The richest person I've ever met at a closing table wore a Carhartt jacket and drove a 2009 Silverado with 210,000 miles on it
I assumed he was the contractor
He was buying the house next to mine. Cash. His 63rd
He's a retired mailman
We talked in the title company parking lot for 40 minutes and he rearranged my brain. This man delivered mail for 31 years. Never made more than $61,000 in a single year. His coworkers retired with a pension and a bass boat
He retired with 63 paid-off rental houses and around $52,000 a month in rent
I asked him how. He said something I think about constantly:
"One house a year. That's it. Everybody wants ten houses by Tuesday. I bought one ugly house a year for 30 years and let the tenants pay for all of them"
His system was almost embarrassingly simple:
Every year he bought the cheapest structurally-sound house he could find in a working-class neighborhood. The kind of house that scares regular buyers. Bad carpet, ugly kitchen, overgrown yard. He paid $30,000-$80,000 depending on the decade
He fixed ONLY what mattered. Paint, floors, a clean kitchen, working systems. He never once installed anything fancy. "Tenants don't pay extra for granite. They pay for clean and safe"
He rented it out and used the rent to pay the mortgage. Then he mostly forgot about it
Here's the part that made me put my coffee down. I asked him how much of his own money was still in those 63 houses
"None. Hasn't been for 20 years"
Every few years he'd refinance a few houses (the bank hands you cash against the value of a property you own) and use that money to buy the next ones. The tenants' rent paid back every loan. His mailman salary paid for his groceries and that was it. The portfolio built itself off its own rent
Nobody at his job knew. For 31 years. He said his supervisor found out two weeks before he retired and thought he was lying
Then he told me the thing I want tattooed on the inside of my eyelids:
"People think real estate is fast money. It's slow money that gets fast at the end. The first 5 houses feel like nothing. The last 30 bought themselves"
The math on his "boring" pace:
Year 1: 1 house, maybe $400/month in profit after the mortgage
Year 5: 5 houses, $2,000/month
Year 10: 10 houses, $4,500/month and the early ones are half paid off
Year 20: 25+ houses, $12,000/month, refinances funding everything
Year 30: 63 houses, $52,000/month, wearing a Carhartt to closings and confusing 25-year-olds like me
He never had a viral moment. Never raised money. Never watched a course. He bought one unsexy house a year in a flyover state and let three decades of rent do the heavy lifting
Meanwhile people won't start because they can't have 55 houses by age 27
You don't need 55. You need ONE this year. The mailman math works at literally any speed
He shook my hand, got in the Silverado, and drove off to Home Depot. 63 houses. $52,000 a month. 210,000 miles on the truck
Most retirement plans are a prayer. His was a paint roller
If you want to flip a house but have $0 in the bank, you can get funded for up to $150k with a hard money loan or 0% APR credit cards. I'm going to keep sharing what actually works, keep an eye out
This is real footage from 120 years ago.
None of the people in it knew that the city around them had four days left...
What you are watching is a cable car gliding down Market Street in San Francisco, filmed on the 14th of April, 1906.
The camera was mounted on the front of the car, so you see the city exactly as it was: the crowds, the horse-drawn carriages, the early automobiles weaving through traffic, the men in hats, the great buildings rising on either side. An ordinary spring afternoon in a thriving American city.
Four days later, on the morning of the 18th of April, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck. The shaking lasted under a minute, but it ignited fires that burned through the city for days...
By the time it was over, more than 3,000 people were dead and roughly 80 percent of San Francisco had been destroyed. Almost every building you see in this footage was gone.
And the film itself nearly went with it.
The negative was placed on a train bound for New York on the 17th of April, the day before the earthquake. Had it left a single day later, it would have burned in the fire along with the studio that made it.
This entire moving record of a lost city survives because of one day...
> Be Jonny Kim
> Born to South Korean immigrants in Los Angeles
> Grows up in an intensely abusive household, constantly full of fear
> The night before he graduates high school, his father threatens the family with a gun
> Police arrive, a shootout happens, and his father is killed
> Decides he wants to protect people so he enlists in the Navy at 18
> Survives Hell Week and becomes a Navy SEAL
> Deploys to Iraq twice as a combat medic, sniper, and point man
> Completes over 100 combat operations under fire
> Earns a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for saving wounded comrades
> Watches his close friends die in battle and realizes he wants to heal people, not just fight
> Leaves active duty to get a degree in Mathematics from USD
> Auditions for medical school and gets accepted into Harvard
> Graduates from Harvard Medical School as an M.D. in 2016
> Starts his residency in emergency medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital
> Gets bored of being a regular doctor and applies to NASA
> Selected as 1 of only 12 candidates out of 18,300 applicants
> Becomes a NASA Astronaut in 2020
> Decides space isn't enough, so he joins Navy flight school to face his fear of flying
> Earns his wings as a fully certified military pilot and naval flight surgeon
> Launches into space on a rocket to the International Space Station
> Logs 245 days in orbit, traveling 104 million miles around the Earth before returning home
> Returns to Earth as a SEAL, a Harvard Doctor, an Aviator, and an Astronaut at just 41 years old
And Jonny Kim is still the most humble guy on the planet who makes everyone else's resume look blank.
Jonny Kim is badass.
