Regardless of whatever you are worth right now, today, why are you not worth two or three times that? I ask this with the intention of getting you to think a little bit and maybe analyze what you may have or could've done differently along the way.

It doesn't have to be RE based.

Because I worked a lot, but still made time for the important things of family and friends. There was only so much I was willing to risk. Money is only part of a happy life. I am very comfortable, I am happy with what I have achieved and the family I have. More money or worth would not mean anything to me.

I'm working on it, I'm only 32 I have no plans to stop anytime soon.

I started out with a very small, limited scope growing up. Everyone in my family worked for the Govt in low-level jobs: admin assistants, etc. I had one Uncle who was in IT for MO Dept of Transportation, and he was my "rich uncle". Relatively speaking, though, even he was below what most mid-level corp managers would make.

So when I grew up, I didn't have much knowledge or desire to achieve anything higher. In this way, I was probably like a lot of kids who grow up in lower income families. We were never poor, but the level of aspiration was to work from age 20 - 60, get a pension, retire, and live on pension, die and maybe leave the house to the kids to sell and split up the proceeds, take a nice vacation, and that's it for generational wealth.

Then in college I started getting interested in real estate. I met a guy about my age (junior in college) who already owned a house and rented out rooms. Shortly after, I decided I wanted to buy my house...so right after college I did just that.

During that purchase, I got interested in the life of real estate agents based on the one broker I worked with. I got my license and did the real estate gig for 2 years part time (taught HS the rest of the time). Met a few investors who owned rentals. My scope grew. Why own just one house? Why not own the block? I always enjoyed Monopoly growing up.

Time went on... I learned more and my scope and knowledge grew. I began to devour everything I could get my hands on regarding real estate investing. Started the journey in 2005.

I'm not a fan of "reliving life" because who know what would have ACTUALLY happened? I might have invested heavily right before the bust of 2008/09 and gone down the tubes. Or if I'd grown up in a high-protein family of savvy business owners, maybe I'd be worth $50 million today. Who knows?

All I can do is decide what to do with the time given to me.

I stayed small on purpose. I had a full time govt job, an absent overseas husband, and 2 young daughters at home. The 6 properties I bought and managed was enough to keep me FULLY occupied, and enough to accomplish my goals. Since 2012 I have sold off my properties one at a time as the tenants paid off the mortgages. Each sale accomplished something for me (paid off debt, funded a stock acct, bought condo in Caribbean, etc). I have interest in non-RE avenues now, and as decrease properties and minimize management, I increase the time and money I have for other things and other places.

I never felt any need to dbl or triple my wealth because it would have required me to increase my effort way past what I was willing to give out. And would have required me to give up the more imp things I was needed for--namely involvement in my daughters lives (basketball, cheer-leading, soccer and choir). With dad overseas, I was all they had! Staying small allowed me to do all the RE I needed in order to do all the other things I needed to do.

A big one of mine is the fear of "what might go wrong?" If I do this, so I don't do it. Then someone else does and makes a fortune.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

And some of that other stuff.

But as it is said, it's only money. They can't take what you know, so just get after it and make more.

That's a powerful question. NE it hits right in the soft spot. The bigger question may be am I worth what I thought I would be worth when I started out.

I'm worth what I started out wanting to be worth. Have a satisfying life. Family involvement with no just our future but theses also. I wanted about 20 SFHs and have 63. Wanted to travel when ever I want-- and I do. I don't overspend on things but don't have to think twice if I want something----- if I could afford it.

I don't want 3X's more-- sounds crazy. Don't want 10 gazillion $'s either. (if it fell into my lap sure I'd thank the big guy above but I'm not asking for it).

Income taxes.

NE, what can go wrong,when you know what you're doing,Now tell me again!..........................charlie.................repeat again,slowly............................................................................................

I'm satisfied where I am. I wish I had been more frugal when I was younger and far less engaged in consumption and this is something I preach a lot to my kids. At this point in my life, I'm not into "stuff". I got started late in the real estate game so that controls my strategy which is focused on multi-family buy and hold. With my next acquisition, I will hit my income target which is my main focus. I'm looking for strictly cash flow and setting up the management systems where this thing is as passive as possible. Passive for me means dealing with the properties 2-4 hours a day. That's like a vacation compared to the stress of running an accounting business. I've been running my own business (and helping run other people's business) for over 30 years and quite frankly, I no longer want the stress of that. My whole thing is to transition to a more passive business and get my time back. For me that's wealth.

I could be further along than I am-- but I don't have any desire for debt. I've tried it; I don't care for the loss of control and the accountability and having others involved in my business. This way is the slow way... but I'm okay with being slow and steady, rather than risky and aggressive.

I'm limited by the fact that we never buy anything turnkey. So my purchasing budget is limited, and my renovation budget is more generous-- but comes in the form of the monthly rent of all the working houses, trickling in a month at a time. I can generally buy two, three, four houses per year, but depending on how much work is necessary, I can only afford to renovate, perhaps, two houses in a year. So right now, I'm working on one house we acquired in 2016, and one house we acquired in 2017; but I still have four more in the renovation queue. I should have one house finished by mid-April; I should have the other house finished by the end of the semester; I hope to have two more out of my backlog by the end of the year.

I think that I'd answer that it's mostly because I stayed home to raise kids and hold down the farm (including rental management) while my hubby worked hard for us.

But I have no complaints - our fee-only financial advisor noted a couple of years ago that while we did not take advantage of many traditional investing opportunities, we'd been smart enough to invest in RE and pay off the properties. We lived the lives of the poor and insignificant for 30+ years, then looked up to discover that we were in fine shape for "earlyish" retirement.

Because this is the level I am happy with. I've got the quality of life I want and I can't make myself gag down dealing with any more tenants than what I already have to deal with.

Oregon ID can I mention one thing about the CRASH. It was a god send for us. One company had 26 of our mortgages. We told them flat out either we get refinanced and at a much lower interest or you will be getting these properties back. We are not letting the whole company go down because you now say you don't want to "refi investors". We told them that's to bad. We then hired the best Bankruptcy attorney in our state. He was not cheap believe me. We told him to send out the feelers to the bank of what our intentions were. So deal or watch us go to B/K and try to get the 26 back. When I read our attorneys letters to the lender I felt bad for them. I never read a letter on one page that kicked the you know what out of the lenders like this before. Remember this was when there were 100's of properties going to foreclosure every month 100's and 100's and no one was buying. Except us and 3 other investors.

Banks were taking back property's until they yelled uncle. Someday I'll go into all the details here on the site.

"I ask this with the intention of getting you to think a little bit and maybe analyze what you may have or could've done differently along the way."

soothe yourself all you want...stiff a lender and you are a deadbeat.

Pmh TX thank you. we tried everything to get the lender to renegotiate the terms NEVER the amount owed. THEY offered 9 at penny's on the dollar-- which we gave.

The best part was not paying any mortgage payments for 4 years- while still renting out the places and collecting rent. We still maintained the proeperty's and had to deal with lenders "agents" kicking in doors (illegally) but we then used the rent money collected to buy the best ones back at foreclosure. So maybe your wish for us has come true-- we were punished by getting 19 property's back and we're still LL's. Oh and some of the property's the lender couldn't find our loans because the lenders parent company went B/K and their employees LOST loan files.