My wife and I had our first child at 25 and then we had our second child at 27. Daycare is expensive and we are very happy to have our second child out of daycare and into kinder. My wife's car will be paid off in two months. Every tax refund we have received has been used to pay down debt. We currently use an AMEX card to buy things, and we pay it off weekly. We get paid about $50 a month to use it due to cash back rewards. We still want to use car payment money to pay ourselves and put it in an investment account and make it our used car account.

I've been reading up on The Millionaire Teacher and The New Coffeehouse Investor.

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I trust you have term life insurance AND LONG TERM DISABILITY INSURANCE GS?

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FIFY



Glad to see life is going well Guitar! Miss you man and hope you and the new kiddo are doing well!

Guitarsoup-
Congrats on your success. I’m curious how you managed this:

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On my 28th birthday, I had a negative net worth. About five years later I am at around a quarter-million.

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While doing this:

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We save some, but not like most of the smart people on here.

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I would argue you’ve saved or invested a significant amount during those 5 years.

awesome discussion - this threed makes me think of the following thread: http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=2068221&page=1&forum_id=57

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Guitarsoup-
Congrats on your success. I’m curious how you managed this:

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On my 28th birthday, I had a negative net worth. About five years later I am at around a quarter-million.

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While doing this:

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We save some, but not like most of the smart people on here.

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I would argue you’ve saved or invested a significant amount during those 5 years.

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It probably helps when you've been able to...um...."collect" on photo copyright violations.

Many of Guitarsoup's AMAZING sports photos have been used by publications around the country....some with permission...some without.

[This message has been edited by Stive (edited 2/15/2013 9:18a).]

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Many of Guitarsoup's AMAZING sports photos have been used by publications around the country....some with permission...some without.

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Intellectual property rights are an awesome passive or semi passive income stream and is not something to be overlooked in my mind. I wish I had a collection of intellectual property that brought in royalties. I.e. music, photos, books, patents, etc. When Michael Jackson died his greatest asset was the rights he owned to most of the Beatles songs.

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Glad to see life is going well Guitar! Miss you man and hope you and the new kiddo are doing well!

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Thanks, Stive! I've always appreciated to great advice you gave me early in my college life at A&M.

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I would argue you’ve saved or invested a significant amount during those 5 years.

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Not a lot of it is liquid. A LOT is invested in photo equipment. Don't really have a real retirement savings, though my wife spent 12 years in TRS and I have 5 years in.

Put 20% down on our house and are trying to aggressively pay it off. We agreed that our next house would be purchased with cash. We have three cars, but paid cash for all of them.

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It probably helps when you've been able to...um...."collect" on photo copyright violations.

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That helps a little. Unfortunately, most violations I find are guys that are just using it on their personal blog or something. I really only go after people that are using it commercially. I hope that as my collection becomes larger and I become more well known, that it becomes a nice passive income over the years.

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Intellectual property rights are an awesome passive or semi passive income stream and is not something to be overlooked in my mind. I wish I had a collection of intellectual property that brought in royalties. I.e. music, photos, books, patents, etc. When Michael Jackson died his greatest asset was the rights he owned to most of the Beatles songs.

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Very true, but photos aren't worth quite what an original recording is. The barrier to entry is pretty low and the equipment is great. When the guys had to manual focus a telephoto lens back in the 60s and 70s, you could make some huge cash. Now, not as much. Because if you google Johnny Manziel, maybe I have some of the best collection of his pics, but there are a lot of great pics of him out there. And a lot of jerks just want to see their name printed, so they give away the pics for free, which hurts my ability to sell them.


Doing a corporate shoot is more like having a Beatles recording. They are generally licensed for a specific use and are then relicensed for additional uses. With a huge collection of clients and images, you can make a nice passive income. I'm not quite there yet, but am working towards that.

The majority of my income is from wedding photography. Probably 2/3rds. Probably 1/4th from corporate. The rest comes from editorial.

But I have locked in an event for this spring that may really boost my name in the photo world if I don't **** up. So that could be great. Not gonna say what it is publicly until I have not ****ed it up.

Building a private bidness based around your talent and work is hard. I work ~80-90 hours a week on average. I've gone 5 months without a single day off. But I think I can make it big doing what I am doing and I do enjoy it.

My current goal is to build up to 125k net post taxes and expenses/year. My expenses will always be super high, though. I think that would mean I am grossing near 500k annually. It is hard to forecast that without knowing expenses to get there.

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Thanks, Stive! I've always appreciated to great advice you gave me early in my college life at A&M.

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I gave you advice that you actually listened to? It's a wonder you aren't dead, homeless, or in jail!!!!!!

Well...

I am not there just yet, but close...and to be truthful not concerned about it either...I don't have those sort of goals, like "I plan to have $X million by age X." Just not my style.

Everyone's situation is different though no doubt.

I have had a lot of blessing come my way and for that I am very thankful. It has come through a combination of hard work, timing, and good fortune.

I always try to find the positive in everything...so my motto has usually always been "make more money than you spend" rather than "spend less than you make". Just that spin on it gives a whole different outlook, IMHO.

I am sure that I haven't made all the right decisions and I know I could have probably already eclipsed the mark. But I am young...and the only way to become old and wise is to be young and stupid. I feel that if I take care of my family and provide for them all I can, it doesn't matter much what the # is...

Great thread!

I appreciate that motto. I like what you did there.

My only advice on the "make more than you spend" motto is that I have long since lost count of people trying to out earn their lifestyle and failing miserably.

Just yesterday I met with a client with $500k of assets and $650k of debt. The debt started piling up when the commissions slowed down. He can barely keep pace with the minimum payments.

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My only advice on the "make more than you spend" motto is that I have long since lost count of people trying to out earn their lifestyle and failing miserably.

