Wealth is Obtainable - The serious thread!

[Bluemoon06]

I hear people talk about a job as if it is the cancer or something.  A job is not a bad thing in itself it is why you work that makes a job bad. If you work for money alone, to paraphrase the Hal Holbrook character Lou Mannheim in the movie Wall Street, it will make you do things you don’t want to do.  If you have a job that makes you change the oil in a truck and you have no desire to change oil in trucks that is no different than a woman having relations with a guy she is not attracted to just because he gave her $20.  You have to do a job that you would do even if they didn’t pay you for it.  The thing is that inertia is real and not just in physics.  (Inertia: bodies in motion tend to stay in motion bodies at rest tend to stay at rest)  Do you ever notice that the most successful people you know are always doing a lot of things?  They are working, and investing and on boards of charities, and hosting parties, and going to ball games?  Have you also noticed that you never find people that are sitting around having fun all day long that are really successful?  That is because this inertia is proportional to the mass.  In our case the amount of time you spend doing things is proportional to the amount of successfulness and personnel satisfaction you have.  If you quit your job and stop working you will end up a bum.  You have to do something and real estate my friend does not keep you busy enough to enable you to become and remain a viable contributing member to humanity.  You have to do something.  You can preach, teach or work as an accountant but you have to do something.  You have to have a reason to get up in the morning a job is just as good a reason as any other.

[Hoosier4life2005]

Ill work forever, probably until the day I die.  Something about me makes me think i'de never be happy not making ANY money.

Working for somebody else though?  I have no interest in that.  Thats why im wanting to get into REI for myself.  So.. when I say that when REI gets to the point that I can make as much as im making now (working for somebody else) ill quit my day job, and do REI full time, im not quite sure what the uproar is.  lol

The whole point of REI is having a lifestyle change that you want right? 

Making money, not having to take orders from anybody except yourself is whats its about! 

If I did what I "wanted to do for fun.".... I would be growing medical marijuana in Northern Michigan living on one of those crystal clear lakes with a nice little boat.

[John_in_NC]

Hoosier, here is my position, if it helps you any man. I thought a lot like you when I only had a job that I felt was dead end. I still have that job and am not quitting anytime soon!

I still have my job(airline pilot). I work so little though, I ended up owing them money last paycheck! I work about 6 or 7 days a month. But why quit? I use to think I would quit just as soon as I didn't need the job. I feel very differently now that I am actually in that position. I"m loving life! I don't need them, they need me though! I use this to my advantage. They know this by now I'm, sure. For about a year now, when I get my schedule, I keep the trips on it that look fun. The rest are either picked up by other pilots needing some spare $$$, dropped by my company, or I simply call in sick. I spent last Saturday night in Quebec City, Canada. Never been there before so I kept the trip on my line. It was an easy flight from philly up there, and I had fun on their dime while up there! I also still have my health benefits, travel for free when I want to, and most importantly, a back up if things go south with RE.

I don't care if my next deal scores me a million, I am not quitting anytime soon.

[mcinvesting]

I feel you Hoosier.  I'm in a similar boat as you.  I'm a bit older though at 27, but with that, a little further along in my investing.  I have 3 properties, that I rent out and cashflow about 1,300/mo.  There is a good 95k equity in these homes.  I bought all of them through probate.  I make about 44k a year managing apartment complex's and commercial properties for my boss.  It can be a huge headache of a job and make's me want to quit as soon as I can. 

Here's the big difference between you and I.  I GOT A WIFE!  She makes 40k a year and she pays ALL the bills.  Every penny of my income and our rental income goes directly into our bank account.  So it is easy for us to save 10k within 3 months or so.  Now I'm not braggin or anything, but this is opening the doors for us and it is allowing us the "possibility" to really start seeing things take off.  We have 40k cash.  I got married a year and a half ago and we probably only had 5k total then...

Before I was married, everything seemed to take centuries to get anywhere.  Well since marriage we are coming across opportunities.  Putting an all cash offer on a house for 12k that this lady inherited from her brother after he passed (probate). And she just wants to get rid of it.  We will gladly have to put another 10k cash into it.  We are goin to put granite countertops, all new flooring, all new appliances, etc.  Great thing is, FMV for the area is around 73k.  From here, we have options.  either refinance out all of our cash at about 35k and even make a little from that and have a great cashflowing property or we just go ahead and sell it and rack in a quick 30-40k or so.  It's exciting!

Point is, my wife LOVES real estate just like I do.  Find a girl like that and it can really accelerate your investing.

