Sunny Burns of FamVestor.com shares how saving now and making hard decisions when you're young can extremely benefit you and your family when you're older.
Sunny Burns, founder of FamVestor, joins us on the podcast this week to talk over family finances and how saving money now can help you out more than you'd think in the future. When we're young and have money it's easy to spend all our money on things that might not help us out in the future. Sunny and I chat this week on how saving now and making hard decisions when you're young can benefit you extremely when you're older. We go over addictions, homeschooling, and living frugally in a world that tries to draw us away from the importance of family.
Sunny Burns is 32 and works Full-Time as a Project Engineer for the Department of Defense. He is happily married with four amazing kids. Sunny is founder of FamVestor.com, a blog and podcast where he shares about financial independence and creating strong families. Together with his wife, they own 3 rental properties in the NYC area, 11 units total that are worth over $2-million dollars and bring in over $200,000 annual gross rent. With their frugal lifestyle they are now 107% Financial Independent. He enjoys the simpler things in life; like listening to books, running, biking, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, and going camping.
SUNNY'S SOCIALS
FACEBOOK: http://www.Facebook.com/FamVestor
YOUTUBE: http://www.Youtube.com/FamVestor
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When we're young and have money it's easy to spend all our money on things that might not help us out in the future. Sunny Burns of FamVestor.com and I chat this week about how saving now and making hard decisions when you're young can benefit you extremely when you're older. We go over addictions, homeschooling, and living frugally in a world that tries to draw us away from the importance of family.
Welcome back to another episode. I have Sunny Burns on the show with me from FamVestor.com. He dives in a lot about how he is so intentional with his family, the adventures and the traveling that they're doing, the backpacking, kayaking, teaching his kids about money, and screen-free kids. It is a crazy amazing episode with Sunny Burns. That's the episode we got for you.
I want you guys to go over to our YouTube channel Iron Deep. Please subscribe and leave a comment in the comment section. Also, go to IronDeep.com. If you're looking for retreats and transformational leadership types of events coming up, go over to IronDeep.com and apply. We will put you on the list. Our very first one was in the Rocky Mountains in Timber Lakes, Utah. We had 31 people there. It was amazing. We rocked the house. It was called the Men's Awakening.
We're going to have other adventures coming up. We got a Guatemala trip coming up. We're putting together a mission trip. We're going to have a lot of other leading-in-the-wild types of trips, hiking trips, and very intentional drawing out your roadmap to fulfillment types of trips. We are very intentional about you living a fulfilling life with the foundation of Christ. That's what Iron Deep is all about. Go check out IronDeep.com. I want to introduce you to my good friend now, Mr. Sunny Burns. What's going on, Sunny?
It’s good to be here.
I'm super excited about this episode. I’ve met you and we were exchanging some messages back and forth. It has been 2 or 3 years now. I was always fascinated by your family's life. You're one of the most unique families that I've had on this show. You are so intentional about your life. We're going to be digging into that, the adventures that you guys are doing, and traveling. You're going to stay a year in Japan. We're going to talk about that, and all the stuff that you're doing that I think is so rare in our modern culture with family. Before we get started, let's tell us a little bit about you. Give us a little background on Sunny Burns.
I'm 32 years old and living in the Northern New Jersey area. I'm married for going on close to ten years now. We have four kids, 7, 5, 2, and a 10-month-old. I still work full-time for the Department of Defense as a Research Engineer working on ammunition mostly. We'd have rental properties. We run a podcast. We run a YouTube channel. We've done some Amazon FBA investing and regular stock investing. We've even rented our cars out on Toru. We have a few Airbnb and short-term rentals. That's a little bit about me.
That was so cool because it seems like you do invest in life and a lot of different things. Number one, you save money because you're a very frugal family. You are also always looking for different ways to invest. You mentioned Turo, renting out your cars, and things like that. Have you always been this way? Has this always been Sunny Burns’ mindset? Is this your wife's influence? Tell us about your mind behind that. Where do these ideas come from?
