Archive for Self Sufficiency
Jun
30
Practicool vs. Tacticool
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Model 629 44 magnum and Glock 19 9mm
A few days ago I was talking about my latest interest in firearms being that of the more practical variety. I thought I’d go flesh out that subject just a little more for today’s post. As we break into one of the hotly contested areas of prepping and before I tweak any one’s nose unnecessarily… I own firearms of both configuration and probably always will. It isn’t so much a case of one is good and the other bad or undesirable.
As a serious prepper for many years, I’ve had the opportunity to stock up when the price was right and more importantly in the FAT years as aposed to the relative lean years many of us are experiencing now. These stockpiles can reach great proportions over a course of time and that’s what happened to me. Don’t lose heart you younger or newer preppers your pile’s will grow too over time! So, this is where I found myself as of late, big piles of stuff and much smaller piles of bank account. What to do? Like I said before I concluded that a degree of soul searching was in order as to what my current priorities were going to be?
Marlin Guide Gun 45-70
I really didn’t know how my decision was going to come out… It would have been much easier to have just left everything as is, stored away for a rainy day sure to come along soon enough! I also was deliberating on a direction to take with my firearms collection, I’d been feeling that I may have the ratio of practical tool guns out of kilter with the more tactical in design? As you already know, I decided that I would focus a bit more attention and money on the practical preps that were lacking in my plans…
The good thing was a significant profit could be made if I indeed decided to sell off surplus stores of guns and or ammo. Well, like I said, I already told you the other day I did eventually decide to sell off a number of duplicates from my collection as well as a huge amount of ammo. It took me nearly 2 years of contemplation before I began to make the phone calls and visits to the gun shows to move all of this inventory. It wasn’t exactly easy to see these items go as I know in my heart of hearts that I will probably never again be in a position to purchase this quantity of these particular items again…
I decided that my focus would move more into the practical direction and I would use the profits to complete projects at the BOL and also add a few firearms to the battery. Obviously, practical is a relative term and means completely different things to each individual! My version of PRACTICOOL is a more broad approach, practical preps like woodstoves and practical guns like the Marlin pictured above. The woodstove speaks for itself but the Marlin may not. I’m looking at practical firearms as those that will fill their intended purpose on a more regular basis… Yes, I know that we all have our favorite AR or AK for the practical purpose of home defense against the MZB’s that WILL BE coming on one gloomy afternoon not to far in the future. Let’s agree that we’re on the same page about having a high capacity, round spewing rifle close at hand, everyone should! However, how much Zombie death have any of us brought in the recent years? Remember, it could happen but has it yet? For most of us, at least the preppers that I have been privileged enough to gain their confidence, have an unrealistic skew in our preps leaning toward the Tacticool! Let’s face it, AR’s are cool and lately there have been a gazillion (sounds like a number soon to be used to describe our national debt) companies popping up to sell us there version of awesome upgrades to an already great firearm… I venture to say that we all enjoy taking that favorite gun out of the safe and just holding it while we watch a favorite action movie. Come on, don’t try to blow smoke at me, you all know you do that!
These Tacticool guns are great and I will probably always have more than my fair share of them around somewhere but lets get serious… Is that AR going to go out into the woods and bring back a rabbit? AR haters will always refer to it as a “mouse gun” but is it really? Of course not and it isn’t a rabbit gun either! How about using an AK for bear protection? Yes, I’d use any gun I happen to be carrying to protect myself from whatever threat came along but some threats and or uses are going to be more common than others… While at my residence in the suburbs, the 9mm will probably be perfect for the most likely threats I could encounter but out in the sticks at the BOL…?
With the exception of the lapse of judgement the other day when discovering our BOL break in, I would be more likely to cross paths with a black bear or cougar than a hostile 2 legged threat. While my 44 magnum will certainly make short work of a man sized threat, my 9mm would be anemic against that same threat in the form of a hungry bear! Can you see where I’m going with this?
