I am 36 years old and have been busting it the last few years to put my family in a good position. I finally feel like I'm in a position to do that. Have 3-4x my income in the last 8 years while living beneath our means and want to leverage the position I'm in to grow some serious wealth. Here are my stats:

Cash in hand: $125k
Home Equity: $280,000
Money to put into wealth building: $5k/month

I don't have any money in the market right now because I used about $30k in stocks to buy/sell my first real estate deal which turned into two others which is how I got the $125k cash in hand in about 3 years. Again, I know I'm "behind" by that metric, but I was literally making $30k ten years ago, and we've had four kids with my wife staying at home.

So what would you do to grow your wealth if you were in my situation? My goals (not in order):

Pay for kid's college (4 kids)
$12k/month cash flow by 56
Retire with enough to live comfortably and pay for generations of grandchildren's college

To make real wealth you have to be an entrepreneur.
If you can't be an entrepreneur then you should keep doing what you are already doing. Buy assets, sell the assets to get better assets, limit the amount of liabilities you take on (new cars, more expensive house), limit your tax exposure.

For some safe options maybe open some retirement accounts, invest in index funds with after tax money, muni bonds.

Real estate is pretty lucrative if you have the capital, I've never done it though.

There are people on here who have probably better ideas than me though.

TriAg2010 said:

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rgag12 said:

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To make real wealth you have to be an entrepreneur.

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Can you quantify your standard of real wealth?

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The definition I've heard is "More money than your kids can piss away."

IrishTxAggie said:

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TxAg20 said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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rgag12 said:

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To make real wealth you have to be an entrepreneur.

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Can you quantify your standard of real wealth?

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The definition I've heard is "More money than your kids can piss away."

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And as I tell my parents, "Challenge Accepted!"

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I belive it.

TxAg20 said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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rgag12 said:

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To make real wealth you have to be an entrepreneur.

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Can you quantify your standard of real wealth?

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The definition I've heard is "More money than your kids can piss away."

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From the wealthy I've met... The kids do alright, but the grandkids are tits on a boar hog useless

Quote:

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I am 36 years old and have been busting it the last few years to put my family in a good position. I finally feel like I'm in a position to do that. Have 3-4x my income in the last 8 years while living beneath our means and want to leverage the position I'm in to grow some serious wealth. Here are my stats:

Cash in hand: $125k
Home Equity: $280,000
Money to put into wealth building: $5k/month

I don't have any money in the market right now because I used about $30k in stocks to buy/sell my first real estate deal which turned into two others which is how I got the $125k cash in hand in about 3 years. Again, I know I'm "behind" by that metric, but I was literally making $30k ten years ago, and we've had four kids with my wife staying at home.

So what would you do to grow your wealth if you were in my situation? My goals (not in order):

Pay for kid's college (4 kids)
$12k/month cash flow by 56
Retire with enough to live comfortably and pay for generations of grandchildren's college

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$30k to what...150-200k in 10 years? (rough assumption based on having 5k/m to invest while raising 4 kids) i'd keep doing whatever that is and being in the market myself.

It feels like you're trying to talk yourself into take on a lot of risk based on favorable results in RE (30k to 125k). If you're confident in the numbers and it's your jam, go head on.

Sounds like you should talk with someone who can help you figure out a plan of action going forward

First thing's first, gotta siphon off whatever of that $125k you don't need for a monthly cash flow need and emergency fund to get that working for you. There's a lot of opportunity cost being left on the table there.

Broken record here, and obviously biased (from my own personal experience moreso than my profession), but go and talk to somebody with the tools to help you visualize your goals and see how you're tracking towards them.

That should help identify some areas of opportunity.

As an aside, determining how you split up that $5k month is important...know what parts of it you want to use to fund short, intermediate, long, and possibly even speculative goals.

Best wishes!

Kenneth_2003 said:

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TxAg20 said:

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TriAg2010 said:

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rgag12 said:

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To make real wealth you have to be an entrepreneur.

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Can you quantify your standard of real wealth?

---

The definition I've heard is "More money than your kids can piss away."

---

From the wealthy I've met... The kids do alright, but the grandkids are tits on a boar hog useless

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The proverb is "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dennisjaffe/2019/01/28/the-shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves-curse-how-family-wealth-can-survive-it/

rgag12 said:

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To make real wealth you have to be an entrepreneur.
If you can't be an entrepreneur then you should keep doing what you are already doing. Buy assets, sell the assets to get better assets, limit the amount of liabilities you take on (new cars, more expensive house), limit your tax exposure.

For some safe options maybe open some retirement accounts, invest in index funds with after tax money, muni bonds.

Real estate is pretty lucrative if you have the capital, I've never done it though.

There are people on here who have probably better ideas than me though.

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This is obviously false. Entrepreneur probably has a greater chance for mega-wealth but real wealth can be obtained by other means.

The top of corporate pyramids (c-suite) generate plenty of wealth without ever being an owner. I know several folks who made 7 digit incomes for a couple decades, lived reasonably, invested well at a level any definition would call wealthy.

I also know many sales people that make it to wealthy. Most rose to the top of something specialized, create incredibly loyal customer relationships in a B2B environment and are the rainmakers of their businesses.

The top of the legal and medical profession also rose to the top of the wealth status.

If you are defining elite wealth as over $100m then ok. But if 10-100m is wealthy there are lots of ways to get there

Where does the line, even if fuzzy, get drawn between:

I can retire/stop working comfortably

And

I can retire wealthy

Reminds me of the joke outlining the difference between rich and wealthy. Shaq is rich...the guy that signs Shaq's checks is wealthy.

It all depends on how you choose to define it.

Getting back to the OP, you need to hire a financial adviser to help you over the next 2 decades. Find someone you know who has a lot more $$ than you and ask that person who handles his money. But always keep in mind that no one every has you and your family's best interest in mind more than you do. So stay engaged with whomever you hire.

FrioAg 00 said:

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The top of corporate pyramids (c-suite) generate plenty of wealth without ever being an owner. I know several folks who made 7 digit incomes for a couple decades, lived reasonably, invested well at a level any definition would call wealthy.

I also know many sales people that make it to wealthy. Most rose to the top of something specialized, create incredibly loyal customer relationships in a B2B environment and are the rainmakers of their businesses.

The top of the legal and medical profession also rose to the top of the wealth status.

If you are defining elite wealth as over $100m then ok. But if 10-100m is wealthy there are lots of ways to get there

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That's what I was referring to and c-suite not required either. Middle management or senior leadership will get you there as well.

Another +1 to PearlJammin

rgag12 said:

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To make real wealth you have to be an entrepreneur.
If you can't be an entrepreneur then you should keep doing what you are already doing. Buy assets, sell the assets to get better assets, limit the amount of liabilities you take on (new cars, more expensive house), limit your tax exposure.

For some safe options maybe open some retirement accounts, invest in index funds with after tax money, muni bonds.

Real estate is pretty lucrative if you have the capital, I've never done it though.

There are people on here who have probably better ideas than me though.

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How are you defining real wealth?