The Future (Job) I'd Like -My Steps Toward It

[glenn-k]

Hope this is a "catch all" enough title so that we can all participate in Homesick Gypsies topic regarding our future goals.

[glenn-k]

I think anybody planning their future job should plan something they can do on into retirement as the social security system is totally ripped off.  So don't count on it or any miracle recovery of it as you make your plans.  Plan on taking care of yourself.

This is what politics - especially current administration politics is all about.

http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Opinion/5-01-17BabyBoomerRipoff.htm

[benevolance]

yeah social security is a thing of the past...you can only fight wars for so long and eventually you run out of money and have to steal from americans pension fund.... 8 trillion has been taken in the last decade....


As a future job.... I want to figure out how to do carpentry work...I mean really figure it out I would like to buy a house a year and renovate it...and sell it for a decent profit...I could stay close to home...Work at it when I have time and still go to swap meets and drag races in the summer when weather is nice... So I would not have to give up cars...and I would still be self emplyed.... The best part about being self employed is that I work at my pace and make all decisions....It is great having nobody to answer to...Well except for number 2 in the chain of command....Yes the wife I am talking about the wife...

[glenn-k]

I will probably keep working my contracting as long as possible -tapering off when I don't need as much income.  We have some land we could put a rental or two on if I want to deal with the authorities for inspections.

[Homesick_Gypsy]

My main idea is to lower my cost of living so that I don't need that much to live on.   Small, energy efficient cabin - maybe solar - lots of free sun in Texas.  I sat down and "imagined" myself retired and what I would want to do with myself.  Live outside the city on some land with quiet, privacy and peace.  Small garden - not too much of a burden.  Do some canning, sewing, craft projects.  Freedom is what I guess I want more than anything else.  Freedom to wake up when I've rested enough, take a nap or go to bed when I'm tired.  I figure I can type - part time - as long as my fingers will move.  The soap business is my idea to pay for some travel.  Don't need to travel in first class - just comfortable camping would be fine.  I like folk music, celtic music, bluegrass and blues - would like to go to festivals or just travel and see the locals.  

I've thought of doing a bed and breakfast in Canton, Texas - huge flea market there once a month and not enough beds to go around.  Also thought of a bed and breakfast that only does scrapbooking and quilting retreats - decent money to be made there.  My favorite thing to do would be to have some land with several small cabins and rent them out as "peace and quiet retreats".   Perhaps I could simply rent land for people to semi-permanently park their "portable" cabins.... Hmmmm.....

If I could get there before "retirement" - I'd like to do it right now.  

[optionguru]

Glenn, don't do the apartments.  I own a small 3 unit apartment building and it has been the worst investment I ever made.  The money can be all right if you don't have any repairs.  I'm not enough of a people person to like getting calls from drunk tenants at 1 in the morning telling me that their neighbors dog is barking.

I like Benevolance's idea of rehabing houses at a leisurely pace.

[benevolance]

Yes drunk people bothering you in the wee small hours of the morning is always fun...

Was doing a motor install in the yard a month or so ago and it was 2 am....One of the locals showed up loaded drunk....Started blathering on about some piece of sh*t 4 door valiant in his yard....He wanted me to get him a hubcap so he could drive it to Barrett Jackson...I said I would get him one to shut him up...And then he tried to hug my legs that were sticking out from under the car....



I am afraid I could not deal with tenants either..

I have said it before and I will say it again...The older I get the more I hate people

That is why self employment works for me...I can stop dealing with pushy/stupid people whenever I choose.

I may never get rich or even be able to compare financial statements with the guy working the 7/11....But this is what makes sense to me...

I like what Gypsy said about the cost of living...The more self sufficient you get the lower the cost of living. Which means that you do not have to be a slave to your old fashioned regular job to pay the bills.

The lower the cost of living the more freedom you have with how you make money...

Sort of the same thing I was trying to say when I was talking about my wife and I working on being debt free....So that we would have more options

Gypsy...Tell us more about the soap business...My wife and I love natural products....I know that there are lots of people going organic and I think it is going to become a powerful market force...

[Homesick_Gypsy]

benevolance - I first saw someone making a living with soap at the War Eagle Mill craft fair.  She was wearing a prairie dress, bonnet off her head down her back.  Long hair, no makeup.  She had a simple table covered with calico and several stacks of soap - each stack a different kind.  (People like to touch and smell)  If you liked and wanted one, she had them all tied up in a little calico sack.  I watched people load up on bars of soap for $5.  People aren't just buying the soap - they're buying the idea of a simpler time and simpler living - hand made without chemicals.

The seed was planted.  A couple of years later, we had a craft sale at my law firm and there was a woman from Austin selling bars of soap for $6-$8  - each wrapped in handmade paper (which she made mostly from junk mail).  People were snapping them up right and left.  

Personally, I've thought about doing living history events and also certain craft fairs / flea markets.  One of my ploys would be to build a small "rolling home" camper that looks like a gypsy wagon.  Saw one at the Irish Festival a couple of years ago and the man was selling jewelry.  It would certainly draw a lot of interest to your booth.

There's melt and pour soap, which I do a lot of, but the demand is really more for the old fashioned "lye" soap.  Takes more skill and patience to make but it's what the consumer wants.  You really need to have a small area or studio set aside due to the caustic chemicals and to be careful not to re-use any of your utensils for cooking food.

[Amanda_931]

Low expenses sounds good.

I gather that a lot of innkeeper wannabes are turned off very very quickly.

But the idea of only hosting certain kinds of things--quilting and scrapbook retreats--would be more likely to work.

I would like to quilt well enough to teach those retreats--just getting back into it, but six years of nothing is showing.  

But really, never having to work again sounds good.

