All Forum Posts by: Don Young

Hello!

I am working towards getting into buy and hold investing and have been thinking about how I should track financials. I think it would be beneficial to have both personal finances and business finances tracked in the same platform, but I am not so sure that this is common, or even what software is capable of this.

I currently use Mint for personal finances and I do not think it has the ability to track business financials.

How do you folks handle this? If you use separate software, do you just manually enter your cash flow from your business as income in the personal finance software or are there ways to make the separate software talk to each other? What software would you recommend for either of these situations?

I was recommended Quicken by a friend, but reviews of the software have turned me away from it. I searched through posts on this topic and saw that many people use Quickbooks for business and then something else for personal finances, but I was unable to find any discussion about using a single piece of software for both.

Many thanks!

Don

Got sick and had to miss yesterday's meetup...I hope it was a successful one! See you all Feb 25th?

Hello @Samuel Bayzie, welcome to BP!

Whether the advice you received is good or not depends on your situation, what your goals are and what you enjoy doing. I have done no deals, but I have listened to a good amount of BP Podcasts and have done a fair amount of research on where to start myself. My two cents: 

One thing to consider is that wholesaling and flipping are much closer to being jobs as opposed to a more passive investment like a buy and hold property. From what I have gathered, both require much more time invested and can be difficult to successfully do while already working a full time job. You can certainly earn more money over a shorter period of time by flipping than you can by being a landlord, but it seems to me that the risk is also present that you could lose a lot very quickly if you are not careful.

I'm sure someone else here will be able to elaborate on these points much more eloquently than I, but I suppose what I am getting at is that it would be helpful to do your own investigating into each of the real estate strategies before deciding on a progression like what was recommended to you. You may find that you are better suited to doing the exact opposite.

See you around!

Don

Hello Anthony,

Welcome to Bigger Pockets! I happen to be in a very similar situation in the same area. House hacking is when you buy a multifamily, live in one unit and rent out the rest.

If you have not yet, I would suggest checking out the Bigger Pockets Podcast. It's perfect for listening on your commute to work, etc. and you'll hear a ton of good info from people who started out this same way.

Best of luck,

Don

I'll be there. Thanks for the mention, @Ryan Arth

Was today's meetup canceled?

You really got my hopes up there, Aaron. I'm really looking forward to next week - I'll see you all there.

I'm sorry to hear about your bad luck! You have a great attitude about it though and I appreciate you sharing. This really reinforces the idea in my mind that being financially and mentally prepared for setbacks is very important. I hope you end up with some great tenants in the house to make up for it.

I second the comment on the Cavs!

If I may ask a somewhat related question, is it recommended to go with smaller banks for earlier (or the first) deals you do? What is an example of the flexibility that a smaller bank would provide?

I have not dealt with Quicken Loans.

Hi Dan, welcome! I just went to my first BP meetup tonight with some members in the area. I had a great time, met some great people, and learned quite a bit. I'm looking forward to the meetup next month. You should join us. I'm pretty sure they said it would be on the 19th, so keep an eye out for it.