Stumped, conflicted, & confused. Please Advise!
Pursing a first-time home purchase and FI (financial independence) seems not possible from my position. Do you agree? What am I not considering? Should I change my risk-tolerance in order to pursue both goals? Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks! See contextual details here below. It's first year ever pursing and learning about FI and real-estate investing thanks to BiggerPockets, Afford Anything, ChooseFI, Tony Robbins, & Tom Wheelwright. How can I better position myself for wealth creation and/or FI with the cards that are available? How to optimize?
About me: Late 20s, single, Chicago-suburbs born & raised, avid-traveler and outdoor recreation lover, not good at following a budget (need help)
Employment: W2 corporate job $100K (pre-tax) 50 hrs/wk
Goals: Close first real estate deal before end of the year because I have heard there is 100% bonus depreciation rule from 2017 tax act that ends in 2022. This property would serve as my first ever home purchase and hopefully also my first ever big ticket investment item to build wealth.
Finances: I just started maxing out HSA ($3K) & pre-tax 401k ($20K - towards a target date fund) & Roth IRA ($6K - towards VTSAX) to the annual IRS limits, paying off Federal Student Loans ($345/mo., 4%, $20K+ balance) and Private Student Loans ($365/mo., 5%, $14K+ balance), contributing $50/mo. to a very small emergency fund ($2K balance, 1%) in a HYSA, also contributing $50/mo. to I-savings bonds from Treasury Direct ($1K balance, 9.6%), have a small amount of shares in brokerage account ($1.5K - towards risky tech stocks), no other assets or real estate, no crypto, no pets, no subscriptions, no utilities, no car, no rent/mortgage (live free w/fam), no phone/internet/tv bills.
Budgeting: I definitely need to improve on these skills, but typically spend $600/mo. on all food & beverage and $500/mo. on lifestyle (travel, fun, other)
I'm open to house-hacking but I can't afford anything in my area, nor the areas I was considering Western Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana. I recognize that real-estate investing requires sufficient cash reverses to buffer any disasters but I don't have much reserves and think it would take too long to save up based on current way of operating/living/spending. Based on my learnings from personal finance podcasts, I'd like to keep my future housing expenses (mortgage, taxes, insurance, HOA, Utilities, etc.) to 30% of After-tax income as a way to hedge/buffer against future disasters since I don't have much cash reserves. From my rough calculations I estimate that this would equate to roughly $1K-1.5K which means I probably can only purchase a property around $150K or less. It would be impossible to find a multi-family property for this amount in a safe, good area.
So the question is.... am I pursuing real-estate investing / first home purchase too early? Should I first be focusing on FI goals? Do i change my calculations?
I feel stumped, conflicted, & confused. It seems impossible to pursue all these goals at the same time and I'm not sure where to prioritize. BUT i'm eager to get started in the right direction especially after listening to so many episodes of BP & other channels. Please Advise!