When your money follows your purpose, every investment decision starts to make sense.
Financial freedom means something different to everyone.
For some, it’s about retiring early. For others, it’s about security. For Mike Foster, it became the ability to choose what to give and when to give it.
On last week’s Not Your Average Investor Show, Mike talked through how he and his wife, Ellen, built a structure that gives them stability now and security for the future. The foundation wasn’t complicated. It was built around one simple idea: if every dollar has a job, every goal stays within reach.
This simple idea led to a financial plan that serves both his life today and the next generation of his family.
Building Income with Intention
Their plan started simple: they wanted predictable income and a secure future for their family. But over time, it became something more of a blueprint for how to align assets with values.
Mike and Ellen centered their plan around 1 goal: intentional stewardship of their assets. Here is what they wanted their assets to support:
- Typical living expenses
- Doing the things they love
- Charitable giving
- Giving inheritance while living
- Long-term care insurance
- End-of-life inheritance
To support these goals, they created a balanced structure of income streams – lending for steady cash flow, real estate for long-term appreciation, and other investments for flexibility when life shifts unexpectedly.
Each source serves a role, but the purpose comes first.
When Purpose Makes the Plan Work
Every asset in Mike’s portfolio has a job that ties back to a life goal. Nothing sits idle or exists just because it might “go up in value.”
👉 A closer look at how defined roles in your income plan can reduce uncertainty:
Mike’s Priority: Help His Kids When They Need It Most
His lending income funds the freedom to live comfortably today, to see the fruits of his gifts make an impact, and to protect his financial future. His real estate is a long-term engine that creates a tax-optimized legacy. Both parts done through JWB.
Instead of letting market conditions dictate decisions, Mike lets intent shape his actions. His portfolio works because it has direction, and that direction flows from purpose.
Mike’s Advice For Anyone Wanting To Follow His Strategy
Mike shared one question that guided every decision:
“If you no longer needed to work, what would you want to accomplish with your time?”
That question can reshape how you invest. Once you know how you want to spend your time, your assets can be selected to support that life instead of distracting from it.
👉 A practical exercise for aligning your assets with your time:
The Next Step for Investors: Purpose-Driven Portfolio Design
Here’s how you can use that same thought process:
- Start with clarity. Picture your ideal week if money was no longer a factor. What would fill your time?
- Give every asset a task. Let each investment support one specific outcome in that life you imagined.
- Protect the foundation. Once your structure supports your lifestyle, reinforce it with insurance or reserves that keep it steady through change.
This exercise turns financial planning from something abstract into something tangible. You move from “What should I buy?” to “What should my money make possible?”
Deferred Gratification…The Real Reason Why The Fosters Invested In 3 Rental Properties.
Mike and Ellen’s plan shows how real estate can do more than grow a balance sheet.
They had the option to continue doing private lending which provides more monthly cash flow for them, but they chose to take a chunk of their capital and invest in a portfolio of 3 JWB rental properties.
Why did they do it? Deferred gratification for them and their family.
Their portfolio of 3 properties provides modest cash flow, but much more upside over time. They don’t need the extra cash flow today, so they accumulate more wealth for their family by owning assets.
And owning the assets allows them to take advantage of 2 big tax savings components:
- Their heirs will avoid depreciation recapture
- Their heirs will take advantage of the step-up in basis
Every investing decision comes back to family for the Fosters. They realized that owning the assets will eventually allow them to pass them to their heirs, who will inherit a tax-efficient portfolio.
The real value of these homes is in what they make possible for Mike and Ellen to do: the freedom to give and the security of knowing their kids will continue to benefit throughout their lifetime.
It didn’t take a massive portfolio, just clear intent and the right structure.
When you know the purpose of each asset, you don’t need more – you just need clarity.