Investor · McKinney, TX · Member since 2009 · 405 posts · 160 votes
15y
If I could do it all over again I would have started younger for sure!
For the younger crowd asking how to get started, look around, how many of your friends drive cars with $400, $500, $600 a month or more car payments? How many pick up a $3 coffee every morning? How many eat out 2,3,4 5 times a week and go boozing every weekend and don't think twice about it. There's your start. All those activities have zero or negative return from a financial or wealth building perspective, yet they are commonplace and quite acceptable if not expected behavior.
Drive a beater, back off on the morning coffee's, limit the eating out and boozing and build up some cash.
Buy that first property.
Manage it yourself so you learn the ropes.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I have a couple rentals that I bought in my pre-BP days. Although their returns are nothing to write home about, they do have a return. What I have since learned from BP and by managing my own rentals has put me in a much better position to buy smarter going forward.
You're not going to get rich overnight, but over time, a small trickle of cash flow, if nurtured and built upon, can be turned into a significant source of wealth.
A few dollars of cash flow here, a few hundred there, a few thousand there, it all adds up.