Hello everyone,
My name is Mike; I'm a 23 year old Veteran. I was born and raised in Central Michigan, where I grew up in a split home watching my Mother spiral on the side walk and my Father slave away in the slow lane. I left my home to join the Marine Corps at 18 to provide for my Wife and soon to be child; I spent nearly 5 years on Camp Lejeune NC. I quickly ranked up and found myself with an income of about 3500 a month (after taxes). I felt absolutely rich, I was somewhat smart with how I spent my money (in that I found ways to spend all of it on the most stuff), but I lacked discipline; I was on the side walk with what felt to me like a fast lane paycheck. I rented a beach house, drove a newer model Audi A6, drank top shelf liquor and bought expensive surfboards and toys.
By my third year of active service I was $20,000 in debt; and then I discovered Dave Ramsey and the slow lane. Even before this I had always had dreamed of early retirement, I created exhaustive excel spreadsheets and savings plans to do it. I wanted to retire at 45-50 and live within my means; however I never got my priorities right, and fell short of my mark every month, much of our money was spent visiting family (it takes a lot of adjusting to be away from family). By year 4 1/2 I was debt free, I sold the Audi, Sold the toys, and began to respect the boundaries of my means, but this wasn't getting me to my goal fast enough... I tried to explain to my Father that there had to be a better way than working 30+ years to finally retire and live a mediocre life. But was always shut down and told "that life wasn't for us mere mortals"; that you had to be incredibly lucky or incredibly gifted to accomplish such a feat, With a family and responsibilities I should just stay in the slow lane. However, I've always felt entrepreneurial, and free spirited just a bit overwhelmed.
Anyways, I just stumbled across this forum two weeks ago which led to the book. I thought to myself, oh great another "Four Hour Work Week"; but the reviews showed otherwise. I've since read the book and for the first time feel like I know what I must do, I need to ditch the slow lane.
I am currently working with a relatively small amount of capital and income; I am compensated for injuries sustained during active duty, about $1300 /m and I have about 25,000 in assets/ cash. In order to quickly grow capital I hired a local mechanic, a young man who was unemployed and seemed hungry to succeed. He said he could do just about anything on most cars, but he didn't have the capital to invest in buying these vehicles. After a long night of drinking and getting to know each other I offered to buy the vehicles and the parts if he would do the labor, find the vehicles, and look for buyers and we would split the profit (This was before I read the book, but this method appealed to me because it managed to divorce income from my time, an instinct which must be in my DNA because I'm wired to see these opportunities, it's the execution that gets me).
We did well at first, we bought a Ford F-150 for $800, put 400 in parts in it, and sold it for 3800 dollars in the first 3 days. Next He found a sweet deal on 3 mid 90's mustangs for 800 each, but something strange started happening. Parts disappeared and found their way onto his vehicle; which he subsequently lied about. Naturally I had to fire him, I brought my shady brother in law on for $20 an hour to finish the vehicles which results in an aggravated assault against me and still one mustang sitting in my drive way. And so I've since learned (In the words of MJ) not to be so enticed by the six pack that you miss the chainsaw... The damn chain saw has caught me twice now, and I will be much more leery in the future.
So I'm essentially parked, I have great ideas but much to learn in the department of execution, I don't want the stress of any more mistakes,. I hope to learn as much as I can from the contributors here in this forum and get back on the road.
One business venture I'm exploring is a local trash pick up business, I currently live in a small rural area consisting of about 3000 homes, I suppose the profit margin is not great enough for WMI to service the area, because there is absolutely no trash service, all the locals bring there garbage to the dump. I'm trying to find a way to make this business fast lane and make me 10,000/month+ in (nearly) residual) If I can get just 400 of the homes in the area for $25/month I will be looking at 10,000 and with an average of 3 minutes per home for 20-30 hours of labor which I would (in time) develop a HR system to handle. It seems feasible and I'm still in the early phases of execution; I'll be giving updates.
I am also interested in E commerce and have my eye on a niche that looks promising. By the way, I currently live in TN and in 12 months I'm sure I will migrate somewhere new.
