[fred cook]

Since you are already doing the 401K thing, etc, you might want to think about getting some commercial rental property. I say commercial because commercial tenants tend to take good care of their business locations thus minimizing repair costs. Look for property in/on a busy road or area. An older building can work if it has been maintained over the years. With a good location and reasonable rent structures, you can keep tenants for many years. Then, when you get ready to sell, the value of the property should have increased several times. You get the good payday when you sell. I did this for about 35 years and had a good second income stream with little effort on my part. I paid $75K for my property, had an income stream of about $25k per year which easily made the building payments and maintenance costs and still left about $10-12k per year income. When I sold the property, it was long paid for and brought about 5 times the original cost! The only downside was having to pay capital gains taxes! Happy investing!