Real Estate and a different way to think about F.I.R.E. with Krista Mashore

In this episode I interview a very awesome human, Krista Mashore... a woman that is crushing it in the building-wealth department. Krista shares her wisdom in real estate (her niche), and how to save over $100,000 on your home / investment loan AND we talk about a DIFFERENT take on F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence Retire Early). Instead of the traditional penny pinching approach to FIRE (which I loathe), we talk about it from a totally different angle. Tune in!

To find out more about what we talk about in this episode, you can find Krista at https://kristamashore.com/ and grab her book on amazon here 

Plus more on investing in stocks here

xo

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Simone Mercer Huggins:
I've spent the last 10 years learning from the most brilliant minds in money, wealth, and investing to take myself from $20,000 in debt to a multi six figure investment portfolio. He don't know where to start. I get it being that too, but you just being here means you're part of a group of driven women changing the game and taking control. So join in and follow along as they share the secrets towards more money, more investing and more freedom. My name is Simone Mercer Huggins, and welcome to ms. Wealthy's. Kiss my money podcast.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Thank you so much for coming on Krista. It's so awesome to have you on the show and chat to you about all things, real estate and money. Um, so for those of you who don't, who don't know Krista she's actually, I think saying real estate expert is an understatement of the century, you know, the top 1% of realtors in the country, which is just insane. Um, so thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom.

Krista Mashore:
Ah, thanks for having me smile and I'm super excited. I appreciate it. I look forward to this and I love how you're out there helping people. So I'm glad to be of help.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah, no amazing. So I do know a little bit about you, which I definitely want to talk about, but before we jump in, I'm going to ask you four quick, rapid fire questions. So first one, where'd you grow up?

Krista Mashore:
I grew up in Northern California about an hour from San Francisco.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Okay. Nice area. Uh, what's your favorite quote?

Krista Mashore:
Oh man. I that, uh, you know, I don't really necessarily know that I have a favorite quote that I would say other than, um, I just believe that anything you put your mind to you can do as long as you, you never stop. Right. So you just keep on pushing forward. You'll never fail. And so that's kind of any quote related in any teaching related I'm down because if it has to do anything like that.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. Amazing. Good. I love that. Uh, name a one thing you love spending money on

Krista Mashore:
Other people?

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Oh, I haven't had one yet.

Krista Mashore:
I give a lot of money away actually.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Huh. Okay, awesome. Um, finally, what does money mean to you?

Krista Mashore:
Uh, it means freedom. A freedom in both endless stress, you know, and honestly there's more stress.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yup. Totally. Okay. Amazing. I like the simplicity of that. Um, well tell us a little bit more about you. I know, I know some of your backstory and I guess I do want to talk about that because I think our past really shapes us your experience growing up. I know that you moved out of home when you were, and you aren't bringing and where you are today is just like insane. And I definitely wanna pick your brain on that too and talk all things real estate and fire and all that sort of stuff. But tell us about kind of yeah. Your, your background.

Krista Mashore:
Um, well, I was, um, I was raised in as a chose witness and which I, which I absolutely have nothing bad to say about them at all. I love them to death actually. No, that bit. Right. Yeah. But when I was, uh, 13, I kind of started to rebel a little bit and I ended up, um, getting myself into some trouble and finding myself in juvenile hall and then went back and I was running away for about a year before that. So, you know, getting in trouble, running away left home would go home and, you know, and then leave again for about a year until finally I got busted. Um, Mike, I still close from my, from high. Uh, my junior high is clothes and money so that we could have clothes and food, but we were running away basically. And so we ended up getting caught and I ended up getting thrown into, into the system, which was probably the best thing that could have happened because they couldn't control me or keep me at home because until you actually break the law, they can't, the police can't really do anything.

Krista Mashore:
Right. And so I could have gotten in a lot more trouble had that lasted much longer. My life given a lot different. So I ended up, I found myself in juvenile hall for about three months, and then I went to a group home for, for us a year. And then I went to a foster home for my ma my remaining high school, um, tea time. And, you know, it was, it was pretty challenging. I will tell you, I was, I was lonely. I miss my family. I, uh, I never really, I never really, I don't talk about this much. I'm getting kind of emotional. I don't ever talk about this actually. So it's kinda weird. Um, I found myself, but you know, just feeling like I never fit in and I didn't, I always felt like people liked me. I was always just trying to like be this overachiever people, pleaser kind of a person, because I didn't really have that.

