$4,400 / year is not much. But accumulate it over 5 years and is $22,000. Take this a step further (like buy groceries in bulk and on sale, never pay full price

$4,400 / year is not much. But accumulate it over 5 years and is $22,000. Take this a step further (like buy groceries in bulk and on sale, never pay full price for clothes, buy used skis, do not lease a car and if you have a friend who is a mechanic ask him for help to buy a used car). It becomes more than $4,400 / year. 6 years later you can put 5% down payment on a 1 bed room condo. 2-3 years later you sell the one bedroom condo and buy a 2 bedroom condo. From my personal circle of friends, the people that I know that own the most real estate are people who are disciplined (think accountant in a 500 Fortune company, or an engineer working for Boeing, or a web developer slinging some internal Asp.Net website at some company you never heard of). Meanwhile some guy working at my current huge-tech company sold all his stock when it vested and "invested" the proceeds in options... He was taking uber to work even though you can show up anytime you want (maybe take the bus? maybe some days you work remotely?) and he was complaining to me that he will never be able to buy a condo...