Both of us grew up pretty poor relative in the Northern New Jersey area, where a lot of affluent living goes on. We’re growing up without a lot of money. My brother and I would be out snow shoveling, knocking on doors every time it snowed, trying to rake in some money. I heard your story, Brett, about selling candy at school. I sold candy to my siblings. I'd go to CVS, buy the bulk bags, and sell it to my siblings. I'd sell other things at school like magnets.
I always had this entrepreneurial spirit. It came from this hunger to have a little more than I had growing up. As we were getting married and starting to think about our future, I wanted to have that financial security for my future family that I never had. I loved my family growing up. My parents have the best relationship. One of the best relationships I know. That was the most important thing, but I wanted to have that same amazing relationship with my wife and also provide for my family that financial security that I never had.
I remember you guys just getting married. Now, you're ten years. We're getting ready to go on ten years too. Congratulations on that. We're in the same boat.
Thank you.
I got four kids as well. We're very similar. I remember the first couple of years after you guys got married, you did something crazy that I don't know if my wife would have signed up for. You end up living with your family to save money before you went out and got your own place. What was that like? How did the relationship work out through that whole experience?
My wife is two and a half years older than me. She was working as a teacher making $50,000. I had just graduated when we got married. I was making $50,000 as a government engineer, so $100,000 together, which was pretty decent. We could have easily gotten a cheap apartment, but we wanted to save for our future and be frugal. We wanted to have that capital to start investing because we had plans. We had goals. We lived in my parents' house. There were nine adults. One bathroom in that house. I'm one of four. My siblings were there too. That was crazy. I was peeing in the backyard some nights, which I didn't mind.
We saved $75,000 in two years' time. My wife was all about it too because she wanted that financial security. She grew up homeschooled from kindergarten through 12th grade. Her mom taught her and her brother. She eventually went to college, became a teacher, and all that. She loved that homeschool environment. For her, thinking about the future, when we were going to have kids, she wanted to be able to do the same thing.
I also wanted that financial security. I’m going from two incomes to one income. When you're homeschooling, that can be a struggle. We started thinking, “How are we going to make this work?” I didn't want to be that struggling family. I would do it but I wanted to make that financial security. We started thinking about things. I started listening to podcasts. We had this goal of starting real estate investing. Because of that goal, we needed that capital. Because we had that vision, we knew it was worth it. Honestly, it was a blast. It was awesome that my wife was with my family for two years, learning our culture, and knowing why I am the way I am. She loves my parents now. It was a good experience for us.
That's awesome. It's funny because here in America, it's weird. It's really rare. In a lot of other countries and other cultures, that's very normal to live with your family, bring in your in-laws or your parents, and you guys all live together. I've been studying some other cultures and that's what they do. That's their normal thing. It's awesome to be in that close-knit family. We're so individualistic out here in America.
You guys are very frugal. We were talking before the show. Everything that you have is secondhand. You've always had that mindset. Here's what I've seen happen, and I've even seen this happen in my own life. A lot of times we start out that way, “I'm going to start this business. I got to save a lot of money to get this business going. Put my money back in the business,” then 5 to 10 years later, you start to have this drift where you're like, “We have a little bit of money now and we'll live our grandest life. We want upgraded experiences.” Has that happened to you or are you still in that same mindset 10 years later than you were 10 years ago?
We definitely kept our expenses down. I call it defensive finances, where we try to limit that expenses as much as possible. If you don't do that, then your offensive finances have to constantly pick up to make up for that excess that's always going out the door. I didn't want that lifestyle of me having to work 60-hour, 80-hour, 100-hour workweeks, and not have any time for my family. That's why for us, it was so important to keep that frugal lifestyle that we were raised with and not become accustomed to this fancy lifestyle.
We've been very good. We've done travel hacking. All of our adventures, if you look at us, we love going backpacking. This summer, I took all four of our kids backpacking. We went kayak camping. We did bike camping. All those things are very cheap. You had to buy the gear and stuff. All that gear, we went to garage sales, picked up a tent for $8, sleeping bags that were used in Amazon's warehouse, and things like that. There are cheap ways to do it. Once you have that stuff, you can go out and have an awesome $20 camping permit adventure over a weekend.