Krista Mashore:
Um, you know, the confidence in myself and, and I just always felt different because when you're in a foster home and everyone around you isn't and they all seemed to live quote, unquote, normal lives, you just, you are different and people view you different. And so I spent a lot of years kind of getting past that, I guess you would say. And I ended up reconciling with my parents, um, a few years after high school and, and I'm 48 now. And we've been, you know, closest can be for, you know, 20 some odd years and it's been great, but, uh, anything that I've earned or mermaid or, you know, it was a hundred percent off from me. I put myself through college and paid for every dime of it. And, um, you know, it's yeah,

Simone Mercer Huggins:
That's incredible. You know, I think one of the, one of the, my favorite quotes that really sums up, um, I feel like your experiences, I've never met a strong person with an easy past, and, you know, I was so much so much of the successful people that certainly in our network, for sure, like hearing some of their backstories is just like whole, like you just, you mind's blown about how you could possibly go through that. You and I know that you've just given us a snapshot and like that there was no part of that. I'm sure that was easy. And yeah, it really shapes us in who we are.

Krista Mashore:
Yeah. And obviously, like you said, there's so much more in between that, you know, a lot of counseling, a lot of it is everything. And, and then, you know, it's kind of, life is really up and down. So then I ended up, you know, going through high school, meeting some really great friends and, you know, change the trajectory of where my life was going and put myself through college, worked full time while going to school full time. So I could pay for it and got a few loans here and there. And then I met someone who I thought was like the love of my life. And I ended up getting married at 20, 25. And after my first daughter was born, I found that he was having an affair. And so I stayed with him. And then I found that he was having another affair, uh, when my second daughter was born and she was about three at that time.

Krista Mashore:
So, uh, I got, I got a call one day. It's sitting at the restaurant with my best friends from high school, with another girlfriend just saying, Hey, I just saw your husband. Um, and he's basically, you know, he's being intimate with another woman. So I had a three year old and a five year old, we had just moved into a brand new house. I was a teacher at the time and I had left my full time teaching job to go into, uh, to be home with my daughter because she had gotten sick. She had contracted spinal meningitis and she had, um, a stroke, multiple strokes and kidney failure. And so I thought I needed to be home with her. So I left my full time teaching job, um, two, and in mind you, I had gotten a master's. I took it away, be through school to get a master's degree. And I found that he was cheating and we had just bought in this new house. And I found myself at home alone with a brand new house, two daughters empty bank accounts, and just like, Oh my God. So it was like, Oh, things are bad. And they got to get better. And then it got worse, you know?

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Uh, yeah. I feel like, I feel like sometimes when you think that you were at the bottom of something, lifestyle shows you that it was not the bottom,

Krista Mashore:
You are so true, you know, that's what, you know, that's what I kind of want people to hear is that a lot of times they look at people and they just think that maybe just had it easy. Right. I mean, I was, it was a pretty woman in it and I, all I could think of was what's wrong with me? What could I have done better? I mean, you know, she's younger, she's prettier she's Oh my gosh. Why? I mean, it's just my girls, the stability. I mean, it's just this crazy rule when that goes through your head. And I remember when it was Thanksgiving, I remember very clear it was Thanksgiving and I had the girlfriend knocks on the door and she's picking at my daughters, um, for Thanksgiving. And it was my first Thanksgiving alone. And like watching my girls drive off, you know, and I just sat there drinking a bottle of mine for, you know, a couple of hours crying and just feeling so horrible about my life and my situation embarrassed, you know, sad because my family was ripped apart and just, I was devastated, you know?

Krista Mashore:
And, uh, I remember looking in the background backyard and thinking, you can't keep doing this, you've got to get up, you've got to fight and you've got to provide for your daughters and you need to make it, keep this home safe. So my ultimate goal at that point was I needed to keep my daughter safe in their home. And that was what my, why my, why was keeping them normal? Like the backyard's going to be a Phillip, I'm going to put a pull back there. I'm gonna put a backyard. I'm gonna make them happy to make memories. It's gonna be great. That was my objective. And so I had just went into real estate at that time. I, I left teaching. I said, I'll, I'll just play real estate. I'll do sell one or two or three houses a year, make the same out there that I made as a teacher. And I'll just be a stay at home mom. Well, I had to dive into real estate and I ended up selling 69 houses my first year.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
That is insane, but summer much. And then I, and then you've been doing over a hundred every year since is that right?

Krista Mashore:
Yeah, pretty much. I've, I've sold anywhere from 69 houses do a hundred and 169 were never hunt for when you were born in 69 to 169 one year in between there. I think I sold 17 or 12 because, uh, it was right around, like when I was going through the divorce time, you know, and, uh, I was kind of playing a little bit too hard and the market switched and, um, but then I realized I had to kind of switch the way I was doing business. And so it quickly got, well, you know, averaging a hundred, a hundred a month plus yet every year. Pretty much.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
That is amazing. And so how long have, I don't actually know how long have you, have you been doing it for I'm? I'm guessing.

Krista Mashore:
Definitely.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. Okay. Um, so how did the 2008 crash affects you? Was it kind of major? Was it a good thing? Like,

Krista Mashore:
Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, so it, at first it was, it was the rough right? Cause I was doing super well in real estate. I developed a name for myself, the market changed and all of a sudden we went from, you know, 400 houses on the market, which is completely a buyer's market. I mean, you're talking imagery it for 12 months and 14 months. And so, and then people started losing their houses. So I started researching what was happening and realized really quickly. I needed to get my, to learn how to do short sales. I needed to learn how to do foreclosure. So I started traveling the country and, you know, picking up asset management companies and banks, and I started selling their foreclosures, sewing their assets. And so I ended up my best year ever was actually during the foreclosure time, I sold 169 homes and it was just complete chaos.

