Tips For a 22 Year Old

[Eryk R Wnek]

I am currently stuck with what I should do I am 22 years old living with my parents in New Jersey I don’t pay rent and all I pay for is car insurance and gas. I drive a Honda Civic that is great on gas I recently started a new job making 21 an hour and about 600-1200$ a week after taxes depending on how many hours I want to work. I am able to save almost all of that and I’m about 3 months I saved up 7k. As I am a teenager and love cars I am very tempted to buy a new car just like my friends but know this will not get me anywhere in life. I came across house hacking and I am really interested in this but It just seems out of my reach and it scares me for a number of reasons. The main one is because of my parents and the horrible luck they had when they bought a house in 2007 that was way overpriced and now they work everyday trying to keep up with the mortgage and living no so happy lives and no it’s not a crazy expensive house it was about 300k and they will never pay it off in their lifetime. I have no problem with saving up 25k or even more to buy a duplex but the unknowns if it scare me one wrong move and I’m stuck what if I get tenants that don’t pay or what if the roof needs work within the next 5 years. I am really trying to find a way to live a happy life and be able to help my parents out and just be free what should I do is it worth it for me to save and absolutely spend my money on nothing and just grind to be able to save up to buy a duplex and house hack or would I end up like my parents trying to keep up with a mortgage that I will never payoff in my lifetime and I’ll only work to payoff a house