On the side I operate one year round rental unit that used to be my primary residence, a condo in Breckenridge, and run a home repair/remodel operation in my spare time. 

I recently finished William Nickerson's book "How I turned $1,000 into Five Million in Real Estate in My Spare Time."

Keep earning that paycheck and saving as much as you can.Keep your credit score up then buy yourself a home, perhaps a duplex or a single that you can rent spare rooms to your buddies.Let your tenants pay your mortgage.You can get a FHA loan which will only require 3.5% down.Richard had some good advice as well if your interested in earning some additional income quickly a RE license will really open you up to more opportunities to learn and earn while also keeping your regular job.Down the road your rental income and possibly real estate agent commissions can Grant you the opportunity to walk away from the w2'd job.Good luck. 

I have spare time now and since I am always looking for customer materials, it will be very easy to target one house at a time for myself.

The goal statements themselves are quite detailed but I will spare you the details and just give you the high level summary: Our 5 year goal is to have a combined Real Estate net worth of $1.5M+ through B&H multi-family residential and commercial investments.

Buy it using an FHA loan, rent out the other side or spare bedrooms.

I'm scouring BP for articles on wholesaling in the hopes of reducing the number of mistakes I'll make with investors and sellers.I'm an Air Force veteran and I do art in my spare time.

Use your free time to better prepare yourself and don't pay attention to the "Debbie Downers" that will undoubtedly break your chops because you are doing something different with your spare time.  

And of course, this is our ONLY property that's in an LLC, so we have to pay a lawyer to run an eviction.I'll spare you the rest of the sordid details.  

If you have $50k to spare to buy their comprehensive program you might as well buy a house!