[Insert Clever Tagline Here] Jack: Newbie from Harrisonburg VA!

[Jack G.]

Hello All!

My name is Jack, I'm from Harrisonburg Virginia. I'm currently 27 years old and enjoy long walks on the beach.

I also have somewhat of a lame sense of humor :-p

If you look at my profile you'll probably notice that I've been a member for almost a year, so I suppose I'm technically not "new" per se, but I am new to the forums and I'm making an effort to become a more active member. I thought this would be a good start! Below you'll find an information dump about my life and what I'm doing here. I'll add headers so you can skip over the boring parts if you so choose.

A little about me

Like I mentioned earlier, my name is Jack and I'm 27. Well, 28 in November if you want to get technical. I was born in Virginia, raised in Pennsylvania, and moved back in VA when I graduated high school. I put myself through a Bachelor's in Computer Science at James Madison University and still have the $60k in student debt to prove it! Despite a degree in CS, and being a very technical person in general, I've always enjoyed business and finance. I started in JMU's business school, but at the time I wasn't able to make the required GPA. I could go on with excuses about working full-time and going to school full time, but the bottom line is I didn't make the cut so I switched majors. A few months before I graduated a landed a $75k job with a tech firm in Culpeper. I was laid off 3 days after my graduation and went back to driving a transit bus and working for the computing support department with the university, the two jobs that got me through my degree. A year later I was moved into a full-time position managing a 100-seat computer-based testing center on campus. The position is 50% tech, 50% administrative and pays half as much as the tech firm did, but it has good benefits and my commute is a 10 minute walk. On that note, a year after getting this job I got married and we bought a small house 100 yards from the edge of campus, which we intend on renting some day. As much as I'm wrestling with this decision, I'm strongly considering staying with this job for the next 6 years. In 6 years $40k of my student loans will be relieved with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (since the university is considered public sector) and during that time I can take advantage of a university-paid master's program (once I figure out which one will best suit my goals). I can also leverage my steady income for investment purposes. However, my biggest fear with staying is stagnation (my "IT" job doesn't deal much with IT) and the opportunity cost.

My Interests

My interests are varied, really varied. People tend to joke about me being a "Jack" of all trades. While humorous, it's been problematic for me because it's made is extremely difficult to figure out what to do with my life. Many of my interests spawned from finding ways to save money. I learned to program because IT jobs were plentiful (at the time). I had an old Grand Marquis that I rebuilt the suspension, brake system, and replaced the entire transmission in the parking lot outside my apartment. I learned to cook because the foods I liked are expensive in restaurants. Next week I'm taking a commercial driving class to get my Class A license (trucker's license). Why? Two reasons, 1. I love trucks 2. even with a pickup truck and a goose neck trailer you can cross in to Class A territory, and I found a opportunity to get the training cheap and cover that base so I'm taking it. Plus, its a good fall-back plan if I ever lose this job. DIY projects? This year I tore our bathroom back to the studs, rebuilt it, re-plumbed the house and pulled out almost all the old armored cable in the house and replaced it with 12awg, built a fence, and tore up the busted concrete driveway, replacing it with a bigger gravel driveway. Everything I mentioned above are things I enjoy doing but there is no one thing in that list that I would enjoy doing day in and day out every day for the rest of my career. Oh, and there are two more things I enjoy: writing (which you could probably tell) and networking with people (which is, in part, why I'm here).

My Goals

I'm not looking to get rich quick, I'm not looking to be the next Warren Buffett. My goal is simple: I want options. The option to buy a equipment that can yield a return, the option to buy rental property, the option for either myself or my wife to stay home with the kids, or even just the option to leave an abusive, negative work environment and not fear bill collectors. I want to be able to carve my own path and not be worried about people telling me "if you're not in your career by 35 you'll be doomed to low-paying jobs." I've seen my parents financially crippled under houses and cars they bought and lost because of lay-offs and poor planning. Right now my father is 5 years from retirement and half a million dollars in debt. On the flip side, I've married into a family who built wealth through real-estate for the past two generations. Further, my grandfather (my father's father) has been retired, living off his investments, since 1982. These are my influnces for wanting to learn how to invest.

Why I'm here

After obsessing over the subject for the past two years I've concluded that flexibility is gained through having multiple streams of income, but that caused me to hit my current roadblock: time. You spend two-thirds of your life awake and most people spend half of that in a 9-5 (in my case 8-5) job. That gives  you the other half for another job, recreation, time with your family, and/or maybe some other ventures. So the solution to the time-crisis is to set up sources of residual income. Real-estate, equipment rentals, royalties, stocks. The trouble I'm having is all of those things either require a lot of startup capitol, or a talent/expertise that can be packaged and sold. Neither of which I have, but I know I'm not alone. There are plenty of people out there, many of which are right here on Bigger Pockets, who have been in my position in life and done great things, the majority of them got there with Real Estate. I'm here to shake hands with the greats, to learn from the best, and hopefully carve out my own little piece of the mountain. 

I hope you enjoyed my mini-novel and I am open to questions, suggestions and comments! I have plenty more to discuss but I figured I made this first post long enough.

TL;DR: Hi, I'm Jack, I'm interested in lots of stuff, I want to invest in real estate, please share your wisdom. ^_^