July 2017 - Gen Y Finance Guy

PeerStreet – $0 to $77,089.49 in 5 Months

Gen Y Finance Guy July 29, 2017 Real Estate 27 Comments

I wrote about PeerStreet for the first time back in March of 2017 after I had been invited to visit their HQ and interview their founders. Since then I have aggressively grown my investment accounts with them in a little less than five months. I want to take a deeper dive into the platform and the investments I’m holding in one of my two accounts (it’s a self-directed IRA). Navigating the Platform Assuming you have already set up your account (if not, you can do so here), the first screen you see after logging in is the investments tab that gives you a high-level view of your account as well as available investments: One thing I have noticed is that new …

[Guest Post] Welcome to Adulthood

Gen Y Finance Guy July 24, 2017 General Information 5 Comments

It’s summer time and I’m making an active effort to unplug more than I have in the past. So, you will notice a few more guests posts than normal. I appreciate all of the other bloggers, freelance writers, and readers that have raised their hand to help keep the blog alive and well over summer. I hope you’re also taking some time this summer to unplug and enjoy a bit. Just Graduated? Here is the Financial Information Needed to Take the Next Step By Laur Davidson, newly graduated freelance writer Ah, so you are about to enter the real world. Well, congratulations. It is time for you to enjoy the first few days before the reality sets in and you …

[Guest Post] Readers Experience Investing in Real Estate on Crowdfunding Platforms

Gen Y Finance Guy July 17, 2017 Real Estate 7 Comments

Today a reader takes control of the GYFG keyboard and shares his experience investing in real estate through various platforms, including my favorite PeerStreet (my $80,000 portfolio will be revealed in about two weeks). RadCrowd as he goes by online, has some great takeaways, so be sure to read entire post. By RadCrowd My journey into real estate crowdfunding began over a year ago when I started to explore opportunities for passive income. I had come off a tough week at my work-a-day job as a physician and came to the realization that continuing at my current pace was resulting in burnout. Instead of trading my time for dollars, I really needed my dollars to start working harder for me. I began to investigate …

My Dog’s Perspective on Frugality, Fun, & Finance

Gen Y Finance Guy July 10, 2017 Interview 16 Comments

Do you ever realize how happy your dog is just being “present?” I think we could all learn a thing or two observing how a dog takes time to smell the roses (among other things). I often wonder what is going on in my dog’s mind. My wife and I will even go so far as to ask him questions and then answer in his “voice.” You would only understand if you had a dog, and if you don’t have a dog, I probably sound a bit out of my mind. But stick with me here… Dogs have really it figured out. They live a very low-stress life and get excited over simple things like walks, Frisbee, dog beaches, food, …

June 2017 – Detailed Financial Report #30 – Net Worth $571,210 | Income $31,672

Gen Y Finance Guy July 4, 2017 Monthly Financial Reports 12 Comments

GYFG here checking in for the June monthly financial report. If you have been reading these reports for a while you will notice that I introduce each month with the same intro month after month. I do this for two reasons; a) for the newbies to the site (which make up about 50% of the sites traffic); and b) to remind everyone what these reports are all about. By all means if you have read the intro at least once, then please feel free to skip down to the “Summary of June 2017” section where the new content begins. For those of you that are new around this corner of the internet, I wanted to fill you in as to what these …

Passive Income – We Need $120,000 To Cover Our Living Expenses – Where Are We And How Do We Get There?

Gen Y Finance Guy July 3, 2017 Income Streams 33 Comments

Late last year I shared a post with you guys on increasing the GYFG household income to $600,000 annually, and in that post there were two concerns that I said I wanted to start addressing in 2017: Concentration Risk – In 2016, approximately $27,000 of the $340,000 that we earned came from passive sources (or about 8%). The majority of the income we brought in was from our day jobs. Tax Efficiency – The other problem outside of the concentration risk, is that with earned income, we are taking a beating when it comes to taxes. As we all know, earned income is not the most tax efficient, and based on our 2017 projected income our marginal tax rate federally is going …