42 Year Old Husband and Wife, DINK... What Should We Do?

[Bob S.]

hello, really my first beefy post... signed up a while ago and ready to commit!

my wife and i are 42 years old, dual income, no kids (working on that)... we bring home 15k/month after taxes. we save at least 2k a month. our mortgage is $3700/month, locked in at 2.875%. we don't want to/care about paying it off as any other income (stocks, etc.) will easily beat this rate over time.

we have about 200k in investments, 20k in liquid cash (spent 150k or so in the last year for health, fertility, and home renovations), my 401k has 775k, wife's has much less due to health issues...

we want to either buy rentals (i see this is a rocky risk) or small businesses (Codie Sanchez just opened my eyes to this). other options that sound feasible?

i guess the big question is - where should we start? anybody in a similar situation? we'd like to slowly build a small empire of ownership of local businesses.

i'm focusing on seller financing or SBA versus OPM... those options sound more feasible.

i really don't want to crowdfund real estate, etc... i'd rather own my own businesses, flat out.

we're ready to fail.... and also succeed :)

thanks.