Disclaimer: I've been a fortunate recipient of the benefits of good luck and effort. That fortune has led to stacks on stacks. I started my RE journey with a lot of resources and have self-funded it all. Those resources are most definitely key to my success.

I'm using RE to grow wealth that has already been created. I know many others here are creating wealth with RE but that's not this story. If you're looking for that story, this will be interesting but maybe not useful. Let's go:

2005: Grad from cheap college. Meet a hottie (now wife). Stayed put while my boo finished school. Stumbled into local startup. Joined 2 yrs in as emp ~75. Started as a sales guy making $36k/yr. Felt like a lot of $. Immediately started saving. Hustled e'ry day.

Wait, a note on my money mind: My dad lost it all when I was 3 yrs old. Was a successful CRE broker. Chased the big bucks as a developer. Massive failed project. Bankruptcy, divorce, lost kids, never recovered. Died broke. Avoiding his fate formed my $ mindset from day one.

2006-2009: Hustled to drive a lot of growth for the biz. Promoted. Income up to $70k then $100k. Felt like too much in my mid-20s. Kept expenses in check. Saved like a mofo. Bought $360k house in 2008. Rented rooms to friends.

2010: Biz was big now. Joined small group of leaders tasked with pitching biz to private equity. Youngest gun in room by far. Only gun with no equity at stake. Biz sold for $700m. Begged for a tiny slice of equity, got an itty bitty piece. Pocketed maybe $100k.

2010-2013: Led an amazing team driving growth. PE owners were happy. Golden handcuffs are quickly applied - stock options! Income continues to grow to $150-180k. Way more than I knew what to do with. Stash that cash!

Married my shorty in 2010. Boot the roomies. This chick is frugal as f_ck (and kind, supportive, and generally amazing). Despises spending $ more than I do. I love her so. Me today when she still questions my occasional $4 coffee:

Note: I was a great saver, but a terrible investor. "Never lose $" mindset kept me from putting money to work. Kept cash out of fear. Biggest $ blunder of my life. Makes me sick to think of opp missed. TBH, some of my focus now is to make up for those lost yrs. Carefully.

2014: PE firm sells company for cool $2b. $x00k appears in my bank account. (Sorry, former teammates follow me here.) Bought a used truck. Stashed the rest. Sold house for a small loss (bought the top). Bought another at same price. Still home.

2014-2016: New publicly traded handcuffs! These ones are somehow fuzzy and liquid at the same time. Comfy to wear while being flogged but easier to remove. Gonna be shady with $'s here but take home was low-mid-ish 6 figs. Still stashing. Expensive baby girl born. Worth it.

2017: Recruited to join new biz in UK to repeat US performance. All expenses paid trip to Europe for 3 yrs with promise of life changing exit? Heck yeah. Easiest hard decision ever. Fat salary, big bonus, lotta equity, subsidized rent. Deal!

Decided £'s were play money and balled out. The Queen (pour one out) took her large chunk. Ryanair, EasyJet, AirBnB took the rest. Traveled at every opp. Our itinerary over 36 months is worth bragging abt (esp as we had a preemie on the team for 16 months). $ well spent:

Lucca Barcelona Paris N Ireland Ireland Austria Iceland Cinque Terra Scotland Lisbon Germany French Alps Scotland Berlin Marrakech Lisbon Russia Switzerland Croatia San Sebastian Istanbul Crete Slovenia Seville Tarifa Lagos Brugge Prague Budapest Japan Scotland Made it rain!

Okay, so I did have another big win along the way. In 2014, two good friends who were the smartest, most driven guys I know, started a software company. I invested $20k in seed. They returned it to me in 2019 with another zero and a bigger first number. 😉 Thanks, chaps.

Decided to leave the UK at start of 2020, travel for 6 mo, then home. Pandemic hit. Sheltered on a 2,000 acre seaside estate in middle of nowhere Scotland until Aug. Exit I came for was planned for mid-2020. Pandemic botched those plans. Now a recession. Still waiting.

Aug 2020: Back to Merica! BTW, I started buying ETFs earlier (2012?). At this point 90% of my liquid net worth is in equities and had grown nicely. Decided I was done with the corp slog. Needed something new. Storage emerges a few mos later as the unlikely path to freedom.

Today: Much of my net worth is now being stored in, well, storage. Put $1.5m in for down payments on $7.5m bought, plus maybe $250k in other costs. Think I could sell the portfolio for $11m today. So I have the initial $1.5m + $3.5m in appreciation for a total of $5m equity.

I have pulled some of that equity out via cash-out refis, to roll into new deals, but I'm tired of this thread and will save that for another day. Still hold a lot of equities that I'll hold unless I have an amazing deal to bag.

It's pretty uncomfortable sharing this level of detail but f_ck it. Kinda feels like dropping trow in public and wondering "am I actually slightly smaller than average?" Then wondering what my friends will think of me now that they know the true size of my junk.

If you really want the details on how I financed the other 80%, be quiet and read this first: