What is/was your primary income stream when you started, and did you have other investments?

[Ben Kevan]

This question is for those of you that do this as a living, and as a supplemental income.

What is/was your initial primary source of income? And if you've since gone into doing REI as a primary source, how secure did you make your position before switching?

Also, for people that have a primary day job, did you still invest into a companies 401k (past the matching % since you want to make sure you get the free money), or did you take that extra income as take home pay and invest it into your REI ventures?

My position is that I'm currently holding a well paying day job, and want to build my capital to the point where I can become a landlord of at LEAST 1 rental unit. I'll be starting off gaining knowledge of the markets by trying out some Wholesaling to help expedite the creation of the capital for the purchase of a rental unit (really to help build the down payment).

I ask the questions above because I plan on keeping my primary source of income, and do not plan on doing REI full time, but do want to have a nice structure to have a steady revenue stream. Yet, I find myself reluctant to stop my contribution to my 401k (currently doing 11% 401k and 5% ESPP) to help expedite the gathering of capital towards purchasing my first rental unit. I am 28 years old, and currently have about 60k in 401k, so I think I am up to par with my age group.

So my second question is, what do most of you do that hold day jobs as your primary source as income when it comes to capital gaining? Do you keep 401k? ESPP? Or do you use that for using to build capital for your real estate ventures?

Thanks for taking the time to read, and thanks to any answers.