My name is Mike; I'm a 23 year old Veteran. I was born and raised in Central Michigan, where I grew up in a split home watching my Mother spiral on the side walk and my Father slave away in the slow lane. I left my home to join the Marine Corps at 18 to provide for my Wife and soon to be child; I spent nearly 5 years on Camp Lejeune NC. I quickly ranked up and found myself with an income of about 3500 a month (after taxes). I felt absolutely rich, I was somewhat smart with how I spent my money (in that I found ways to spend all of it on the most stuff), but I lacked discipline; I was on the side walk with what felt to me like a fast lane paycheck. I rented a beach house, drove a newer model Audi A6, drank top shelf liquor and bought expensive surfboards and toys.
By my third year of active service I was $20,000 in debt; and then I discovered Dave Ramsey and the slow lane. Even before this I had always had dreamed of early retirement, I created exhaustive excel spreadsheets and savings plans to do it. I wanted to retire at 45-50 and live within my means; however I never got my priorities right, and fell short of my mark every month, much of our money was spent visiting family (it takes a lot of adjusting to be away from family). By year 4 1/2 I was debt free, I sold the Audi, Sold the toys, and began to respect the boundaries of my means, but this wasn't getting me to my goal fast enough... I tried to explain to my Father that there had to be a better way than working 30+ years to finally retire and live a mediocre life. But was always shut down and told "that life wasn't for us mere mortals"; that you had to be incredibly lucky or incredibly gifted to accomplish such a feat, With a family and responsibilities I should just stay in the slow lane. However, I've always felt entrepreneurial, and free spirited just a bit overwhelmed.
Anyways, I just stumbled across this forum two weeks ago which led to the book. I thought to myself, oh great another "Four Hour Work Week"; but the reviews showed otherwise. I've since read the book and for the first time feel like I know what I must do, I need to ditch the slow lane.
I am currently working with a relatively small amount of capital and income; I am compensated for injuries sustained during active duty, about $1300 /m and I have about 25,000 in assets/ cash. In order to quickly grow capital I hired a local mechanic, a young man who was unemployed and seemed hungry to succeed. He said he could do just about anything on most cars, but he didn't have the capital to invest in buying these vehicles. After a long night of drinking and getting to know each other I offered to buy the vehicles and the parts if he would do the labor, find the vehicles, and look for buyers and we would split the profit (This was before I read the book, but this method appealed to me because it managed to divorce income from my time, an instinct which must be in my DNA because I'm wired to see these opportunities, it's the execution that gets me).
We did well at first, we bought a Ford F-150 for $800, put 400 in parts in it, and sold it for 3800 dollars in the first 3 days. Next He found a sweet deal on 3 mid 90's mustangs for 800 each, but something strange started happening. Parts disappeared and found their way onto his vehicle; which he subsequently lied about. Naturally I had to fire him, I brought my shady brother in law on for $20 an hour to finish the vehicles which results in an aggravated assault against me and still one mustang sitting in my drive way. And so I've since learned (In the words of MJ) not to be so enticed by the six pack that you miss the chainsaw... The damn chain saw has caught me twice now, and I will be much more leery in the future.
So I'm essentially parked, I have great ideas but much to learn in the department of execution, I don't want the stress of any more mistakes,. I hope to learn as much as I can from the contributors here in this forum and get back on the road.
One business venture I'm exploring is a local trash pick up business, I currently live in a small rural area consisting of about 3000 homes, I suppose the profit margin is not great enough for WMI to service the area, because there is absolutely no trash service, all the locals bring there garbage to the dump. I'm trying to find a way to make this business fast lane and make me 10,000/month+ in (nearly) residual) If I can get just 400 of the homes in the area for $25/month I will be looking at 10,000 and with an average of 3 minutes per home for 20-30 hours of labor which I would (in time) develop a HR system to handle. It seems feasible and I'm still in the early phases of execution; I'll be giving updates.
I am also interested in E commerce and have my eye on a niche that looks promising. By the way, I currently live in TN and in 12 months I'm sure I will migrate somewhere new.
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