Krista Mashore:
And I was miserable because it was just so much work. It was just me and an assistant in a transaction coordinator. So I wailed through it. Right. Did really well. And then the market switched again. So it went back to be more of a normal market. So I went from selling like 120, 160 hundred ish homes a year down to like 12 or 17. That was the time I was telling you, I went, I was like, Oh my God, how does that happen? Right. Yeah. And so there I am in scarcity mode and going, Oh, what am I going to do? So, um, I went on a listing presentation, I lost the listing and I called and said, why didn't you hire me? And they said, we didn't hire you because you're the foreclosure short sale queen. We know you've got known as that. Yes.

Krista Mashore:
I was like, Oh my God, I am, I that's me. Right. So I made the conscious decision at that point. I remember calling my girlfriend. She was actually a lender. And I said, here's my plan. I'm going to, I went to this, this took this training. It was called the, for luxury home marketing. And I started marketing. Every single listing that I had, that was only $200,000 as if it was a million dollar property, right. It page colored flyers and did video tours. I did, I just, you know, social media campaigns, I just marketed them like insanely, inadvertently marketing myself. And then all of a sudden, my business again, went back up, you know, internationally within 12 months because people saw me doing something that nobody else was. I was spending money to make money. I was marketing my, my, my properties, but inadvertently I was marking myself.

Krista Mashore:
And what I always tell everyone is that you have to remember that when you're in business, anything that you do is a replication of how you do business. Right. There's a foreclosure clean because that's all we saw. I quickly became known as like the queen of marketing. Right? So, um, people liked what I was doing cause nobody else was doing it. Nobody else was doing video. Nobody else was doing drone. Nobody else was doing, you know, colored flyers. They weren't even doing black and white flyers. Right. And so they weren't sending out mass media, anything, they weren't utilizing social media. And so, um, I quickly turned it around.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Amazing, good, good job. You,

Krista Mashore:
Well, I mean, you have to be willing, you know, in any business, no matter what it is, you have to be willing to modify what you're doing. You have to be willing, you know, you know this right Simone, like you have to be able to adapt. And the, and the key is to adapt quickly and to make decisions quickly. And you know, you, the more you make decisions and market, you might, you might fail, but you'll make more, more positive ones work succeeding because you can make more quickly.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean the most successful people certainly that I know fail more than anyone I know. And like the reality is most people just aren't prepared to fail. Like, and I get it. It's hard.

Krista Mashore:
It's all down. Seven times you get back up eight. Right. And you know, I mean, after all that I told you, there was plenty of things that I tried that I failed. I mean, I did, you know, I tried to do various businesses, you know, within that timeframe to kind of get out of real estate or does it's different than real estate. And I failed miserably, spent years on, you know, 12 months on projects, 19 months on projects that just didn't go anywhere. But then if you know, I'm a coach now and I killed you agents across the country. Um, we don't have anybody in Australia. We've got people in Canada, but nobody yet.

Krista Mashore:
And, uh, I decided that I was just tired of real estate, right. I mean, I'm, I'm an expert and I've sold the most 2000 homes over 2000 homes. And I've been in the top 1%, you know, 16 years plus. And it was just like, I am tired. And so I decided to change what I was doing and not, not just so, but now coach and tons of problems. I mean, we ended up spending so much money to get the coaching company off its feet. And I remember, you know, one of my sales people calling me crying, just like, I can't do this anymore. Like I can't call one more person and have them tell me no, like, ah, get my program away for free. And I had to coach people for free and, and I had to spend a lot of money and lose money on my, on my other business.

Krista Mashore:
Right. Cause I, my focus wasn't there. And then it was a mess. And I mean, I could have given up a hundred times, but from all the different things that didn't work and then all of a sudden one day it did. Right. So, um, the two comical boards that you see up there are from, you know, within 18 months, we, we did really, really well, uh, coaching, but it's because we took the risk. We didn't stop. We had eight months of not making any money. And then all of a sudden, bam, it hit and the second one hit quicker and then quicker. Right. Right. But most people give up before they ever have a chance to even succeed.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. No, completely. And it's hot and it doesn't matter if you're in business or if you're looking to invest or if you have a career or whatever it is, the thing that you're trying for. Yeah. It's, it's always so close and yeah. You just gotta keep going. Like, especially if you're passionate about it, which obviously you are, and you're proven to be so good at it. Um, and in, in that career, in your career, you've obviously written a couple books. One of them in particular, I want to talk about, um, which is your fire book.

Krista Mashore:
Have you read it? You haven't read it, have you?

