How I bought a house with $5000 and an $11/h job

I was 22 years old and the last thing on my friend's mind was real estate. I had been working as an apprentice electrician for for 3 years and had managed to save my first $5000. A lot of people think the only way to put away money is to make a lot. Well that is somewhat true, however, the other way to put away money is to not spend. I ate cheaply, didn't go out partying, drove as little as possible, and earned money every chance I could. I was making $11/h as an apprentice but took on a second job stalking the bars at a busy night club. I would work 8 hours doing electrical, go home, nap, and then get up for my shift that started at 10pm. I worked until close and would get out of the bar by around 3am. Have a quick sleep and get up for my electrical job that started at 7am. I only made $10/h at the bar job but got a portion of the tips from the bar tenders. It was peanuts but it all added up. My body soon wore out from the lack of sleep but any additional work I could find I would take. I worked a second job for a lot of my early years. Always shitty, low paying jobs, but it was money in the bank.

The lead up (a few years prior)-I was tired of always being broke and having to wait for my next pay cheque to come in. I had an idea. At 18 I saved my first thousand and decided from then on if my account got down to $1000 it meant I was broke. That way I always had a buffer. It worked better than I expected and I became better and better at saving. I only bought what food was on sale, always ate at home, didn't buy any junk, quit smoking and drinking, and saved all the money I earned. It wasn't long before I saved my first $5000.

I had moved out of my mom's place when I turned 17. She wasn't happy about it but it's what needed to happen. I ended up dropping out of high school but went back after two years and completed my last two grades in a condensed adult program. At 19 I was forced to move back in with my mom due to some complications (I was a bit of a delinquent). I lived there for a little over a year. I had acquired all my own stuff from living on my own so I had stuff that I was storing in their garage. My step dad said "you better buy your own place because you can't store that here for long". The seed was planted.

In school they told us that if we wanted to make it in life we needed to go to college or university so that's what I did. The part I felt unsure about was all the money people without wealthy parents were borrowing to finance their education. I decided to only take a few classes and get a job to pay for as much as I could. that's when I landed my job as an "electrician's helper". The last thing I wanted to do was become a tradesmen but I was happy to be making money. I transferred schools for second year and when I went to choose my classes the lady working at the counter told me that I didn't fill out the paper work correctly and that I was to be treated as a new student. That meant I was going to be paying for classes that I didn't even need or want. That was the final straw for me. I decided what the hell, I'm already making $11 working as an electrician's helper, so I dropped out of college. I was terrified. How would I make it now?

That's when I decided I would make up for my lower wage career by buying a house. I looked for about a year and didn't find the right one. My step dad's grandmother passed away and him and his siblings inherited her house. they wanted to sell it and split the money between them. We had it appraised by three firms and took the average cost. I agreed to buy the house for $150 000. So I took the $5000 I had saved and borrow $10 000 from my mom and step dad and agreed to pay them $250/month until it was paid off. I now had the 10% down payment. Before my mom and first step dad separated they had started an education fund for me. I called my step dad and asked him how much money was in there. He said $5000. I asked if I could use it towards a house instead of education. He agreed under the condition that I would never ask him for anything else again. I agreed. That $5000 covered my legal fees. I bought the house and I had $100 left in my account. It was terrifying. Luckily the house (half duplex) had a suite in it. I lived in the suite and rented the main part of the house to friends. For the first while every penny I had went to the mortgage payment but it didn't take long before I was putting away cash again.

Lessons learned- Sometimes you have to go out on a limb. All my friends thought I was crazy. While they were all taking out debt to fund education (or buying beer and weed) I took out debt to buy an asset that created positive cash flow and built equity. In the end a lot of my friends education didn't land them the jobs they wanted and a few of them were debt ridden. If they did land jobs in their field they weren't very high paying. By the time I was 23 I owned my own house (which had potential to generate $2000/month rental income) and completed my apprenticeship as an electrician, guaranteeing me work anywhere, never earning less than $30/h again. Although it wasn't the glamorous job I had hoped for it paid off in the end.

Save your cash and put it into asset classes that gain or hold value.