My first steps to investing

Where to start? I'm now well on the road to creating financial freedom but a few years ago that wasn't the case. I had been working for a few years, enjoying the financial freedom that had come with starting a job and getting a regular paycheck. I was getting paid, paying rent and going out with friends, having a good time and if at the end of a month, or a few months, if there was any extra left in my bank account, I would buy myself something bigger as a treat. New games consoles, new expensive phones, a new car whatever it was I felt I needed at that time. I wasn't flush with cash but equally I wasn't struggling. Then slowly this thrill started to wear off. I realized that every month I was in the same position. I knew that wasn't what I wanted to be like for the rest of my life. So I looked at my expenses and like a lot of young professionals I immediately looked at the rent payments. These were the most obvious. They repeated every month, they were large payments and I got nothing in return, at least in my eyes. So I set off to find out how I could own my own house and turn these rent payments into mortgage payments.

After researching, the main hurdle of course was the deposit. So I started saving, putting money away each month and cutting back on the splurges. After a few years of saving I got a bit lucky. The landlord in the apartment I had been renting called me to say that he was getting the apartment valued for sale. I told him I had been saving for a property and asked him to let me know how much he expected to get before putting the property on the market. This suited us both, I knew the house and knew what I was getting, he was getting a quick sale, and we both avoided the auctioneers fees. After a bit of negotiating we reached an agreement and after completing all the paperwork, I became a home owner.

The best thing about this apartment was it had an extra 2 rooms that I could rent out! This gave me something new for the first time, passive income. I had set out with the idea that all I wanted to do was use my rent payments to invest in my own property rather than paying them to nothing, but I had set myself on another path. The idea of passive income took hold and the more I looked into it the more I realized what I was after was financial freedom, enough income each month from my investments to provide myself a living wage.

And so that brings me to the present day, I have owned the apartment for almost a year now. I have built my savings back up a bit having stretched myself to buy the apartment and I am now looking at ways to grow my passive income. I have made a small investment in P2P lending to test the waters and hope that can grow further for me. I have set up this blog to document and share my experiences and hope I can pass along some helpful advise to some people along the way. Though I have called the blog TheIrishInvestor, I hope it will be of use to anybody the world over who is trying to save, invest and grow their income and net worth. €3,500 per month has become the magic number for me, a living wage, to allow me to escape the rat race, with enough to save and continue the process! So please join me on this journey and I hope you can gain some value from this blog!