All Forum Posts by: Frank Connelly

Wow guys! So much great information! I'll expand a bit.

Thank you for the information, @Jaron. My goal is to snowball the car payments once my wife pays off her car in December. I never thought about selling our vehicles and buying with cash; I'll look into that! What do you consider "BAD" debt? For me, anything about 4-5% interest is bad. The "BAD" debt I have is our vehicles and my student loan; however, I am looking into student loan forgiveness to take care of a large chunk of that. Unfortunately, I don't have a treasured motorcycle to sell! In fact, I like to think that I'm fairly frugal. I rarely buy items that I specifically want. (Having a kid has made me a lot more selfless.) It definitely scares me to think about rerouting my Roth IRA contributions elsewhere, especially when I'm essentially earning ~7% interest by doing nothing. Tell me more about principle reduction, appreciation, and tax benefits! 

Great information, @Matt Camilliere! I need to adjust my way of thinking!

@Chris John, I appreciate all the information. Do you suggest snowballing my student loan after my car is paid off? It's a tough decision for me, because I have $40,000 in student loan debt, so that means I'd be pushing my first rental property purchase further away. I am personally cool with renting out my current house, but the wife is not. I'm not going against my wife's wishes; not a road I wanna go down. I do like the idea of "skipping" my Roth IRA contributions to get this ball rolling a little faster.

@Laura Sulak, thank you for your contribution to this thread! I am seriously considering re-routing my IRA funds into investing in real estate. The one thing that I'm a little worried about is that my ROI won't -necessarily- be better. As we all know, the S&P 500 averages roughly 7-10%. I am glad you don't consider my home a liability; I hadn't thought of it like that before. My wife is absolutely against HELOC's, unfortunately. In a few years, she might be cool with a cash-out refinance. Other than that, it's looking like I'm SOL, and need to find the funds myself!

Sorry about the confusing title! I meant that I have low income, not that I'm necessarily interested in low in come housing. 

@Jaron Walling

Hello, all!

I'm a teacher in Central Texas, and am completely new to rental property investing. I've read some books and I've listened to countless hours of podcasts; however, I am obviously green as hell. In an attempt to garner the most genuine advice, I'm going to attempt to maintain 100% transparency about my (less-than-ideal) financial situation.

I don't make much money. After taxes, I personally pull in $4,000/month. $400 of that goes into a 457 Roth IRA. $1,200 goes to my biggest liability: the house that I provide for my wife and daughter. The rest goes to utilities, food, etc. I probably have around $200 that I could save per month. I only have about $500 saved in my emergency fund, and about $100 saved in my "down payment" savings account. Like I said, I'm green as hell.

I have a TON of liabilities. Including my house, college loans, and auto loans, I have close to $190,000 in liabilities. My goal is to gravitate towards more assets. 

My goal is to break the chain of lower-middle class living that my family has so blissfully perpetuated through multiple generations. Is my goal to become a real estate investor too farfetched? Do I need to pull in more money first? (My wife goes to college part time, and makes about $1,400/month. I'd prefer to be able to operate independently from that money.) 

Thank you in advance for your insight!

-Frank