That's so cool. I was looking at your website FamVestor.com. You guys are always doing these travel adventures like you mentioned. It's everybody's dream. Everyone wants to do that like, “I want to have this big adventure for life with my family. I want to travel the world, go see the mountains, and do all these things,” but rarely do they have the space, the margin, and the time to do that. You guys have been able to do that. Talk about that. What's the vision for the Burns family? Talk to us about that a little bit. You're doing all these great things and making all these memories with your family. What's that even look like? What's the vision?
I wish I had a clear vision. I know we've sat down. We do New Year's goals with the kids too and try to talk about things. Nothing concrete has come out. I remember I was reading the Shackleton book. His family motto is, “Through endurance we conquer.” I thought, “That's so cool. I want that vision.”
I guess our vision is to live a wholesome lifestyle and raise our kids. Everyone talks about quality time, but my dad is all about quantity time. It's great to have quality time, but if you're only spending every Saturday together and every other day of the week, you're not together. It's great, but he was all about quantity time. I believe that too, just being there for the kids.
My wife taught me that more than anything. Being homeschooled, they were always doing adventures together. When we got married, I got an insight into her family's culture and saw the importance there that came from that. That's what, together, we became all about, going on adventures together and spending time together, even if it's going to the library. We went to the library. I took all four kids on my bike. We went to the library and had a good time. That was an adventure that we had over a weeknight.
That's so cool. I love what your dad taught you. I see a lot of people go toward, “I want my time to be quality,” but they don't spend that much time with them. A lot of times, you can't get to the quality unless you have the quantity because the relationship is strained. When you get to that quality time, you put all the pressure on this time and you have all these expectations for this quality time, but it doesn't work out. You feel let down and it's because you need to spend time together. You need to hang out and see what happens and have that space and margin to do that.
You seem like you do some of these undistracted adventures, backpacking, outdoor hiking, biking, and things like that. What has that been like for your family to get out and do some adventures that are away from the world, away from the home, more undistracted, and intentional time together? What has that been like versus some of these other things around town?
I don't know. I never grew up camping. My dad never took us camping. The first time I went camping, I was probably fifteen or something. Some church members had a camping trip and we decided to go. It's something we always did. Since my boys were little, I would take them out camping with me. My wife would come too sometimes. Now, it's something we do. For her family, that would be their vacation. They would go to a campground because it's cheap. It's $20 a night. You don't go to a $100 hotel. You go to a $20 campground and you have a good time.
It's something she was used to and something that I got into as I got older. We incorporate that into our family and my kids love it. Whenever we say the word camping, they're all gung-ho. They want to get out the door. Many times, people wait. They're like, "They're too young. They can't go." They wait until they're thirteen and then they're like, “Let's go camping.” They're like, “I don't want to go camping. I'm going to be on my smartphone all day. Why do I want to go camping?”
There's a gap in there. I have a fifteen-year-old now and that's what she'll say. She's like, “I don't want to go camping. I don't like bugs.” That's her case.
You'll see my two-year-old. She'll pick up a millipede and hold it right in front of her face. I'm so impressed with my kids. They're so not squeamish. I'm even more squeamish than them. We were out kayak camping and my older three kids each had frogs in each hand. I'm like, “This is crazy.”
It's so funny because my dad didn't take me camping that much. I wasn't in the outdoors a whole lot. I’m not a hunter and things like that. I enjoy camping, but I felt like I'm unqualified. Every time I go camping, I'm like, “I don't even know what I'm doing. How do you put this thing together?” Did you feel like that? Did you learn how to camp?
That's a good point. How did I learn? Me and my buddies went on a three-day backpacking trip as soon as we graduated high school. That same church member who took us out camping when I was fifteen lent us all this gear he had. He was like, "Have a good time," and we did. From there, we've been doing once-a-month micro-adventures. These are the middle of the work week camp outs. We hike a mile into the woods and camp out for a night.
