New from Western New York

[James Short]

My Name is James, I currently own a home in Youngstown New York. 

I am a plumber/steamfitter and due to work being slow in the area I have been working in Pennsylvania since December of 2018

At some point last year while watching youtube a BiggerPockets video showed up on my feed and I became interested in learning more about real estate I guess and that led my to purchase Brandon Turners book on investing in rental properties.

Also last year my wife and I wanted to try and buy the parcel of land next to us from our neighbor who currently doesn't live in the property, it just sit vacant. I began saving a bunch of money so the next time we saw him we could ask if he would sell to us for cash. Well unfortunately he does not want to sell and after talking to a friend of his he enlightened me that "he has never sold a thing in his life". This was very depressing because my wife and I would really like my room for the kids to play, to grow food, have more room for our chickens, and I also keep honey bees. So since then I have been trying to figure things out.

Sorry if this isn't very organized. After reading the book on rental properties I attempted to talk to my wife about the idea but I got a very bad reaction to this idea. So after that I was scrolling through instagram and someone had posted a list of books to read and the first one I read was "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and my mind was blown and that book only made me want to invest in real estate even more. So since then I have been reading more books and attending a bunch of BiggerPockets webinars.

But I have also been side tracked because like I said I keep honey bees and last year I harvested almost 700 pounds of honey from my bees. So my wife and I had to figure out how to sell all this honey and we are now officially honey producers selling our honey from our business "Sunrise Bee Company." So currently my wife is way more interested in this business than anything else. This year we plan on doubling the number of hives we have and increasing our honey production and hopefully that translates to more profit. 

Im currently trying to figure out how I can get my wife of the "same page" as me with out trying to force it because I know that will never work. I would love for this business to be able to help provide us with additional capital to invest in real estate, but my wife is currently horrible with money and she would rather spend everything. 

The reason I want to invest in real estate is to have more time with my family. Currently I work out of state and only see them every other Sunday. I want to be home with my family and not let others control my life for me any more.