Fighting fear of failure, or jump in?

[Nicholas Lemmond]

Hello All,

First post on BP and I'm so glad to be here! I'm looking forward to beginning my REI journey and haveing y'all in my back pocket to help and answer questions!

So, a little background on me - I will be exiting active duty military in February and relocating back to my hometown in North Texas. My wife and I have almost no savings other than my government TSP. We have both drank the kool-aid and are set on investing in real estate. With most people it started with Rich Dad Poor Dad, and grew from there. I've read books, listened to the podcast, watched the webinars, and done some research. We want to make this happen.

However, due to having very little savings and about 30k in consumer debt, we feel like it's not the right time to invest. On one hand we can wait roughly 5 years to get out of debt and feel more comfortable investing, or we can bite the bullet, take the risk and invest now, saving 5 years of waiting. Are we over complicating this and hesitating starting this journey because of fear, or are we right in our fears and should wait to pay down our consumer debt?

Further info on our situation - I will be an OTR truck driver and she is opening an Optical (glasses services only, no doctor). The building for her optical is being leased rent free from her mother. And we will be living in a 32ft 5th wheel camper, with very little in the way of a rent payment. Something like $170 /month for the spot. Annual income should be around 60k between the both of us.

[Jeremy Mangen]

I am in a similar position as far as the debt goes. Thats a very hard question, always, do you pay down your bad debt before investing or do you invest and use the boost in income to pay down the debt? 

What I did is house hack, which allows me to save a significant amount more per month by eliminating my housing payments and using that extra income to pay down my bad debts while also learning how to landlord and manage a property. By doing this househack I get to, as safely as possible, get into my first place for only 3.5% down, learn how to find a deal, analyze it, buy it, rehab it, rent it, landlord/manage it, and I gain the confidence to actually be able to say I'm an investor and landlord, even if I'm still a young and dumb one, at least I can say I AM one. Getting your feet wet is invaluable, but obviously you don't want to go deep sea diving if you cant even swim yet.

Ultimately I think it depends on your lifestyle, your personality, your risk tolerance/aversion, and your safety net. I'm a take action kind of guy, I can't just sit around and I'm very bad at patiently saving. I need to take action. Some people are more risk averse then me and they enjoy the slow and steady path over the sprinting path. There is no right or wrong answer, know yourself, know your end game, and obviously take your wife's feelings into serious consideration, then go from there.