This could be a Wednesday night and then we all wake up at 6:00 AM to show up to work the next morning. We've been doing that once a month for the last 8 or 10 years. It's been a while. That started once we became dads. We were like, “Weekends are now precious. We don't have time to hang out.” Our wives can sacrifice a weeknight with us away. That's doable. That's still a time we can congregate and have a good time without sacrificing too much time from the family.
That's where that bonding comes in. One thing I've noticed especially with men is I work with a lot of business guys and we're lonely. Statistics say that we don't have any friends. We're so lonely. If you have a problem or something is going on, who are you going to call? You don't know because you don't have any friends hardly. Has this been something that you've been deepening in your relationships with other guys?
Yes. We've been going on around a decade now of doing this once a month. I didn't know so much about camping, but one of those members was an Eagle Scout. I started picking up things from him, “That's how you make a fire. That's what you use that for. I should buy that as part of my gear.” By doing and trialing, you start gaining that experience and confidence, then you're confident enough to take out your kids too.
I'm typically the guy that brings all the fire starter equipment. I got to bend to fire start stuff.
I do too.
You talked a little bit about homeschooling your kids, which is different. Back in my day, homeschooling was rare. We didn't do that. People that did homeschool, we were like, “What are you doing? That's nuts,” but it's starting to catch on. I've heard this more and more again, especially entrepreneurs that want to do adventures and want to travel. You mentioned your wife taking the reins of that homeschooling adventure. What has that been like with your family dynamic and maybe even with you working? I know you maybe go to the office. A lot of our entrepreneurs work from home possibly in that dynamic and the kids are at home too. What has that whole experience been like for you?
Homeschooling has been great. I went to public school. I can remember, especially in elementary school or actually most of my school, I was in my head most of the day sitting at my desk for 9 or 6 hours. I'd be thinking about not what the teacher is teaching. I was recollecting about that and listening to my wife tell me about her homeschool journey, how much she loved growing up being homeschooled, and doing all these adventures with her family, and just the way she was raised and seeing how she turned out, and meeting all these homeschool communities. We're part of co-op programs. On Friday, we're part of a forest school group. We'll go hiking every Friday with other homeschoolers and learn about nature and things.
There are a lot of places to plug in for socialization and things like that but it's been great. I can start teaching my kids about things that I think are important about finances and gear their education towards things that I think are very relevant. There are some things that are being taught that I think are completely irrelevant in school. I'm glad I don't have to filter all that out either. In general, it has been great. I love the way my kids are. I love who they are. I love being with them. Part of that is how they've been raised with us and everything they've learned being homeschooled.
Also, the flexibility of homeschooling. You don't have to do this September to April or July curriculum. There's so much more flexibility there. Not just flexibility but financially. We can travel in the off-season. We're talking about quantity over quality. Many times people are like, "We have one week. Let's stay at an all-inclusive resort. Let's make the most of it. It's going to be awesome." We were like, "We have five weeks that we'll take throughout the year on off-season." We're not fighting lines. We're not fighting crowds. It's 20% of the price or something so much cheaper. We can do a lot more. It's a lot less hectic and it's at our own pace and our own schedule. There’s so much about the homeschooling lifestyle that we love.
It's crazy you brought that up because my kids go to a private school right now. We are thinking about doing something after Christmas going on a vacation. My wife and I like to go to Mexico. We're thinking about doing the all-inclusive down in Mexico. Usually, when we do the all-inclusive, it's maybe a few hundred bucks a night or something like that typically. We checked to take our family to this all-inclusive and it was $1,800 a night because of the time that it was at. Everyone over Christmas break is trying to do that. You can save so much money that way.
You talked about screen-free kids. This is a huge problem for adults and kids in America. It's so easy to put a screen in front of our kids to be their babysitter, whether it's your phone, an iPad, or a TV. Mostly, it's iPads and phones these days. You have tried to go this route of screen-free kids. I read a book called Simplicity Parenting. I don't know if you've heard of that. It talked about going screen-free and letting their kids' imaginations go wild. They don't get that from their screens. How long has this been going on? A lot of parents are like, “There's no way I could ever do that.” What would you say to them?
