New Member Dallas Tx

[Roland Brown]

Hi all, I am new!

I am from Tucson, AZ, and have lived in Phoenix, AZ, Bakers Field CA, Eastern Idaho, Jackson Hole Wy, Alaska stick, the Hawaii Beach, and find my self now in McKinney Tx. I am a life long fitness enthusiast and competitive athlete having competed nationally in Wrestling and Rugby, locally in dozens of other sports.  I am currently a strength coach for a few hours each week as a hobby.  I tend to latch on to ideas then work feverishly to become the consummate subject mater expert in each field, I have learned a little of real estate and now want to really dive in.

I am educated in business finance, with an MBA, I have worked as a Financial Analyst  for that past 6 years for a large defense contractor. I have worked as a cost analyst to protect profit margins and develop strategies to capitalize on opportunities and  mitigate risks.  As enjoyable as it is to turn the company profit on a $20M project from 14% to 22%, I am really more interested in developing a long term plan for my own financial success.

I like my job, and I am moving up rapidly in the corporate world but I want a stronger plan then depending on the corporate world at the end of the next 10 years.  I ideally would like to be self employed.

I recently was hired on at the new Toyota North America in Plano Tx.  I will be leaving my current employer next week.  I will have a modest 401K and am open to ways to leverage that into real estate investing.  I have looked around and there seems to be as many ideas on how to do that effectively as there are people breathing.  True to the Pareto principle 80% seems like garbage, and of the other 20%, 80% is also garbage

^ë^ (*o*). 

I would like to build up my investment portfolio in conjunction with my full time employment.  I am a realist and want to look at ways to plan and grow my investments over time.  My time is limited but I am willing to put in work in late hours if it makes sense and is not cheesy.

Main question - What can I do with my old $35K 401K that would be better than leaving it in its current form?

Is my 401K too small to really be of use?

2nd question - What seems most logical to me right now is to build up a cash account not tied to the 401K then start to work a real estate wealth creation plan once I have cash in hand. Down side of this plan is it leaves me out of REI for ~5 years thinking conservatively.

 I would like to look at the most methodical approach and the most light my hair on fire approach and find a middle ground.

I would appreciate good feed back