Service Business or Real Estate?

[Dain Herrala]

I'm planning to keep working my W2 for the foreseeable future. I enjoy it and the earnings potential is quite good. There is quite a bit of opportunity to pick up extra work for overtime pay.

Currently, I am house hacking and making it work to renovate it at the same time.

I also own a small service based business with a partner. It's seasonal and eats a large chunk of time during the warm months of the north. I've been learning that I'm not particularly passionate about this work and it takes a lot of my time while I'm not at the W2, preventing me from picking up well paying overtime and keeping up with general life requirements/interests.

I am interested in FI, but also have been realizing how I like my W2 and don't mind continuing to work! The debate in my mind has been such that I'm wondering if I should get out of the business and focus on working my W2, increasing my income there, and then slowly acquire property over the next decade or two.

Maybe I just answered my own thoughts, but if anyone has similar experiences or has thoughts on service business vs acquiring real estate, I'd love to hear them!