SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Hello everyone.
My name is Steve and I currently live in a small northwestern town in Indiana. 29 years of age and married to my soulmate who I met on Xbox Live back in 2008! I've been an avid gamer just about all my life and it's played such a huge role in making me happy and creating new paths to choose from. It's opened many doors that never would have existed otherwise. On November 9th, 2004 a game called "Halo 2" was released on the original Xbox. I was 14 at the time. I fell in love with it. I mastered every aspect of this game until I eventually found out I could showcase my skills at nationwide tournaments and play for very large cash prizes. In doing this, I created a known gaming alias around the league and ended up meeting my wife online, starting my own business teaching others, landed job offers and met some pretty cool celebrities along the way. I did this for around 7 years. After I moved on from the Halo game series, I got a couple work-from-home type jobs and didn't really enjoy it. Customer service is not my forte.
Fast forward to today. I started as a part-time forklift operator with FedEx Freight in 2017. I did this for about 9 months and quickly got promoted to a road driver apprentice. This would allow me to earn my commercial drivers license in as little as 6 weeks. FedEx offered to put me through their very own instructor led training course. They paid me 40 hours a week and let me use their equipment. I passed my driving tests and the FedEx course. I've now had my Class A CDL for almost two years. My job pays "good" by industry standards and is very simple now that I've learned the ropes. I am capable of making well over $100,000/year if I assert my time. But that's the thing. I miss my time. Lets move onto the next section.
A WAY OUT
Like I said above, my job is pretty easy and I make solid money to survive on and even slowly grow. But here's the thing. I'M NOT HAPPY! I miss when days were simpler. I miss when I could roll out of bed and play games all day or watch movies with my wife. I miss my cat Chloe and most importantly I miss being happy. After the hype settled down from earning my CDL and earning more money with FedEx. I quickly realized that I'm locked into a 9-5 job that requires me to spend time in exchange for money. But at what cost? 5/7th's of my weeks are dedicated to this company. I look forward to the weekends and holidays but as soon as they arrive, they're gone and I'm back to working for a paycheck. Throughout my short working career, I've gradually slipped into depression and couldn't understand why. I don't even look like the person I once was after gaining so much weight. I've seen psychiatrists and even still take anti-depressants to this day just to stay balanced. All this time I never knew why I felt this way until recently. I have lost my freedom and time. I could never come to terms with the idea of having to work until retirement to get back the one thing that matters most to me, my time. My wife and I have fast approaching plans of having a baby. We've been together for over 11 years and I've been putting it off our entire relationship because I want to have all the time and money I can to prepare. Am I suppose to raise this little creation of mine with only 5/7th's of my time? My wife also has to work as a Dental Assistant. Are we suppose to hire a baby-sitter to watch and raise our own child? This frustrates and angers me beyond belief. There must be a way out.
DISCOVERING BIGGERPOCKETS
I was sitting in the break room at work one evening before my route and started talking to a co-worker about how unhappy I am with having to work into retirement. At this time I started reading a book called "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham. As a truck driver, I have all the time in the world to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. I pitched this idea of mine to him and said "Yeah, I'm going to invest every penny I can into stocks and mutual funds so I can retire early!" He quickly nodded and said "Nah man, real estate is where it's at!" He then told me start listening to a podcast called BiggerPockets while I was driving. I took his advice. This website consumed me. I realized I could get paid while educating myself about real estate investing. I learned that compared to the stock market, real estate was a much safer and promising investment. It's been like seeing the light at the end of tunnel for me. I now look forward to work knowing that I'm working for something other than an age 65 retirement. I now have hope for my near future and overall feel happier because of it. All I have to do is work harder to save more money, keep studying and take action. The same co-worker who told me about BiggerPockets also shared the word with someone we work with. That person is now more educated than me and is obsessed with the idea. He's one of the hardest working employees at my job and has made a very good amount of money with FedEx. He approached me last week with the idea of becoming partners. He has more money to invest and I have higher credit to use. We hope this will create the perfect combination for our first deal. We're going to meet this Sunday afternoon and outline the strategies we learned from this website to owning our first rental property with the goal of making it happen before the new year begins.
