No More Overtime: Beginner's Guide To Financial Freedom Through Real Estate Investing

I was working harder and harder to make others look good. I'd been employed at the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department for about 18 years, beginning in the Communications Unit as a 911 dispatcher right out of high school and concluding with the rank of Sergeant over a Narcotics Tactical Team. While I made a modest living, I was the primary 'bread winner' in the family when my former spouse and I decided I would work, while she would stay home and take care of the kids. While I never regretted it, this decision led to work weeks of 70-80 hours, week in and week out. The toll of reaching financial freedom was not even within my grasp. Then 9/11 happened. While this was a tragic event in our nation's history and I was visibly saddened to watch the loss that these victims and their families had to endure, it opened up an opportunity for me to make some extra money. The Kansas City International Airport, the major airport in the Kansas City, Missouri metropolitan area, as every large airport nationwide required the addition of armed military and law enforcement personnel to man every individual gate and terminal in site. The Federal government was paying overtime pay to cover these positions. What an OPPORTUNITY! I'm going to be in the big money now! When it was all said and done, I had worked over 700 hours of overtime in 2002 and financially wasn't any better off on December 31 than I was in January of that year. I also had the opportunity to see all of these families traveling out of town to exotic locations for vacation. Watching all of these people leaving for vacation was not what I would call exciting. Me, being one of them would be! Toward the end of 2002, I overheard a friend of mine was leaving a coveted position in the Drug Enforcement Unit and going back to Patrol (uniformed position) assignment. When I asked him why he was leaving, he indicated it was going to allow more time for his real estate investment business. I am and have always been, one of those people who was hooked on the late night infomercials about real estate investing and how you could retire early. But, as I described earlier, I didn't have the money available to go out and take a chance on one of these programs. When I talked to my friend, he indicated that I needed to buy a couple of books, Rich Dad/ Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Building Wealth by Russ Whitney. Once I bought and read these books, I needed to call him back and we would go to lunch and talk further. That was on a Friday. The next Wednesday, I called him back and told him I had bought these two books and completely read both of them. He was shocked and amazed that I had been so diligent about this. This began my future in real estate investing and my quest for FINANCIAL FREEDOM.