Our story with screen-free begins when we were living at my parents' house. We moved out when my eldest son was six months old. Was it six? Maybe it was a year and a half because we were doing renovations on the four-family we had bought. We didn't move in right away. My parents had a TV in their living room, the centerpiece of the house as most households are, with 8 or 7 other adults in that house, 9 of us total. The TV was on a lot.
Every time we'd go past the living room, my son would look at the TV and he'd be mesmerized. He'd become a zombie. He'd want to sit down. Even if the TV was off, he'd always point at it. Even at a year old, he'd point at it. He'd want it. My wife and I vowed, once we bought our own house, we aren't going to have a TV. We aren't going to have it so he wouldn't point at anything. There will be nothing for him to be like, “I want that.”
That's what we did. When we moved out into our four-family house, we didn't have a TV. When we bought our next three-family and when we bought our next four-family, we never had a TV even to this day. We have a single-family house. We did buy a projector screen that we bring out every Thursday night, and we have a movie night. That's our TV dosage for the week. The kids love it. It is dependent on their studies a little bit. Usually, every Thursday, we will do a movie night. We'll have popcorn. They can choose between pizza or Chinese food, and we have a good time. It's a family affair.
Making a deliberate decision not to have a TV in the house has made all the difference. We have laptops around. That does come out every once in a while like for the Thursday night movie screens. There are some online homeschooling curriculums that we do dabble in a little bit, but first, they have to get through a lot of their core curriculum, and then we let them go on that. There's definitely no screen time unless all the lessons are done. It's on rare occasions that they are on screens at all.
You're aware and very intentional. You're not letting it overtake your life or their life. Screens are going to be a part of their life in the future. They need to navigate how to use that. At young ages, they don't know how to do any of that, but it’s being intentional about it with their work. It’s awesome.
I was reading your website FamVestor. One of the things you talked about is freeing yourself from addictions. My wife and I have been talking a lot about how addicted our country is to whatever. We don't even realize it. We’re addicted to many things. There are addictions like alcohol, drugs, and stuff like that. It’s very noticeable and people know maybe if they're addicted to those, but all these other things that are very subtle. One of the things my wife and I have been talking about is I've been addicted to caffeine and coffee. People have to have their coffee. I can't function without it. Number one, I'm addicted to that.
Sugar, we've been talking about how in all family functions, birthday parties, and Christmases, it’s sugar. We get so addicted to sugar. Phones and technology, most people are addicted to that. One of the things that you've been intentional about is freeing yourself and possibly your family from addictions. Talk to us about that.
Addictions are huge. I don't know if this is a good thing to share on the show. I used to have a pornography addiction. I wasn't addicted to many things. I never drank coffee or never got into drinking coffee. I didn't have that. I wasn't into sugary snacks. I didn't have many addictions, but I stumbled on this pornography. It’s a free thing in my early teens and I couldn't break free from it.
Every New Year's resolution, that was my goal, "Break free from pornography this year." I'd go for a week. I'd go a month, and then I'd be back at it. I hated that my mind could not take control of my body in this one aspect. When I finally got free from pornography, I was like, "That's it. No addiction. I'm never doing drugs. I'm never smoking." I don't drink alcohol. I don't drink coffee. I don't do drugs. I've been porn-free for twelve years now. That was a huge journey. I could talk a whole episode about that.
These addictions are crippling. I hated myself. I hated who I was because of my addiction. I felt like two-faced. There was a part of me that I loved and there was a part of me that I hated. I couldn't reconcile with myself and couldn't fully love myself. It was something I battled with for years. Once I overcome this, I made a life vision. I'll read real quick my life purpose, “My life purpose is to be a role model with a sound body, no addictions, financial independence, and a strong loving family that can inspire and empower others to invest in their families.”
I wanted to share my story because I feel like we've been able to do some great things with our family and our lives. A lot of that came from overcoming addictions and being intentional. We talk about technology addictions. I was lucky I didn't have smartphones readily available where I could type a website in and then I'm off to a world of pornography and issues like that. I did have a laptop that they gave me in high school and that was my road in.