Simone Mercer Huggins:
I haven't read it. I mean, obviously I know the concept and for those who don't know what fire is, it's fi financial independence retire early, that's it

Krista Mashore:
But itself.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
So your approach and I'm guessing based on the subtitle is the idea that you have to go off to the thing that you want to retire early, not sitting in your job, is that right?

Krista Mashore:
Yeah. So basically it's a, it teaches people how to find out, you know, first of all, find out what they're passionate about, not just what they're good at, what they really, really love doing. Like maybe they've had an experience, like for example, maybe they've gone through a horrible divorce and they figured out a way to be able to get along with the other parent, right. Or maybe they've figured out some, maybe they're great at organizing or whatever it might be. Maybe they're a great teacher and they love teach math and they think they want to go to teach for children's. We teach them how to figure out what it is that you are really good at, that you love doing. And then we teach them how to monetize it and do marketing. And the biggest, the biggest part of most people's problem is marketing, right?

Krista Mashore:
Is that they have this great idea, this great concept. But if nobody knows about your concept, then you know, you're never going to get it out into the world, but most people have trouble even figuring out what the hell they even want to do. And what do I want to do? What do I like? And then they don't know how to put that into a plan. And you know how to really take into accountability for, well, what's it going to cost me and how many resources am I going to need and how much time is it going to be in that time relates to resources and money as well. Right? How do I manage all this? And can I do it, you know, while I'm still working or do I need to quit my job? And it just kind of goes through all of that.

Krista Mashore:
And even if you're not working, there's there's women that have been married, right. That their husbands leave them with their wives, leave them there. They were the primary of anymore. Or maybe even a stay at home mom or stay at home dad. And all of a sudden, um, their kids are going, I've gone off to college. And they were like, Oh my gosh, I'm empty nest. Or like, what am I gonna do with myself? Or even, or it's somebody who's been working at a job that they, and they just feel like they're, you know, I'll tell you a story. I was in, uh, North Carolina and I was talking to my best friends, uh, has been in and I was telling them about this book I was writing and all this. And, and she said, and he goes, Oh my gosh, you know, I just, I don't love what I'm doing.

Krista Mashore:
And I just wish I could quit and did it. And she went over and she tapped him on the back and she said, honey, you only have, you know, uh, 25 years left. That's all you have 25 more years and then you can retire. And I'm thinking to myself, are you kidding me, 25 more years? Like that is just shoot me now. And I want to kill myself because I don't want to stay stuck and miserable for 25 more years. Right. So many people feel that way. And the book really teaches people how not to feel stuck, how to understand that there is a way out, right? And that your, your fear can hold you back forever. And you'll never ever move forward and make a difference and make a change and be happy. And sometimes you might need to take a few steps back to take, you know, seven steps forward, right.

Krista Mashore:
And you will eat. You're going to, but by the time you get to that place where you're in loving what you're doing, you know, you feel fulfilled and you have abundance, not just in money, but in your relationship, how you feel about yourself, your happiness, your, you know, your spirituality, every aspect of you, you automatically start soaring. And it isn't always financially at first. Right? I mean, but eventually it will be if you keep going. And so the talks all about that, and it teaches you once you figure that out, how do you actually know market it? Right. So we talk heavy emphasis on utilizing video and social media and how to really dominate in your, your profession in your, in your new career. Um, and it's, it's really works great like locally as well.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. Okay. I love that. And what, you know, what's really different is it's not the traditional, um, well, it's not the common, I guess, ex explanation of what fire is. It's like financial independence retire early. And what I really love about that, and I actually, I actually hate the mainstream fire exponent because it's all about scrimping and saving and being super frugal to the point where you barely live your life so that you can save up enough to retire early and live off that. But it's like, I just see. So, and look, it works for some people and that's awesome, but I see so many people in just this constant struggle mode, trying to scrimp and save every single thing. And yet

Krista Mashore:
He's never going to create wealth. You're never going to, it's

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Not the formula. And this is not certainly from what I see in the fire in the traditional fire movement is there's just not enough focus on how to actually build wealth, create real wealth, get proper returns, uh, invest it. Well, you know, like if the focus is on penny pinching, not making more money, like I can, it's just, it drives me so insane because it creates this hate relationship with money that like, it should be squandered so that you might get like a couple more years, but it's like, yeah, but your life's now too. Like you're living life now as well.