Marlin Guide Gun 45-70
With the exception of the lapse of judgement the other day when discovering our BOL break in, I would be more likely to cross paths with a black bear or cougar than a hostile 2 legged threat. While my 44 magnum will certainly make short work of a man sized threat, my 9mm would be anemic against that same threat in the form of a hungry bear! Can you see where I’m going with this?
Bushmaster CAR15 .223
The same logic could be used while looking at the the to do list… Yes, a 10,000 round stockpile of ammo is AWESOME or at least more than adequate in most people’s minds but will it keep me warm when the power goes out? What if the power goes out and stays out? Can I eat it or would I be better off having a large woodpile to feed the stove while I dig through my bursting pantry deciding what the “Prepper” family will have for dinner to go with the rabbit I shot while doing my afternoon perimeter inspection? I say of the most likely scenarios I see on the horizon, I’d be better off with the wood and pantry… Am I wrong?
Something else that has me concerned is the “Preppers” that have only prepped the Tacticool way? Often, we preppers don’t know alot of others like ourselves from anywhere other than the internet. If those guys on the internet forums and even other supposed DOOMER blogs are any indication of what a prepper is suppose to look like… All guns and no food will make Prepper Pete a very hungry boy… I also believe that with a more balanced approach we serve our own survival needs much better. When we have adequate food and or the proper equipment to grow or gather more, we have a far greater chance of survival than if we are limited to attempting to take it from others…
Alright, you say that this doesn’t apply to you as you wouldn’t ever try to take from someone else… Besides if all you have is an AK, it will take down a deer for you, right? It might under ideal circumstances… I don’t expect that we will be able to count on ideal circumstances and when you’re hungry I believe you will no longer have the moral fortitude to starve before you attempt armed robbery!
As usual this post is nothing more than one preppers opinion and attempted justification of my own actions… I do think that my final decision to liquidate some overstocked items in favor of a more balanced survival approach will turn out to have been a wise decision, only time will tell! I’m willing to bet that there are others out there in our community that have been or maybe should be having these same conversations with themselves. If this post is nagging at you or causing you to think about something from a new perspective, don’t ignore it – act on it! You may find that you’re all set and no corrections need to be made but from my research there are far to many Tacticool survivalists and far to few of the Practicool variety!
Prepper
Bushmaster CAR15 .223
Jun
25
You’ve got to know when to hold em…
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Some of you that know me personally know that I’ve been liquidating some of my collection… This certainly isn’t because I don’t think I’ll need preps in the not to distant future… I actually believe that we’ll all be needing them now, or soon, more than ever! Since I’m a bit cash poor currently or to put it more accurately, the cash I have isn’t available for preps and or improvements to the BOL, I’ve been selling off some of my duplicate items and things that are just plain stacked to deep!
As I’ve come to grips with letting some of these treasures go, I’ve been doing additional soul searching while I was at it… I turned 39 this year and I’m not in the best physical shape of my life, too much time doing the desk jockey routine. I’m convinced that riding a desk must be just about the farthest thing from what the human body was designed for, it’s no wonder that us paper pushers end up so soft. I digress, it isn’t my sorry physical state that I was pondering but my inner most feelings about what my prep inventory really required and what might be turned into cash for other prepping uses… That’s right, I’m not selling things off to pay the house note but to keep pushing forward with the more important things that wouldn’t get completed otherwise, at least not as quickly!
What I discovered was that the “Red Dawn” syndrome of my 20′s has passed and I no longer feel convinced that I’ll be called upon to defend my country from enemies foreign or domestic… Wait, I know what your thinking! Yes we have more and more evidence that our enemies are closer to home than ever before and the time may just about be upon us to stand at our personal lines in the sand. I haven’t given up on the ideals of fighting for the cause of liberty, I have just come to see those around me as ever less likely to stand up even for themselves, much less liberty and freedom. This being the case, my previous belief of needing to have plenty of armament to spread around for recently shocked awake friends and neighbors seems highly unlikely!