Just yesterday I met with a client with $500k of assets and $650k of debt. The debt started piling up when the commissions slowed down. He can barely keep pace with the minimum payments.

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You see that a lot with doctors and other high income people. Mo money = mo debt.

On another note, mismanagement at current income levels results in lottery winnings being so devastating to so many.

Yeah, I am very wary of that since I have a career that can fluctuate wildly.

We have a credit card, but rarely use it. I think my wife has a few store cards that she uses sometimes as well, but she is good at paying them off.

We paid cash for our cars and are paying our house off early. Our plan is to never have a car payment and never have another mortgage. I realize that I could put my money to work for me, but I kinda like the debt free, simple lifestyle. It works for me and lets me spend more time on my business and less worrying about things I don't want to worry about.

^^^^^ agreed will never want a homestead mortgage again.

[This message has been edited by Are you a Wizard (edited 1/22/2014 12:34p).]

Mostly because no one wants to talk about being broke at 25 and still broke at 35. The only stories you hear are the only ones people want told.

joined mint.com today as a result of this thread. food is ****ing expensive.

I was 25 and pretty broke. I couldn't understand where all my money went. I got on quicken and realized I was spending nearly $1000 on food, bar tabs, DVDs, cd's, etc. I got myself on a budget and haven't looked back. When you're spending it $20 at a time, you don't have anything to help you realize where it went.

[This message has been edited by Are you a Wizard (edited 1/22/2014 12:19p).]

re: "joined mint.com today as a result of this thread. food is ****ing expensive."


yes... of everything you spend money on...the things that jump out at you immediately when you start using mint is:
1) food
2) gas


food (groceries, fast food, restaurants) is just flat out a killer.

Several of you mentioned rental properties. Suggestions for how to get started?

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a good financial advisor... get one early on.

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The trouble is finding a good one who actually thinks and treats you like an individual rather than putting you into a boiler plate set of recommendations.

The biggest chunk of money is the one you never see--the part the government takes.
Not only income tax, Social Security, Medicare but sales tax, property tax, tax on the phone bill, car registration and on & on.

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Several of you mentioned rental properties. Suggestions for how to get started?

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Save up $20,000. Use it as a downpayment on a rent house.

Also look into owner financing of a property for your first one if you have to.

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a good financial advisor... get one early on.

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The trouble is finding a good one who actually thinks and treats you like an individual rather than putting you into a boiler plate set of recommendations.

The biggest chunk of money is the one you never see--the part the government takes.
Not only income tax, Social Security, Medicare but sales tax, property tax, tax on the phone bill, car registration and on & on.

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My advisor came as a recommendation from a friend. He spent ample time with us to understand our goals and create a plan custom for our needs. We meet once a quarter to discuss current investments, changes in goal, etc. he treats you like a true client and will tell you that he doesn't care if you have a $1000 or $100,000 cause he charges the same yearly fee to everyone. He does not get paid on commission. However he has obliterated industry average % since we have been with him. He was truly a blessing to my family...

I can't stress enough about the importance of using Quicken or Mint. You may think you are on top of your finances by reading your monthly statements or looking at your bank's website. But to truly understand the big picture, you need to put your financial world in one place.

Mortgages, bank accounts, 401k's, car loans, all investments, real estate, credit cards--- everything. I'm an admitted addict to Quicken-- I even keep a Cash account and log everything I buy with real money.

Not everyone needs to take it to my extreme, but the point is, you won't get the whole truth about your money with out using it in some way. I spend 5 minutes a day updating stuff.

It just makes you a more responsible steward of your own money. If I had to list one single factor that has helped me grow my net worth, it's using this tool.

Wow -

I've used YNAB for a while now and like it, but always update by hand and typically fail to keep it up to date, which leads to "blind" spending (which is never good).

I had previously used Mint (a few years ago) and decided to give it a go based on you guys and man - it's either greatly improved or I just didn't dive in enough before, but it looks fantastic.

Handles all of my accounts, no hand entry required and does a pretty awesome job of categorizing by default.

Definitely recommend it to anyone who is like I was and had used it before and not kept up with it.

Mint is good at updating and giving an overall picture. Have never found the budget stuff worth while and it is way behind on keeping track of the individual investments.

Mint was a struggle with me.... could never stay updated on investments and it had issues with one of my banks.

I created my own spreadsheets to track all of my accounts and spend 5-10 minutes manually entering the numbers every day. I have monthly budgets that I keep up to date, etc.

It's a little tedious, but I know where every dollar I earn is going.


We're 26 and married, make good money, and have been blessed with parents who have allowed us to live debt free our entire lives.

We're currently projected to hit $1 million in our (combined) 401k amounts at around age 37, but that depends on a number of things including whether or not she drops her job when we have a kid, interest that we earn, etc.

If we hadn't had parents who helped us along the way, there's no way we would be in this situation today.

Mint is a very good resource. I have just one complaint about it. If you get rid of an account, all the expenses tracked on mint disappear... It makes sense that it happened. I was caught off guard by it, though.

never 'delete' an account... always just make it 'not active.'

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Save up $20,000. Use it as a downpayment on a rent house.

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I went with 30-35%.

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never 'delete' an account... always just make it 'not active.'

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Didn't know that was an option. Thanks! Won't make that mistake again...

On the question about starting in rental property: One way is to buy your first house with an eye on that being your first rental property. A few of the advantages doing this:

You'll have a lower mortgage rate since it's your primary residence. You can fix it up while you live there.

When I first moved to California (in the '80's), a guy told me that he still owns every house he ever bought, starting with this strategy. He would buy a better house each time, live in it for a few years, rent it out and buy another better house. His goal was to eventually have a house with an ocean view. (He had several back then).