Krista Mashore:
It's so true. And you know, when you're, um, like you said, when you're miserable like that, I mean, you ha it's a bad relationship with money. You need to be making personal investment in yourself. The quickest way to make any kind of money is to make a personal investment in yourself. Right. I mean, for example, you know, I couldn't afford school. I put, I got alone. I put myself through college, right. And then I couldn't afford my master's degree, but I worked full time. And then, you know, and went to school, work from eight, from 10 to six and went to school from six 30 to 10, you know, four nights a week and worked fine. It was not fun. So you invest in yourself and then you take the money out to do so. But then that now, I mean, not my, my teaching credential, my masters degree, you know, it's now what helps me coach. Right. And really, really good at it because I made that investment, which at the time kind of hurt and paying the student loans and, you know, and not being able to party like my friends and do all the fun stuff in at school. And I was just working, you know, eight hours a day, but it's, it's paid off, but it wouldn't have worked. And had I been so worried about, you know, having that debt that I I'd still be, I'd be working at Costco still. Right. What I've been doing.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Right. Yeah. It's funny. Like, and certainly part of, part of the massive methodology methodology that I teach is all about, obviously, as you know, I teach women to invest in the stock market, but I'm, I'm a big believer in, in a, in a full portfolio of all assets, including real estate, which I do as well. Um, but also this idea that debt, not all debt is bad. Like the such this is a massive hookup and yes, if you're paying 25% on a credit card yeah. That's crappy, like stop it. But, um, yeah, like not all debt is bad and lent. And yet, so many people forget that when they take on a home loan, even for an investment property or even your own home, the majority of it is debt, but most people have no problem with that because we're just conditioned into thinking, believing, feeling that home debt is okay, but like personal debt, investing yourself and, you know, bettering yourself is not great. Like that's what blows my mind.

Krista Mashore:
It's kinda like you though, like you invested in, you know, the two comma club, right? Like, and that's what you're like $18,000 for the year. Yeah.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Right. Yeah. And that's us. So with the Australian conversion rate right now, it's like three or three for 1.5. So it's 50% more.

Krista Mashore:
Oh, it's a hundred percent.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
50%. More

Krista Mashore:
54. Okay. So you paid it. Okay. You did a lot,

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Right? Yeah. About like 20, 28. Yeah.

Krista Mashore:
Yeah. A lot of money. So, but you did that because number one, you know, that you, it takes money to make money. It takes knowledge to make money and the quicker that can buy the knowledge to make the money, to get there spinner the faster you mean, you know, time is, is equivalent to money. Right. So if you don't have the knowledge to get you where you want to go more quickly, then it's going to take you seven, eight, nine, 10 years. Right. Whereas you can take pay for the knowledge and then you can get there in one, two years. Right. And that people don't see it that way. It just, it amazes me. I mean, here, here I am the kid from juvenile hall in a foster home, in a group home. Right. Who, you know, now I own eight or nine homes outright.

Krista Mashore:
No debt, never, no one's ever given me a dime. It's all from hard work, investing in myself, investing in my business and then investing back continually. Right. Um, and, and, you know, I'm no different than any person listening to this. I am. In fact, I'm in fact, I have a learning disability. I'm probably dumber than most of you that are listening. I was doing a training today, as a matter of fact. And it was actually talking about how you're using it. Tell me at the line of credit to then just a whole new way of thinking about paying, paying your mortgage. Right. Took me longer than anybody else in that room to get it. And then finally, Oh, I get it. But like I kept saying, and I kept asking the questions and then finally the light went off. So I'm the person that has to do things five times when you do it one. Right. But the thing is, is I'll do it five times.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. Whereas some people will do it half or one and yeah.

Krista Mashore:
Like 97% of people are not truly willing to do what it takes or sacrifice anything. Like they want to have everything given to them. And then they're not willing to sacrifice their lifestyle or they're not willing to get up earlier to go to bed later or to origin, not maybe get that Starbucks every day or not, you know? Like what can I say no to now? So that I can say yes later? Like what can I say no to now? So I can say yes later.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
And it's like, it is a hard truth, but you're so right. Like something I learned in, I don't know if you know, Chris hada he's has this awesome podcast called for the love of money. And in one of the episodes, it talks about how, if you stood in a room of a hundred people and you asked him the question, do you want to, you want financial freedom? Like a hundred hands would go up maybe 99. Cause you know, one person has his hookup about how money is bad or something, but like most people, and yet you asked how many people are either on the path or have the steps or getting the knowledge to get there or be already there. And there's like maybe five because you're right. Most people just are not willing to do what it takes to actually get there. They want to, if we live in this instant gratification world now of waves and Uber and Uber eats and we have, we can get everything now and off to pay is making it so much easier if you can't get a credit card. And yet yeah. You're so right. Like people, it, but they're just not really willing to do the work.

Krista Mashore:
So how do we, how do we change that when people,

Simone Mercer Huggins:
I honestly, I wish I knew the answer because I feel like sometimes I'm screaming at people going, do you realize what you're missing out on not investing? Like now, do you realize like what you're leaving on the table waiting a year, two, three, four, five, and that one year turns into 10 years. And you could literally be hundreds of thousands of dollars for their head. If you like, I don't know. People say what they want money, but I just,

Krista Mashore:
Yeah, I didn't get it. This is like talking about, do I believe a person's their best investment is investing in themselves. Right. So let me ask you a question. Is his blood good or bad?

