thing. Ali goes to her job. Josh goes to his job. We wanted an us. And I literally had a dream and I woke up in the middle of the night thinking that we should start an Instagram documenting our journey to financial independence.

[00:57:26] Ali Lupo: And Josh thought it was a horrible idea because we’re not. We’re not social media people. If you go on our personal pages, we weren’t constantly posting. We weren’t really into that stuff. So it was very out of left field. But I think the drive for it was in our real life, we had no friends or family that had any interest in real estate and personal finance.

[00:57:48] Ali Lupo: And it felt like we had no one to talk to. So we really were craving that community. So if we didn’t have it, why don’t we build it? So we did. And to our surprise, a lot of people also wanted that community and it really helped the Phi couple become what it is today. But we had no content strategy expectations.

[00:58:09] Ali Lupo: I don’t even think we really knew that it could be like a full on. business, but it’s become this incredible means of helping other people learn how to invest, connecting with other investors, networking. I think that we’re much better investors because of the Phi couple and the people that we’ve met along the way.

[00:58:27] Ali Lupo: And I think too, we didn’t realize how much strategy and bandwidth goes into all of that. There’s a lot. It’s been a learning process. 

[00:58:35] Patrick Donley: That’s cool. And we talked a little bit about the potential of doing a podcast. Do you do a newsletter at this point? I’m just curious, like how you have monetized it and grown the community?

[00:58:46] Josh Lupo: Yeah. So I think at the time of this recording, I think collectively we’re right around 300, maybe 300, 000, a little bit more collective followers. Most of that is Instagram. And then as well as Twitter, I think Twitter, we have maybe 76, 000 followers. And then we do have a fairly active newsletter of I think 19, 200 subscribers or so at this time.

[00:59:07] Josh Lupo: And yeah, one, including today, we’ve loved podcasts. Ali was actually a DJ in college. She’s very talented with that. And so it’s definitely something that we’ve thought about for so long. And then there’s always been a reason You know, really the last year or so, two years is, family planning.

[00:59:22] Josh Lupo: So I do think that’ll be the next component of our kind of our media business, if you will. So now it’s just a matter of figuring out how we want to do it and do it well. 

[00:59:33] Patrick Donley: I wanted to hear if it has surprised you the success that you’ve had with how it’s taken off the FI couple.

[00:59:40] Ali Lupo: Yeah. I think it was totally and completely shocking where the FI couple started and then where it’s gone today. I think that what I will say is like the biggest takeaway, especially coming from a human service background of making very little income and you have a boss and they tell you that you get your 2 percent raise.

[01:00:00] Ali Lupo: And it was very like in that mindset, having a digital business. In addition to a real estate portfolio, it’s really opened up our minds to like, there is such an abundance of money in the world and there is such an abundance of opportunities. And we live in a time today where you can make money through your phone and it’s amazing.

[01:00:20] Ali Lupo: And you can, it’s just, it’s been really powerful for us and a big driver in our five journeys. And I think that. If someone’s listening and they’re interested in leaving their job or creating a side hustle, there are so many opportunities through your phone and on the internet to do 

[01:00:36] Josh Lupo: and I would just add that similar to real estate where we didn’t really have these big grandiose visions when we got started, it was just like a means to an end a little bit.

[01:00:44] Josh Lupo: Social media at first, we had no idea what we were doing. It was just like, Hey, a lot of these stories we hear about in financial freedom, they didn’t really make a lot of mistakes. They had high incomes, their family was able to help out. That’s not us. Let’s tell our story. And maybe, the everyday average person can relate.

[01:00:59] Josh Lupo: Fast forward, we’ve learned a ton about social media and we have. A very robust backend system now, and it’s very technical. It’s very calculated and everything that we do. And so one thing I will add to people is sometimes I think the image of social media looks like, Oh yeah, you just click post and 

[01:01:15] Ali Lupo: making little reels.

[01:01:16] Josh Lupo: And there was so much time, energy and effort for a six second video, if you will, that goes into that. So if someone did aspire to make it. A part time business or something that they do, there is so much that goes behind, but thankfully, there’s also so much free information on the internet, similar to real estate that they can learn how to make it viable.

[01:01:36] Patrick Donley: It’s been fun watching your guys’ journey. Like I said, you were on the show three years ago and it’s just fun to see how you guys have progressed. And I wish you all the best, especially with the baby, but for people who want to learn more about you that aren’t, maybe aren’t familiar, how can they learn about you, reach out to you, things like that.

[01:01:51] Ali Lupo: Absolutely, yeah, so we’re at The Fi Couple on pretty much every social platform. We have a website called thermocouple. com, there’s a contact button there. So those are probably the best ways to connect with us through one of our social platforms or directly on our website. People can learn more or reach out, but it’s always nice to connect with folks that hear us via different podcasts and whatnot.

[01:02:15] Josh Lupo: Yeah, thank you again for having us, Patrick. 

[01:02:18] Patrick Donley: Yeah. Thanks Ally and Josh, I really appreciate that it is fun to hear your story. Okay folks, that’s all I had for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed the show and I’ll see you back here real soon.

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