The purpose of TITOI

I could say I have owned real estate my whole life. Just after my first birthday my brother and I inherited a piece of vacant land in rural Colorado. My investing really started in 2010 when I obtained my first positive cash flow rental.

At a very young age, I had the wealth building mentality, but I let society beat it out of me. It wasn’t until around 2004 (my early 30s) that I came to some stark realizations while reading Rich Dad / Poor Dad. At the time I was making a good wage, had paid off all my debts (no mortgage, was renting), was finishing my PhD, and stacking some spare money into 401ks and IRAs. First realization: I was totally Poor Dad!!! The second realization occurred when I calculated my trajectory. Granted there were some conservative assumptions, but I calculated that with my current approach I would be out of the rat race around age 70!!

I am not a guru. I am not a full-time investor. Although I am moving much faster toward financial freedom, I still have a lot of Poor Dad mentalities. I spend 40 hours a week working for earned income. I am not aggressive in structuring deals. I am very cautious and slow to make investment moves.

Still I am improving and changing. Not just my portfolio, but knowledge and attitudes.

Instead of an Investor or Big Business owner (i.e., cash flow quadrant) looking back, the purpose of this blog is provide real estate investment thoughts from an Employee looking forward as he tries to make the leap to Investor. I write this blog mostly for cathartic reasons, but hopefully it provides insight or inspiration to those in the same struggle.

God bless and keep moving forward