Dip the Toe: how does one begin?

[Evan Smeenge]

I seem to have a grasp on my end goals in life. Many of them have fallen into my lap, many of them I've worked hard for, but many of them I feel could be started now but I don't have the know how. Real estate investing is one of those. In my case, my wife wants a house before a rental property. So I see the amount in savings decrease. Then we have a baby, decrease. Then, and only perhaps then, will I have 10-20k in 2021 to buy my first property. HOWEVER I am sick of putting off what I see as inevitable. I have the drive to learn and thus succeed, but the finances, in my naive mind, is fixed and I will never be able to begin. I need a concrete method to be able to learn, in order to sell myself to investors, in order to bring them deals and subsequently bring myself passive income.

[Jim K.]

Then, unfortunately, since "that is that," you're going to be buying a house. At least try to convince your wife not to buy a house that costs more than twice your combined annual income. If this too is a lost cause, like househacking is, you'd better take real estate off the table as a lever to pull to get you to financial independence.

There seem to be a number of obstacles standing between you and the well-known, proven paths to FI that begin and end with the woman you want to take along with you on this journey. The most certain thing that we know about the challenge of achieving financial independence through real estate is that having a spouse who doesn't want to take the journey with you is the kiss of death to that journey.

My wife doesn't post on this site, but to give you a sense of what the other side of the coin looks like, she actually brought us our first deal. At every step of our journey, she has had my back. None of our rentals properties or our impending househack would have been possible without her.

Talk to your wife. Stop thinking in absolutes, all-or-nothing. Going from running on the hamster wheel of life to changing your destiny is most likely going to require a strong woman by your side, as it has for me. A strong woman can see reason and can find the value in things like househacking and frugality. You can face the challenges ahead as husband and wife anchoring each other in the bedrock of marriage. You cannot and should not face them as a rowboat in the darkness that a tsunami breaks over.