I even find myself less likely to go spend a day at the range than I once did… Ammo prices what they are and even cleaning the beloved battle rifle doesn’t hold the same appeal it once did? Who knows, maybe I’m completely crazy but I’m looking at my weapons more and more as the tools that they are, rather than the cool that they were… Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of guys of all ages that are looking at their guns in the ways that I used too and I’m not about to say there is anything wrong with it – I just wish I had the same LOVE for the gun I used too, at least when it comes to justifying it’s place in the safe!
I guess what I’m really saying is that I’m looking for a gun that’s going to earn it’s keep… Weather for hunting or homestead protection against 4 legged predators, those are my more likely scenarios these days, I’m gearing more to that end rather than say, “The other”…
It’s true that many guns will serve double duty, however many of mine would be poor choices in the roles I find the most probable. This doesn’t mean for a second that I’d be caught unprepared or I’ll even go out on a limb and say out gunned by most that would cross my path, I wouldn’t! I’ve “collected” for many years and have taken advantage of many great buys that I’ve come across… I’ll recognise a tidy profit on most anything that I have or will decide to part with. This is a good example of something we’ve discussed here in the past – Investing in tangibles… My investments can relatively easily be turned back into cash and not even one will have lost value!
I haven’t even posted this to the website yet and I can already feel the emails coming… “Why would you sell off guns right when we could be facing our darkest hours?” Well, for one, I think these coming dark hours will be better faced with some practical guns sitting beside a well stocked pantry, a well fed woodstove and a solid “debt free” roof over my families head… In recent years I wouldn’t have been forced to choose and hopefully you’re not faced with a choice like this… Given enough time, I would have found some other way to accomplish these goals and still kept the gun safe fully intact but I don’t think that we have the luxury of unlimited time!
If there are others out there with this same feeling in their gut, get moving – do whatever you have to do to get your house in order… Typically I would say you can’t have to many guns but in this present global setting you COULD have to little of something else, like food!
Let me just encourage everyone to do a little soul searching of your own and see if possibly you’re over prepared in one area and under in another? Maybe you’re like me and now is a good time to re-evaluate your holdings and see if there is a reallocation in order? No one can tell anyone else what the right answer is when it comes to something of this nature, we all have to decide for ourselves…
Prepper
Jun
16
Up the river…
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Well, if you have to know… I very well might be crazy! I see everyday things and find myself making the jump to how folks like us could possibly use that to gain an edge in our prep lives or maybe garner additional freedom. What am I talking about? The boat, that old wooden boat in the picture… Can’t you see it too? Since I know that few people actually see the same things I do – we are a very small minority of the population and even inside the “Prepper” world, we all seldom can agree on much. I’ll just come right out and explain myself!
It all started a couple of months ago. I began my latest money making endeavor (Yes, I mean the second job) and this had me traveling down roads that I typically would have no reason to ever see… Low and behold one afternoon I spot this older wooden boat moored in a place I have never even seen a boat previously. First, in the Pacific Northwest, we have a gazillion rivers but many aren’t of the size you would usually find a boat in. Possibly a small boat that a couple of guys would do some weekend fishing from but generally not a boat like the one pictured here. Second, this particular river is in an urban setting, just South of downtown Seattle and a known pollution nightmare. I know what your thinking, this doesn’t appear to be that urban? I know, I see all those trees too, this is actually adjacent to a little know and lightly used strip of park land. A city bicycle trail runs through there as well but the whole area is surrounded by what I would describe as a light industrial area…
So anyway, the thing that got me thinking was that here’s this boat in an unexpected area, tied to who knows what and has a makeshift wooded walkway coming out of the woods right down to it. I think to myself, “I wonder if some-one’s living on that thing”?? Well, I watch this thing sitting just as you see it in the picture from the day I first noticed it up until just hours ago when I last drove past and it is still there. So lets say a couple of months at least!