Now, I fear for all these kids. Eight years old are getting their first access to pornography on average. That's because at eight years old, you're giving them a smartphone or a tablet. In one website and they're there. The fear is there. We've been intentionally reading books on stuff like that, Good Pictures Bad Pictures. That's the book. We're trying to be intentional and I'm trying to talk about these things with the kids.
There's so much out there now like social media addictions. It's so easy after a hard day to go on Netflix rather than to talk to your spouse or do something intentional or wholesome with your family. It's so easy to all sit down in front of the TV every single night and look and not have to think or proactively do something wholesome with your family. It's an easy way out and it's an addiction. It requires effort and intentionality.
Once you start doing something for a while, it becomes a habit. It doesn't become as hard. It becomes enjoyable. It becomes something that you go to naturally, but it takes a lot to break those bad addictions. It took me two years of struggling after I even ended pornography. It was two years of mental battle each and every day not to go back to it. Finally, after two years, I don't have to be on a super alert every single minute of the day. I could go back to living the life that I truly desired and wanted.
Thanks for sharing that. There are so many addictions that are out there that we are aware of. I talked to a lot of men. There are those secret closet addictions. That's the one that a lot of men struggle with and they won't ever let anybody know. I've seen that destroy men's lives, their souls, their relationships, and their families through some sort of sexual temptation and addiction like that. It's very real. Guys, listen to this right now. You probably have some addictions to that. I appreciate you sharing that and your freeing from that. That's awesome.
Sunny, thank you so much for being on the show. I want to give you one last opportunity to share. I know you guys are moving to Japan for a year for another adventure. Maybe share any tips or advice that you have for our audience about one thing that starts with your guys' mindset around being intentional with your family. All these things probably didn't happen overnight. It's one thing at a time, where you’re like, “You know what? We shouldn't have a TV in our house.” That was one decision. Now, it's very beneficial to you. One decision at a time, being very intentional. What's your last feedback advice to give to our audience?
There's so much to say. We were house hacking. We made the intentional decision to live below our means, live in a rough area, in one unit amongst four units, but that was for our future vision. Especially, if you're young, think about what you want to create with your family. Now, we live in a single-family house in a beautiful neighborhood. We live in a cul-de-sac. There's a lake behind us. There's a stream running through our backyard. We have sailboats that we can take out. We have kayaks that the kids go out in. We have a sand pit right in front of our house too that the kids are always digging forts in.
It was the cheapest piece of real estate that we bought of our four properties, but we are still very intentional about what we were buying. We wanted to buy an oasis for our children to grow up in and have outlets. We say, “You don't have a TV. Are they supposed to do nothing all day long?” No, we created a paradise that they could run off to like this backyard with endless possibilities, a forest that they can hike through, forts they can build, a lake that they can kayak and explore, biking trails for mountain biking, and hiking. We have all these options for them.
We intentionally thought about the vision we had for our family. This wholesome strong family that didn't have addictions and that truly loved living and loved what they were creating. That's what we built. I'm super grateful that we were able to do that. There were a lot of sacrifices along the way. It's all been worth it. I don't know if that was succinct enough. Think about that vision for your family and how to align that vision with your reality.
Thank you so much for sharing, Sunny and FamVestor.com. I know you are doing some podcasts, some blogging, and some things like that. You're going to Japan. Are you still putting some awareness out there? Have you taken a step back on that?
Honestly, our baby was born ten months ago. We've only released one episode in the ten months on the podcast, but we've been pretty good on the YouTube channel. If you go to YouTube.com/FamVestor, that's where most of my focus and attention has been lately. I’m not giving up on the podcast, but some things, you got to let go of. Our priority, as many of you probably are here, is our family. Whatever excess we have goes to my other passion projects.
I know with the young kids, you got a lot going on. Thanks, Sunny, for being on the show. I appreciate you guys. Check out FamVestor.com. Check out the YouTube channel with Sunny and his family. This is a wrap. Thanks, Sunny.
Thanks. It’s my pleasure, Brett. It’s great being here.
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