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Uh Niva

Krista Mashore:
Well, really it was blood good or bad blood. Oh good. Okay. That's good. Right. But it depends upon the circumstance. Right? If the blood is being poured on the ground or if there, if you get a blood transfusion and Scott AIDS, blood is not good. Right. Okay. So, and, and answer this like, like you would, if you didn't know, I was trying to trick you. Okay. Is what, sorry. That good or bad. Well, most people will say bad, but I think it's, it can be both. It depends. Right? It depends. If you're using that debt to create more liabilities or you're using that debt for your personal investment in yourself to make more assets. Right. So yeah. Is not a bad thing. If you're utilizing it to invest in yourself, to get the knowledge, to say at the time to make the money, right. That's bad.

Krista Mashore:
If you're buying cars and trains and vacations that you can't afford, but when you have debt, it's just like blood, blood is great. Cause you need to survive. It's inside your body. Once it leaves not a good thing. If it's contaminated, not a good thing, debt, the exact same thing, debt that you have to create more liabilities, not a good thing, debt that you have to create more assets to get less liabilities later. Good thing. Right. And that's what people are just, they're so afraid to invest in themselves to take the time, to put it in. Um, and quite frankly, what's the worst thing that can happen. You'll file a bankruptcy, right? I mean every darn billionaire millionaires file a bankruptcy, most of them have so invest in yourself. Don't take no for an answer. Like figure out what you love. Be committed, have pain now of loss, of getting to do whatever you want. So you can have way more on later and just make a commit and do it.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. I know. I, I, honestly, I wish I could play that like on repeat at a loudspeaker and drive around the street.

Krista Mashore:
Maybe that don't change. People's hands down. Like you were predicting the quiet, like we see that there's language, you know, it's hard to like, you know, we are in

Simone Mercer Huggins:
The same world where we surround ourselves with people who are doing it, getting it

Krista Mashore:
Commend their better. And that's really like the best way better is by being around people that are better than you are learning from someone that's better to me, that's done that. It's been there. I mean, that's the only way to do it.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, but I, I also do forget that the world that we surround ourselves with, uh, not the majority of the population, like when you look at the pro, like when you look at the stats, 80% are people that paycheck to paycheck.

Krista Mashore:
I just read a stat and you're so right. So I just listened to a podcast and it was saying that seven out of 10 men lived paycheck to women that they get a paycheck and men, men, sorry, women seven out of 10 women live paycheck to paycheck. And eight out of 10 men lived paycheck to paycheck. So less men than women, seven out of 10 women ended up 10 men. And that if people needed to get, you know, a thousand dollars to save their life, because it's contrast, we have 95%, we could never do it. They couldn't even access. And that to me is just so scary. So change that you are the only one responsible for creating the life that you deserve. One more time. You are the only one responsible for creating the life that you deserve. That's my club. Okay. And it's just so true. So take control and do it. And don't take no for an answer and you're going to fall and you're going to hurt and you're going to fall again. You're going to think it sucks and it's not going to work. And then, Oh my gosh. And then one day it's going to, yeah,

Simone Mercer Huggins:
It will it's and you know, I think that word control is such us, so bang on. And because like we certainly in the world that I live in full of financial advisors and brokers that take massive commissions and fees and yet people pay it and hand their control and hand them money over. And it's, I think about people stepping into owning the responsibility and owning the control and stepping up and being okay with it, falling on their shoulders. But like, rather than giving that control over, like, you could literally have the control, like the control is in your hands and possible. But I think that that is so scary for so many people. Like it's so missing the teacher, like yeah. True. Well, you, um, so I want to pivot for a moment. I want to talk about like, from the, from the other side of your world, when it comes to real estate, what would you, can you throw out some gold nuggets for people who either buying homes or buying investment properties? You know, I have my view in terms of, um, I always think that having 20% down is like necessarily, um, as a homeowner obviously, or an investment property. Um, I think that's it, that's a big, big thing for me, but I want to hear your kind of big things around, what do you have

Krista Mashore:
Big things around? I think that first of all, um, six out of 10 people have not repurchased a house from the crash. So six out of 10 people have not reentered the housing market from the crash. Wow. Let me explain to you. Most of them have, that's crazy. I know most of them have the ability to five, six years ago, right. They could have re-injured after five or six years of losing their house. Right. Which means that they would have re-injured the market back then they would have, you know, if you just take your house, let's just say in my area that at that time was worth $200,000. That house now is worth $500,000. Right. So if you could have entered the market with three and a half percent down FHA, as long as you could afford it, and it didn't financially hurt you based upon the fact that, you know, I would have been a million dollars and the market was going to keep go up.

Krista Mashore:
Right. And I would have said, yes, get in the market, do what you can to get in even now, still. So, um, they are anticipating that we're going to have just normal appreciation. So, and I'm talking United States. I'm not sure it was like an Australia normal appreciation over the next three to five years through 2020. Okay. 2022. So we're in 19. So three more years, which means that over, if you take a house that's $250,000, you're going to make 44,900 plus dollars in the next, from now until 2020 in appreciation. Okay. That means that even if somebody enters with little down there, at least they're going to have money, plus they have the tax write off the interest. So I say, yes, yes. Own any time. I also say never, never sell unless like the market was even completely crashed when you got to think of where you're at in life.

