109: Attacking Debt and Tenaciously Pursuing Financial Freedom with Airman Mildollar from Military Dollar

This week, we sit down and talk with Airman Mildollar, from Military Dollar. (Spoiler Alert: Despite the name, Airman Mildollar is a woman!) Airman Mildollar shares her story of college debt, car loans and rapid payoff to start building her wealth to become financially free, despite not being married, having kids or working in tech. In fact, she’s an officer in the Air Force. She shares her systematic goal setting and goal reaching strategy that allowed her to pay off her debt ahead of schedule - including stretching her military benefits to cover more than just food or housing. She started reading finance blogs and books and starting putting money away. Moving in with a friend reduced her rent payment, and she began investing in a Roth IRA, opened up a TSP (Military version of a 401k) and also invested in individual stocks in after-tax accounts, saving about 20% of her pay. Every time she received a raise, she committed to put at least 50% of that raise into her investments. In 2011, she bought a rental house as she was deploying, put tenants in place and then went overseas for one year, returned home and bought another property for herself to live in. Originally intending to live there for a year then rent it out, she ended up staying for two years then selling to realize HUGE tax-free gains. 2013 is when her Financial Independence journey really hit its stride as she read Your Money or Your Life, and she took a much closer look at her budget, finding another thousand dollars to put into her investing. MilDollar shows that you CAN become financially independent on your own, without working in an ultra-high-paying job, when you diligently pursue your goal. In This Episode We Cover:What an airman isAirman Mildollar's money journeyWhere she got her scholarshipsHow she creates financial freedomThings she did on managing her financesThe reason why she didn't do househackingOn her housing and food allowanceHow she discover FIRE communityWhat Thrift Savings Plan isHow she finance her propertiesOn her rental propertiesHer plans in the futureAnd SO much more!Links from the ShowEarly-Retirement.orgEarly Retirement ForumSaving-SherpaGet Rich SlowlyMr. Money MustacheAirbnbBiggerPockets Podcast 364: Snowballing 6-Figure Short-Term Rental Profits Into Passive Investments with Avery CarlBiggerPockets Money Podcast 98: Change Your Money Mindset, Change Your Life with Vicki RobinFinConBiggerPockets Money Facebook GroupBiggerPockets Money Survey