Good Luck.   

[allagash]

great post...MC

keep that money churning....

-Mike

[fdjake]

Hoosier,

TIME is a commodity that CANNOT BE VALUED.....To SOME time is ENDLESS, they sit there WATCHING a CLOCK all day long....To others, time is fleeting, it goes by in what seems like the wink of an eye.

You're still a young guy, you have LOTS of time......With that TIME you are LEARNING, sometimes without even knowing it....I remember a post of yours from a few years ago where you said if you had the chance to meet the current President you would spit in his face! 

Move forward 2 years....The Older, Mellower, More WORLDLY Hoosier is not the same man....You grow up and your PRIORITIES CHANGE.

This isn't a political post....I don't care one way or the other how ANYONE feels about a politician...We ALL have every right to free ANYWAY we want to feel about that subject....The POINT IS....

That statement seems like it came from a completely DIFFERENT PERSON.....Because IT DID!!!

John_in_NC nailed it.....He's at a point where he doesn't NEED his job.....When you DON'T NEED the job.....It's AMAZING how much less BULLSH*T you have to put up with....MANAGERS can SMELL this from a mile away...Bad managers pick on the WEAK... But when you have other IRONS IN THE FIRE, and they KNOW IT......You can tell them to SCREW....Bad managers don't like having employees who can tell them this.....As a result...THEY LEAVE THOSE EMPLOYEES ALONE!!!!!!

This changes the entire GAME!!!   You're not kissing someones @SS to get a promotion, or a raise....Because you don't NEED EITHER!!!!   You stay because they pay for your HEALTH CARE...The left over CA$H is FU money!!!

[REIER]

John_in_NC nailed it.....He's at a point where he doesn't NEED his job.....When you DON'T NEED the job.....It's AMAZING how much less BULLSH*T you have to put up with....MANAGERS can SMELL this from a mile away...Bad managers pick on the WEAK... But when you have other IRONS IN THE FIRE, and they KNOW IT......You can tell them to SCREW....Bad managers don't like having employees who can tell them this.....As a result...THEY LEAVE THOSE EMPLOYEES ALONE!!!!!!

This changes the entire GAME!!!   You're not kissing someones @SS to get a promotion, or a raise....Because you don't NEED EITHER!!!!   You stay because they pay for your HEALTH CARE...The left over CA$H is FU money!!!

I have found this to be very true. Those same miserable managers who like to pray on the weak are on that hamster wheel, too.  So if they start f$#@!*%# with the wrong employee THEIR job could end on the line. I've seen managers get canned for making bone headed moves with the wrong people. The smarter ones sense you aren't going to put up with their little games and usually know how to pick their battles.

Every time me and my manager have had to have a "little talk" I like to remind him that if he feels he can go find someone else that can do a better job than me, for less money, then he should go ahead and replace me with them. So far he hasn't taken me up on that offer. Keeping your boss inline will truly make the time you spend at your job SO much easier. 

I'm in the same position as others here, I keep my job (been at this one for 7 years) because it works for ME. I treat it as an income source that pays me week after week and it pays when I am sick, when I am on vacation, personal time, it pays for most of my health care, it pays if I were to get injured and be out for an extended period of time and it pays for half of my income tax. If I had to pay for all those perks my self, I'm estimating that would be an additional 30 grand I'd have to shell out of my pocket. Another beautiful thing about it is, after my shift is over, I leave no matter what is going on and none of it's my problem. On my other income sources, I can't really do that, I need to get the job done in order to get paid (except for rental income to a degree.)

So the key is having cash in the bank (and I'm not talking about 3 to 6 months like so many jokers say, I'm talking about years),  having additional streams of income and living within your means (with very little to no debt) and having that job lets you laugh all the way to the bank and in your manager's face. 

[Estrogen Hostage]

I'm 29 y/o with five rental properties, a wife and four kids. We live a frugal lifestyle, but nobody goes hungry. We still take vacations and trips to the lake in the summer. We have no consumer debt. We drive old cars but maintain them well. We live in a house that is very nice but well below what we can afford.

I spend evenings working on my properties, and my income supports my buying of them and our other investing. I have no doubt that I will become rich someday. We started from nothing ourselves, we were in debt and did Dave Ramsey's program three years ago.

That's what great about this country. Anyone can do what I did. A 203b loan and some hard work will get the first one started.

[allagash]

I'm 29 y/o with five rental properties, a wife and four kids.

great job!

-Mike