The good news is, unless you need to be filthy stinking rich, or build a real estate empire, you don't have to stack very long to have financial independence.

I am also watching the "Financial Independence Blueprint" videos, and developing my own plan.

To make a long story hopefully not so long, last year after much discussion, book reading, podcast listening, etc, decided that we wanted to move our efforts towards FI (Financial Independence) or as we call it "FortyFI", our goal age for early retirement. 

After reviewing some of the mistakes I made, these are some of the main steps I will take moving forward and I'd recommend you consider them as well when deciding on a general contractor to work with: Receive references from someone you knowIf you can't find references, use home advisor (search for someone who has at least > 2 years of good review history)Ask contractor for references and follow up on those referencesDevelop your own independent contractor's agreement (I would not recommend simply using one drawn up by your contractor)Start the contractor off with a small job in the beginning to see how you work together and to understand their work ethic (you don't want to work with anyone you don't get along with.

Plus, if you did go under contract and went through with the deal, your lender will require an independent appraisal so you would  have to pay for another one anyway.So after pointing out all the potential hurdles, lol, what can you do? 

The ability to get the amount of power out of solar arrays for complete energy independence is far more attainable than it was even 5 years ago but it can still be a challenge based on building orientation and the size of the array you can fit on the roof.

you have your own independent section to sign?

@Larry AlexanderCost of purchasing a house is independent of the cost to rebuild it.

Usually, ginormous corporations have large marketing groups concerned with image, zillions of lawyers to go thru contract and plenty of shareholder lawyers looking for anything to start a class action suit.And on the other side we have the fiercely independent wholesaler who lives in freedom, abhors rules like transacting RE without a license in expectation of fee isn't legal and likes to tie up properties for nothing and can't even tell the seller who the true buyer is.Your turn.

Absolutely open to suggestions for books and podcasts that will help me gain a mental foothold on how to get started and invest wisely over time.My long term goal is to gain enough financial independence to not have to work a normal 9-5 job anymore.