#50: Freedom After 40 - The Joel Krooswyk Story

From time to time, I receive Try Life On stories from subscribers. As I get permission, I’ll share them to help you build your own version of lifestyle and freedom.

This one is from Joel. His words speak for themselves. This is what community is all about... sharing.

Maurice,

I found your blog/emails/podcast at the end of last year. I've been subscribed and reading your posts ever since. If you have a couple minutes, I have a story for you.

I've been thinking about the paths to freedom and I think we chose the hard one, but it still worked.

I just turned 52. I just quit my job as a field CTO at a tech company (you can see my goodbye video from last week here on LinkedIn). Maybe it's FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early Movement), maybe not – but I am so thrilled with this so far.

I grew up with very little. I married my wife 7 days after college graduation. We had $400 between the 2 of us (in addition to some college loans and a car payment). We didn't choose to view life through a lens of abundance – neither of us had ever known it. We scrimped and saved and worked like crazy. Layoffs and life beat us up substantially between 2000 and 2010. Then something amazing.

As age 40 hit, I gained confidence. I got aggressive with our home payment and paid it off within a few short years. I hopped out of my windowless lab engineering job into technical sales, which changed my entire career trajectory and my income potential. I decided to look into rental real estate. We took a $20K inheritance and bought our first run-down rental property in 2014.

Our family of 4 did most of the work on the properties and learned as we went. We fixed up, rented, and sold several properties as opportunities presented themselves. We couldn't afford homes nearby, so we drove 45 minutes to work on houses in an area we could afford.

We slowly moved from those neighborhood homes to the nearby lake houses, catching foreclosures and off-market deals. We currently own 3 houses and a buildable lot on a small lake in Indiana, and we just bought another off-market property. We didn't pull any of the investment money out, rather building up property equity as we went. That $20K is now worth over $1M in property 11 years later.

We now have freedom. We did the long nights, long weekends, and ran hard for a decade, but it gave us freedom. I wish I'd have figured out by 30 what I realized at age 40.

Here's the unique part: my wife was a stay at home mom the whole time (unless she was helping with real estate or doing a little writing for a local paper). We have 2 kids, the last of which is about to graduate – neither has college debt because we covered it with savings.

I share this because I think you're a guy who would appreciate something like this. I've been a guest on many tech podcasts, but never done one on our story. If you are ever starved for guests, hit me up. In the meantime, keep up the good work, and congrats on your incredible success.

– Joel Krooswyk

Joel will be featured on the podcast to tell his story. Sharing early with you because if Joel and his wife can shift their trajectory at 40, build financial freedom from a $20K inheritance, and pay for two college educations along the way, so can you.

“It’s too late” is just a thought. Change it, and your outer world will follow suit.

Joel, thank you for paying it forward. Great thought leaders have understood this paradigm for centuries. You are one of them now.

– Maurice