As the weeks went by and I kept checking to see if the boat has moved or eventually would disappear, sink or anything else! The thoughts keep running through my head… Someone is beating the system, parking a boat in what would have to be described by the lay-person as a “No Mans Land” – except on water, of course! Was this a viable lifestyle for some freedom seeker? In reality I would think it most likely that it’s some guy that got tossed out of his house either by the economy or his old lady and had no other choice. It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that this boat was occupied by someone working in one of the many businesses or warehouses near by. It’s only my lack of ever seeing anyone aboard when I drive by that has kept me from attempting to interview this elusive live aboard…
If this would work for the poor guy that’s down on his luck, why couldn’t it work by design? Like I said the greater Pacific Northwest is riddled with rivers. Why couldn’t a creative individual just give up living in the rat race and live on the river…? They could! Provided they have a boat to live on. Usually the boats we see around this area are more modern and often smaller than anyone I know would attempt to live on. Around here we are fortunate to have a large number of lakes as well, I guess all these bodies of water come along with the fact that it rains here, I believe 364 days per year – last count! So, the typical boat owner has a small fishing boat or a sporting boat, you know water skiing and other day use designs. However, if a person had a larger boat, this idea could work.
Unfortunately, I do not own a boat – or fortunately, depends how you want to look at it… Mrs Prepper is feeling very fortunate that I don’t own a boat as this currently prevents me from asking her to come live on the river with me. I’m only half way kidding here, as I am very much done and over with the whole rat race lifestyle! Why not buy a boat to try this all out? Not me, some theoretical “prepper”? I realize boats can be and often are quite expensive! How about looking for an older wooden boat such as the one pictured on craigslist? On several occasions my searches for other products, like used mobile homes, have lead me to find used boats in this category… Expensive? Not necessarily, I saw some boats that sounded and looked to good to be true – I will assume they were! I also so some moderately priced boats in the 26-30 foot range and were setup very similar to a land based RV. What was there true condition? Of course I don’t know for sure but even if they needed a lot of repairs, as long as the structure was sound…?
I’ll even take this one step further, why would this boat have to have a good motor? Yes, yes… it would have to be able to get to the spot picked for your new life up the river! There are ways to get boats moved when their engines aren’t working, which on all the boats I’ve been around is fairly often… Boats usually come with a large amount of ongoing maintenance to keep them dependable. Many of the classified ads I’ve read were for “Project” boats, the prices on these boats were shockingly cheap… For good reason, the buyer was taking the problem off the hands of the current owner! I did see apparently beautiful boats that had some “Issues” with the power plant… Also, one large expense with a motor boat is the cost of fuel, an additional expense that would be nullified in our little thought exercise…
What I’m imagining here is doable! Would it work for you and yours – probably not but it WILL WORK for some. A rather small but well setup cabin cruiser, with or without it’s own on board power plant, moored “Up the River” or even at a local marina… Hmm, what are moorage rates at the local marina – might be worth looking into. Usually these moorage rates are with hook ups for your sewer, phone and electric… This wouldn’t be nearly as cheap but at least around here the rates are FAR lower than even an inexpensive apartment…
As usual I’m submitting this as just another option that might work for one of you guys out there. This strategy would come with several downsides but it would also allow for that freedom only achievable when that mortgage payment has been destroyed… Food for thought!
Prepper
Jan
15
Back-up Power
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So, Friday again… I have something new to talk about today. I know this will come as a relief to the 2 emailers that have been heckling me all week! I also want to remind you to check in the “Swap Meet” section from time to time as I will continue to add items as I have the time. I also caught a clerical error on the asking price for the silver coins – sorry, its fixed now.
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Back-up power options?
What do we have in this category? What do we need to have? This is personal question that only you can answer individually. I used to put this in to a much higher priority level than it turns out to be, for my family at least. I’m not saying that I like it when the power goes down but it shouldn’t be the big freakfest that a lot of folks turn it into.
Most modern homes do have a large amount of electrical requirements and I don’t want to do without these for the long term but in a pinch, a few days to a week, we should be able to get by… What are the main things that we really need to focus on for that period of time?
Lets start with the big items first. Your furnace or furnace fan for those of us that heat with natural gas, refrigerator/freezer, electric range and or microwave… What else do you have? There’s an endless list of little things we all like to have but certainly we can do without for the week in question. We can also do without most of the things on this list too.
