"Set for Life" - Was it harder going from $0-25k or $25k-100k?

[Kohei Hayashi]

A couple years back, I bought Scott Trench's book, "Set for Life" because I heard through the BP podcast that it was a great book for young people looking to attain early financial freedom. I've read and reread it a few times now but I just realized yesterday that I actualized Part 1 of the book earlier this year without much fanfare. For those who haven't read it, Part 1 is about building up your first $25,000+ in cash or equivalents through a frugal and economic lifestyle, or as David Greene would describe it, through good defense.

Now that I've gotten to this point, it's time to move to Part 2, which is using what I've saved up to start building up income producing assets and scaling my income so that I can go from $25,000 to $100,000 in net worth. In the near future, I plan on house hacking a small multi-family property in the Omaha, NE area to get my first property under my belt. From there, as I continue to save money I'll look to find distressed properties to BRRRR or flip so that I stay active in real estate investing and I develop the skills I need to be successful in the long run.

With that being said, in the last chapter of Part 1 Scott says that for many people, saving the initial nest egg is one of the more difficult parts on the road to financial freedom.

What do you think? If you were to look back to when you still hadn't gotten into your first investment property, do you feel that getting started was the hardest part, the easiest part, or maybe somewhere in between?

As a side note, I loved Scott's book and would definitely recommend it to college students, young professionals, and anyone else looking to achieve early financial freedom. The road ahead is long but I'm glad that others have come before and mapped out the course.