[glenn-k]

Glenn, don't do the apartments.  I own a small 3 unit apartment building and it has been the worst investment I ever made.  The money can be all right if you don't have any repairs.  I'm not enough of a people person to like getting calls from drunk tenants at 1 in the morning telling me that their neighbors dog is barking.

I like Benevolance's idea of rehabing houses at a leisurely pace.

I don't think I would want apartments either but a house here and there doesn't seem too bad.  Especially if I was semi-retired.  Now I don't have much time for it.

[MountainDon]

We own some rental properties. We have some condos in an mid-upscale development that attracts mostly older people. Everyone has a nice patio or balcony overlooking a common green area; nice club house and so on. They've been very good for the most part. We also have a house we rent out. We had a bad experience in the past with a tenant there, but now everything is well... (knock on wood). Everything is nearby so we can eyeball the goings on without really going out of our way.

We screen the heck out of applicants and have learned it's better to have a unit sit vacant for a month than to rush into a lease and end up with an undesirable tenant. Even then you can have a misfortune and end up with a tenant from hell.

You may want to join a local landlords association (shudder) or at the very least read up fully on your state laws regarding your rights v. tenants rights. Or maybe talk with a lawyer. There are laws that protect both landlord and tenant though they often seem tilted in the tenant's favor.

As far as my next (future) job, I don't plan on going beyond the present preschool we own or being a landlord.

[Homesick_Gypsy]

Amanda - for the flea market I was thinking about a "summer camp" set up.  Maybe call it the Slumber Party or something similar.  The hotel rates in this little town double or more on the flea market weekend.  And there are very pricey B&B's but there are a lot of us (my daughters, sister, niece, aunt, etc.) that would like just a comfortable place to sleep, shower, recuperate and go back the next day.    No husbands with us - just a bunch of women in a group.

I also do scrapbooking and figured out what the inn keeper was making on the 14 of us.  She's booked solid for the next two years and only does scrapbooking and quilting retreats.  Our consultant does the teaching - the innkeeper provides the rooms, a "hall" with tables set up for each person and the meals.  We share rooms and bathrooms.  She doesn't even do a regular B&B business any more.  

[Amanda_931]

Sounds like a workable plan.

That doesn't burn you out completely within a year.

[benevolance]

Wow gypsy...Sounds like she has it all planned out...Where does this In turned B&B turned scrapbook retreat exist...I wonder if it is a regional thing or if the marketplace would support other hybrid retreats like this?

So how many rooms is the retreat? total sq footage?

Pretty neat topic!

[Homesick_Gypsy]

The scrapbooking retreats are held at a place in northeast Texas.  She charged $165 per person and the retreats start at noon on Friday and the last meal served is breakfast Sunday morning.  Scrapbooking is pretty popular here but I think it's pretty popular in most parts of the country.  Same with quilting.  The big draw for this particular place is that each person gets an 8' table all to themselves.  You set it all up on Friday and don't have to pack it all back up until Sunday afternoon.

They can hold 20 people if they use every single bed, rollaway, day bed, etc.  Minimum is 14.  In most cases two people share a room.  My room had twin beds, the room next door had a queen bed and a day bed.  A mom and her two grown daughters stayed in that room.  There was the main house where the inn keeper lives and where breakfast and dinner are served.  Lunch was sandwich type food and was served where the scrapbooking takes place.  They also had a big two story house with probably 3 or 4 bedrooms, and then the barn, which was never a barn but looks like one.  I think it has 4 or 5 rooms, plus a public area down the middle on the first floor.  Plus the meeting place where all the scrapbooking was done, which had a huge open space, open kitchen and two bathrooms.  

Additional services included a massage therapist who would come in on Saturday and do massages, facials, and ear candling.  

I checked into a place called Scrap and Spa but they don't offer franchises any more.  If you do an internet search for scrapbook retreats or quilting retreats, you can find quite a few.  

[Sassy]

I would like to start quilting one of these days - the only sewing I've done in the past few years is several sets of curtains for my cupboards in the cabin - the last set I made was almost a quilt type pattern.  I had found some neat material at a yard sale, but it wasn't enough so had to find complementary materials - including a red checkerboard (Glenn wanted that.)  They turned out really nice.  

There's several nurses where I work who do a lot of scrapbooking.  Once I am not commuting all the time I'd like to take some classes at the community college making pottery & maybe take some writing classes again.  Join a quilters group & do some carpentry - I have a mental block about using the electric saws & nail gun!   Probably because I tend to be accident prone... but I see all these women out there with the electric saws & nail guns.  I've used the router before.  Glenn was showing me how to run a new saw he got the other day.  Looks real easy, I'll have to practice with it.

Of course, get the hydroponic garden going... so many things need you to be around to keep an eye on it - especially with solar, although our electricity if more dependable than in the community - this last storm Glenn had electricity but no one else did.  

[benevolance]

Sassy

Must say it is always good to see in print a woman wanting to sew... Kind of like apple pie and ice cream....Just the way it is supposed to be

[glenn-k]

She may sew some day.  She may be barefoot someday, but...

[Amanda_931]

Watch out for the rotary cutters.  Lots of quilters have scars from them.  But they make cutting fabric so much faster, and either more accurate, or all screwed up.

I can cover my scar up with a ring.



But a ring doesn't do much for all the other scars on my hands that I've gotten over the years.

[Sassy]

I haven't even heard of the rotary cutters - I'm like you, I have so many scars on my hands & arms - rose thorns, cats, & what have you...  I'll probably join a quilting group eventually & get the scoop from the experts.  But one more cut - you'd never even know it - only thing it bothers me is that I work in a hospital & am exposed to a lot of ugly stuff  :-/

[glenn-k]

I work in a hospital & am exposed to a lot of ugly stuff  :-/

...and then she gets to come home to me. :-/