Newbie wants a better life

[Karen Coffelt]

Hey everyone, I'm fairly new here. I signed up at some point last year, but I can't even remember when. Can't remember if I introduced myself.

Anyhow, I haven't really delved into this too seriously, probably because I don't have a lot of confidence in myself, but today I watched the webinar on the 45-day challenge. I was hoping to learn a lot more on there than I did, but it turns out I learned that I have a lot more to learn. LOL It did give me a good kick in the pants, though, it made me realize that I really have to put more work into learning what I need to learn if I want to get into this business of investing.

I'm sick of this business of living paycheck-to-paycheck and never having enough money for when things come up, or to go on vacations, or to buy gifts for friends and family on birthdays and such. I keep coming back to the fact that the only way I'm going to get out of this rut is to get into real estate investing.

I have bad credit and no money, so I will have to learn how to invest zero, zilch, nada. I wanted to sign up as a pro tonight, but I don't even have the $290. I seriously considered borrowing money from one of those title loan places, which I've done before, but with over 200% interest, that is just not a good idea.

I wanted to take advantage of the cheaper price, and get locked in for 20% off in future years, as the price is going up $100 tonight, but I'm just going to have to resign myself to the fact that it's not going to happen right now. I'll just have to learn as much as I can with all the free stuff on here, and get the different books that BP sells.

Even though I may not be able to get a deal by the end of the day, I am going to commit to putting at least 15 to 20 minutes a day or more into learning all I can about this investing business. For years I've wanted to get into this, so now I'm going to take it seriously. A person gets to a point eventually when they say, enough is enough!

Okay, I better quit here before this becomes a novel. I think it already has. Have a great night, everyone!

[Jon Holdman]

OK, give them up.  Today.  That's a couple hundred bucks a month savings right there.  Not to mention TV is just a big time sucker and you have better things to do with your time.  Buy a $10 coffee maker at Walmart and make your own coffee.

While I would say this as "spend less than you make" this is the absolute key practice to accumulate any wealth.  No matter how little or how much you make if you cannot save at least a silver out of each paycheck you will NEVER accumulate anything.

Real estate is full of shysters who prey on desperate people with visions of quick and easy wealth.  You must avoid falling for those.

There are two ways to make money with real estate.  One is a real estate job - agent, builder, fix and flipper, wholesale, property manager, etc.  Where you put your LABOR into earning a paycheck.  The other is investing, where you put your CAPITAL into earning a paycheck.  Labor and capital are ultimately the only two sources of income.  Since you have no capital, you have to supply labor.  Unfortunately, most of those RE jobs, even wholesaling, require some amount of money.  And jobs like wholesaling and being an agent are commissioned sales.  You only get paid when you close a deal.  You can put in a lot of time and effort and no small amount of money and never make a dime.  This is where many of the gurus really make me angry.  They sell a dream that you have very little chance of achieving.  They have no problem convincing you to spend thousands of dollars, usually on credit cards, to buy their crap. Don't fall for it.

Real estate investing is an investment.  You must have money to invest.  Until you accumulate some cash, this just is not an option.  Any more than buying stocks, bonds or a bank CD.

A real estate job may or may not be your best path to generating income.  You say you're driving, but have a lot of downtime.  Have you looked into alternative driving gigs?  Uber and Lyft are the obvious ones, but there are many others.  My son worked for a company that delivered prescriptions to nursing homes and similar facilities.  They were paid for wait time.  He worked at a different company couriering documents and such.   And then at a third company as a dispatcher.  So, you have numerous jobs similar to what you do now.

Think about getting a second job.  There are 168 hours in a week.  If you sleep for 56 of those that still leaves 112 hours.  Plenty of time for two full time jobs.  I've had tenants tell me, "Jon, call right at 5:00 because that's when I'm on my way from my first job to my second."  There are free, online courses like Coursera, Kahn academy, and many others. Wikipedia has a list with many entries. Spend some time poking around on these before spending a dime on education.  Spend some time on job sites to see what skills are in demand.  Find something of interest, where you can find some training, and that is in demand and spend a few hours (not 15-20) minutes learning.

You don't need a pro account to read any forum or to post in any of the discussion forums.  A pro account gives you the ability to advertise.  You don't need that at this time.

There is no miracle with real estate.   When you say "I keep coming back to the fact that the only way I'm going to get out of this rut is to get into real estate investing", you're already falling for the hype.  The is NOT a fact.   Real estate might or might not be good for you.  But I can guarantee it will not make you rich quick and easy.