When I was 21 I bought my first property.. it was a 2 bed 1 bath 1 car in the Fortitude Valley. Bought my 1st investment property at 24, it was a turn of key family home near North Lakes.

I was 703k in debt and at the time I bought the second house I was in mining and my wage went from about 180k per year down to roughly 70k per year as my job ended and I had to go back to work in town.

I was living in the apartment at the time after having the apartment for roughly 8 years and the house for 4 or so I decided to sell the apartment as I could barely keep up with owning them both even if the house was rented out.. I basically got my deposit back from the house when I sold.

The apartment had dropped in value since I bought it as a heap of residential towers had gone up in the surrounding area since I bought it. So I decided I couldn’t sell and chose to hit a bit of a house hack and move to my parents granny flat at age 28 and rented out the apartment.

I read the barefoot investor basically around the time I decided to sell the house and trying to figure out how to lift my wage so I could save and invest pushed me to literally flip my life on its head so I could get back on track.

I paid $20k too much for the apartment when I bought it which is a lesson learned but anyway the prices this year came back up slightly and I got away with selling the apartment for 15k less than I bought it for, hense why I feel I paid a bit too much for it.. 10 years later.

I got into buying property at a young age feeling like I couldn’t make a wrong step, I’ve always saved money and invested to keep it safe from being wasted but just because you buy property doesn’t mean it’s always going to workout. I feel like I got lucky.. both properties evened out by what I got out of them but had no room to leverage any more.

I’m almost 32 now, im completely debt free for the first time since I was 16 and feel totally free. I’m now able to save roughly 60-70% of my wage now as I’m still house hacking, my fiancé is here with me now as well and she works too I haven’t taken in to consideration her income on top of that.

Just wanted to vent my situation a little and see what anyone’s thoughts are..

For investing for me now is basically saving and investing in shares.. I’d love to get into property again but maybe once I’m closer to fire