Krista Mashore:
But when I meet with investors, I meet with homeowners. The first question I asked them is, can you save this property? Do you need to sell, can you, can you maybe take me out of this property, put down in the next one, keep this one rented out to accumulate wealth, right? So I say, buy, buy, buy, hold, hold, hold for as long as you can. And another really great strategy is actually to get a home equity line of credit off of your Mo off your mortgage. Everyone should be doing this, right. So as long as you've got 20% equity in those cases and good enough credit, they will loan you up to 10%, you know, homophobia line of credit. You, then you need to start thinking about your bank account. Okay. Your home, if you like line of credit, like your bank account. So what are the banks do? And this is, I'm getting kind of deep here. Is that okay?

Krista Mashore:
Really hear me. Okay. So what do the banks encourage us to take all of our money and put it in the bank? Right. All of our money. And they say, okay, they go, um, you know, to China. And he said, okay, China, I have 600,000, $600 billion a year of other people's money. What can you loan me on this as a line of credit? So they said, okay, we're gonna give you $500 billion. Right. Then they take that and they take that money. And then they sell that money, hopefully. Right. And even if they lose it, they have trained, they lose it. It doesn't matter because our money is FEIC insurance. So we're okay. Alright, well, let's just take that money. Then they borrowed from our money. Okay. And then they pay, um, they make a hundred grand because they sell it for more money. Then they take that down.

Krista Mashore:
Now that money, they had that $5 billion they owed is now paid back. They have a hundred billion dollars into loan loans and stuff on that. So they're utilizing our money to continue to get rich. But what we need to start doing is to utilize our money, to get rich. So you need to, if you were to take money from and make a line of credit, right. And then you pay your mortgage and all of your expenses, let's just say your cost to live cost of living is $7,000 a month. Okay. And let's just say that you, um, that you make $10,000 a month. All right. So you're then going to take money out of your home equity line of credit. You're going to pay down your mortgage balance. Okay. So now your mortgage balance goes to sleep from 500 to $485,000. By doing that, you're going to save around 20 months of payments and around 40 plus thousand dollars in interest.

Krista Mashore:
And if you do that and then again, then you get paid, you pay backroom if the line of credit, cause that goes down. Does that make sense? Yeah, it was kind of confused, but you do this over and over again by month six, your home equity line of credit is paid off. You've met, you've paid six. You've been paying your mortgage in that payment. And then you then again, do the same thing over you then to get a draw 25,000, pay that towards your, your home, your home. You're a principal. And that principal goes from 500 to 45 from 45. What, when you have a thousand dollars more, then you've saved. It's like in a matter of 14 months, you'll save about $155,000 and you'll save 81 months and payment. It's just insane. I mean, that's, that's what the banks are doing. So we have to start looking at how we view money, how we view loans, how we view interests differently. And that that's a different strategy that, that I can go on all day about that.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. Particularly at the moment with our current interest rates being so low. I mean, I know given you've been in the market for 17 years, you would have seen them a double, double what we're currently paying. And I think that that's a, um, you know, I think a lot of people really need to understand that, like, especially for people that are buying on 5% or even 10% down, that it's not about what you can get in at it's, whether you can service the loan at double the interest rate you're currently paying, which is, you know, historic lows, um, yeah. And, and understand totally 100% understanding that banks use our money,

Krista Mashore:
The way to use our money, right? It's not stop, you know, so you can pay off credit card debt using this scenario. You can pay off student loans, you can pay off just about anything. And again, it's by, and if you don't have a home, you can also, you can also utilize this doing a credit card. It's just thinking about things differently. And we've been trained so much that, Oh, debt is bad, but really when you have a, uh, a home and there's equity, that's like a bank account that you can utilize to then spend their money instead of spending years to make them more right. Totally bottom line. Yes. Own a home. Do whatever you can. If you're listening to this and you don't think that you can, most homeowners can buy can, it can, most people can afford to buy. And they don't know.

Krista Mashore:
They can't. They think they need more money. They think any more money down, not true. Go talk to somebody, go speak to a real estate agent that you trust. Back's reach out to me and I can get second with a community market leader. We're all over the place and they will take great care of you. Right. And if you're listening to this, you're like, I just want to get coached, then call me. And I will teach you how to like kickstart your business and really have a different kind of mindset about life and business and moving forward. Totally different perspective on fire, for sure. Yes. It's totally different. I mean, I'm passionate about this. I'm, you know, I'm 48 years old. And so I see so many of my friends and people that, that I, that we're, we're close to both men and women that are just either stuck and they hate their job or they're just like, what the hell do I do? Or their husbands have left their wives, the lesson, like, Oh my gosh, I'm screwed. Now. I'm going to look at tar target. I mean, and that's not the case, but we need to teach them. There's so much more to do it. And so I'm very passionate about this because I want people to be happy. Right. Like, yeah. And just to know that life is not about that.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Yeah. I agree. Yeah. It's it breaks my heart when there's like, even those means like, well, there's whatever hashtag things about, you know, Oh my God. Monday. And thank God it's Friday. And it's like,