One month before the Earthquake in Venezuela, an Hispanic kid made a video predicting two Earthquakes in the exact locations where it occurred. He also at the time, made a second video saying a tsunami will hit San Francisco (or he might have said San Diego). He also spoke about a pandemic of the norovirus that starts at the world cup and spreads globally. Then he speaks about Elon, Tesla, Jared Kushner and Satan. I’ve laughed at every internet prediction. Laughed at the psychic who said Neymar would be abducted. But I’m not laughing now. First, his prediction was bang on. Second, I’m adept at detecting bullshit in people. This kid’s energy is pure. I don’t recall if he dropped the date of the tsunami in the videos but here are both videos below. Check out and let me know your thoughts.
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: The US mint just created America’s biggest scavenger hunt.
Only 250,000 special edition July 4th quarters are entering circulation and anyone could find one.
From one Belgian visitor: “You have lakes, you have mountains; nothing is far away. You have a really cool city. And yes, I think it’s in terms of location a paradise.”
Welcome to Washington state!
https://t.co/5lmi4XqxSt
Hunter Biden says his mom postponed their family trip by one day to buy a Christmas tree. The next day, they were in the crash that killed her and his baby sister
“He wins, and he goes to DC for the day to interview potential staffers. And my mom was supposed to go down because they just bought a house, with us”
“And she decided to delay it a day because she wanted to buy a Christmas tree. It was December 18th, because we were celebrating Christmas in Delaware”
“She was pulling out from an intersection, a stop sign, there’s a big hill and a tractor-trailer slammed into the side. It was me, my brother, and our dog… and my sister and my mother”
“Bo and I barely survived. We were trapped in the car. But my sister and my mom were killed pretty instantly”
“I was almost three. Bo was almost four”
🧄 El truco que me va a ahorrar dinero durante todo un año… y casi nadie lo aprovecha.
Compré un bolsón de ajos y los preparé para tenerlos listos durante meses, sin desperdiciar ni uno. Si se hace correctamente, esta conserva puede durar hasta 1 año fuera de la nevera.
👉 Necesitas:
• Ajos.
• Vinagre.
• Aceite de girasol.
• Una olla alta para hacer el tratamiento térmico (si no tienes, también sirve una lata grande).
🔥 Importante: si realizas el tratamiento térmico, la conserva puede mantenerse hasta un año. Si no lo haces, asegúrate de que los ajos queden completamente cubiertos de aceite, sin contacto con el oxígeno, y podrán conservarse durante varios meses.
🧄 Para los ajos confitados:
• Ajos.
• Aceite.
• Orégano, tomillo, pimienta, laurel y ají molido.
Si permanecen totalmente cubiertos de aceite y conservan buen aspecto y olor, podrás disfrutarlos durante mucho tiempo.
💛 Unas pocas horas de trabajo hoy… para tener ajos listos durante todo el año. Cuando los necesites, agradecerás haberlo hecho.
⚠️ Consejo importante: Para que la conserva sea segura y se mantenga en buen estado, utiliza siempre frascos perfectamente esterilizados, sigue correctamente el tratamiento térmico y asegúrate de que los ajos queden completamente cubiertos por el aceite.
Si notas cambios en el olor, el color o la textura, es mejor no consumirla.
👇
Most people go to the coast when they want peace and quiet.
I get it. The ocean has always had that pull. Waves, sand, seafood, morning walks and the feeling that you’ve escaped for a little while.
But a lot of coastal towns don’t feel quiet anymore. They feel crowded, expensive and over planned. The type of place where everyone is chasing relaxation at the same time, which makes it harder to actually relax.
That’s why I believe more people should look inland.
Some of the most peaceful places in America are not on the coast. They’re lakes. Quiet coves. Small towns. Cold morning water. Empty docks. Mountain reflections. Places where the day does not feel like it has to be scheduled.
Flathead Lake in Montana has that wide-open stillness you rarely find anymore. Lake Jocassee in South Carolina feels hidden in the foothills, with waterfalls spilling into the water. Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho is deep, quiet and surrounded by mountains. Lake Kabetogama in Minnesota feels like the road ends and the water takes over.
Then there are places like Lake Guntersville in Alabama, Lake Ouachita in Arkansas, Lake Champlain between Vermont and New York, and Drummond Island on Lake Huron. Different regions, different landscapes, same basic vibe....space to slow down.
That’s the type of travel I keep coming back to.
Not always the biggest name or the most obvious destination. Sometimes the better trip is the calmer one. The place that gives you room to breathe. Where you sit longer than planned and realize you didn’t need much more than water, trees, a dock and an unhurried afternoon.
I wrote about 24 lakes across the United States that are cheaper, less crowded and far more relaxing than the coast.
Some are well known while others are easy to overlook. All of them are worth saving for a future trip.
If you like travel writing that focuses on beautiful places, hidden corners and destinations with a real sense of peace, you’ll enjoy the Timeless Traveler.
You can join the newsletter here:
https://t.co/eW2kBY27EE
Here’s what makes this so bleak:
In 1976, people flocked to DC for the Bicentennial. A whole week of celebration. It was proud, it was joyous, and it was packed.
Our generation never got that. And most of us will be pushing 90 by the next one.
This was our turn. There was a bipartisan commission, America250, built to give it to us — a celebration that belonged to everyone.
Instead, the administration stood up its own group, Freedom 250, to push the real one aside. They fired the original organizer. They routed tens of millions in taxpayer dollars to the president’s version while the bipartisan one went unfunded. States pulled out because it had become too partisan. The musicians quit, so he turned the concert into a campaign rally about deportations and grievance.
They didn’t celebrate the country. They celebrated themselves.
And you can see the result on the grass. A 250th birthday that should have belonged to all of us, turned into one man’s vanity project.
Empty. And sad.