Krista Mashore:
But that's like the large majority of your life. I know. Yeah. That's scary. It's hard getting there. It's a hard road, but you know, if you want something bad enough, as long as you know, what your, your why, like my, why I remember when the girls w when I was, you know, stranded in my house with no money in a burning house and two kids, my wife, my kids, my girls got to keep him safe. Keep, I want to make them happy security. Right. I need to show them that they're they are just fine. Yeah. That was, that was, I was in scarcity mode for a long time, but that why, right. It pushed me to just, I was so fearful of losing everything. I didn't stop. And in my now my, why is, you know, I want to help other people. And I know that I want to show my daughters that, you know, how great it feels to be a philanthropist and how good it feels to help people.

Krista Mashore:
And, um, yeah, I didn't do it. But when I left juvenile hall, I got a scholarship for about $2,500 a semester. And it wasn't a lot of money, but it was a lot of money to me then, because even though I was paying for my college and my books and everything else, it meant pretty much that I could eat and then pay for my books pretty much for that next quarter. Right. Which was great. But they w when they gave me the scholarship, they said, Krista, when you do better, and when you get older, I want you to short to remember this and to pay it forward. So I was reading the book Napoleon Hill think and grow rich. Right. And he talks about you're going to have, um, that people have ideas. And most people, when they have these ideas, they freeze, or they don't act upon them, but you want to get this idea that you need to act upon it, right.

Krista Mashore:
Don't wait. Like something's gonna come to you. And when it does go for it, I was reading a book and I was, and he was talking about the school system and how kids, um, they just aren't taught leadership there. They aren't taught to have good mindset. They aren't taught that they can do whatever they want, but they have to just work for it. And they aren't taught that, uh, you know, the power of positivity and the power of giving. And so I thought, Oh my God, you know, I was a teacher. I knew this was true. So I went to my computer. I wrote on Facebook. I want to help, you know, uh, 30 kids, I'm going to pay them a thousand dollars each. And you're going to read a book with me, and we're going to go through a training. And, you know, you gotta promise not to be, not to drink alcohol or do drugs for that eight weeks.

Krista Mashore:
You gotta promise to pay it forward. Every day. You have promised to read the book and be on a call with me once a week. Right. I started this nonprofit called teens lifting lives. And it's basically money that I, a hundred percent comes from me, money that I earned. And again, I am by no means not rich. I just, I told you, like, I like to be a philanthropist. So I pay kids to go through a training with me now through teens lifting lives. And, um, when I pay them money, the first one was a thousand dollars and I pay him 750, but they have to give $250 back to their community. So they've got to pay for that. And they have to do two random acts of kindness every single day. And it has taught them, wow, I can do this. Right. So there was a reason I was telling you that, but, you know, I know that I was built, put on this earth to serve and to help people and be like, you know, it really, and that, you know, I could have just listened to that book and then, and then grieve with my money.

Krista Mashore:
And, but I know by doing that, I'm getting more, right. It's, it's helping me by giving, you know, you receive more. And so, um, I I'll know that I'm really successful when I could spend just as much as I make all the time. That's, you know, to help people like to give back to serve. That's all know that I've made it and I'm not anywhere near there yet. I'm getting there, but I'm, you know, my goal is to, to donate about a hundred thousand dollars a year to teens lifting lives. Um, we just, you know, and, and, and it means something, you know, so

Simone Mercer Huggins:
That's amazing. I love that. And really, like, I think that's so much more powerful than just giving money. Obviously giving money away is like freaking amazing, but what you're doing every day engagement, changing, you know, that honestly, it's changing every wiring around giving and helping and contributing to other people as well. Yeah. And holding them accountable. Um, but yeah, which is just, that's beautiful. Um, thank you so much for coming on Krista. I, I'm going to put your info in the show notes, but where can people find you if they want to find you?

Krista Mashore:
Yeah. So you can get my book fire it's actually on Amazon. So it's fire financially, independent retire early, your crappy job. Won't quit itself. I book called sell a hundred plus homes a year. So if you want your real estate agent, you want to know how to sell a hundred homes a year, this bit wealthy, and then you can go to shore it's K R I S T a M a S H O R e.com. And I ended up at our programs and our books and everything we have to offer. And that's it find me on Facebook. Yeah.

Simone Mercer Huggins:
Thanks so much. Um, I love your insights. Thanks for showing me a Jim's on, you know, honestly, literally saving over a hundred thousand dollars on your home loan and, you know, making money work for your Haida. That's amazing. Um, yeah, it's, it's been awesome to have you on and chat to you. Thank you.

Krista Mashore:
I appreciate it. I love what you're doing. You keep it up smoke. Okay.