We talked about back-up heating options just a week or so ago, so we won’t hit that one again, other than to say we may want to consider adding a generator powered option for the furnace fan. What about cooking? Do we really have to have the electric kitchen stove up and running? I bet we can come up with a work around for this too! The one appliance that I think we should give some long thought to is the refrigerator and or freezer, even more so if your family is running a second stand alone freezer.
First, we have to give our personal lists a good looking at and see what the highest consumption items are going to be that will need to be replaced with an auxiliary back-up power source. For us, the “Preppers” its the refrigerator, we don’t have a second freezer right now but we do keep a fairly stuffed frig/freezer throughout most of any given month. Maybe the use of the microwave would be nice from time to time throughout the day as well… Let’s figure these power needs in and see what we are really up against…
What I’ve come up with for us is that we will need to have the capability of a 1500-1800 watt power source to use intermittently throughout the day. With this mostly being for the refrigerator and powering it only on a limited basis, probably twice a day for an hour or so. If we keep the doors closed the remainder of the time we will maintain the interior temperature fairly well!
Since we know we’ll need to cover this wattage requirement anyway, we’ll have the generator to use with other things, like the microwave as well. Most all of the household small appliances that I looked at specifically could be powered with this same generator. Additionally, part of my plan is to maintain a stock of rechargeble batteries for the various lights, radios and even the alarm clock!
Keep in mind that I am only outlining what we are planning to do for this particular situation. Your personal list may be very different than ours. It doesn’t take much to keep us comfortable, since we have alternate heat and cooking sources available. All of us at our house are fairly healthy too, some families will have medical requirements that will necessitate a different level of electrical power. This is why the personal list is so critical, I can’t possibly tell you how much power you will want or need to have.
Some folks are going to want and be willing to pay for the full gamit of back-up power. This could include a large diesel generator rated to run 24 hours a day. Don’t laugh, that equipment is out there and available to those of us willing to spend the money to purchase it. I have even begun to see some very nice equipment that would power several homes in any neighborhood, at the same time, available for 15-20,000 dollars. Yes, that’s a lot of money but if the situation were appropriate and you were willing to stock sufficient fuel supplies -why not!
My point is, figure out what you feel you have to have and then see what you might be able to add from the “Wants” list and then make your equipment selection. I’m going to run through some of the generators that I am personally familiar with and also a couple of additional pieces of back-up equipment that have come in handy for me.
Honda EU2000i
First, my personal back-up generator… It’s the Honda EU2000i, this is the little red generator that could… It is a real work horse and I couldn’t give it higher ratings. It is rated at 1800 watts continuous and 2000 starting or surge watts. This generator has been idea for us – it will power the refrigerator, microwave and whatever other small items we need. We’ve pressed it into service at the office from time to time as well. It won’t run all of our office equipment but we can have a computer, printer and the internet up while everyone else is standing around.
The best feature with this particular genset is that it is exceptionally quite. In addition to being well designed for quite running, it also has a switch to drop it down into “Standby” mode. This lowers the idle speed even further while it isn’t under heavy use. I believe the fuel tank is a gallon or close to it and I’m able to run it under load for several hours per tank. If we choose to just run the thing for an hour in the morning and evening, we could milk out a 5 gallon fuel can for the better part of week. However, we all know that if the generator’s available, the TV and other stuff will undoubtedly be utilized if possible. Maybe doubling the fuel reserve to 10 gallons would be safer but even this is a relatively small reserve to maintain…
The "Screamer"
Next up is a slightly larger unit, both in wattage and physically. This is a generator that I’ve owned for about 10 years. It’s a good generator but we nick-named it the “Screamer” for a reason. This bad boy is loud, not something that I would relish using in a neighborhood situation. Even out in the toolies, this baby would bring a lot of attention your way. It’s rating is 4400 watts and we have used it to charge batteries for an 12 volt alternative energy system that was installed at our original BOL. Depending on your personal needs, this thing would serve well but is a gas guzzler in comparison to the Honda. I think that unless it was for very intermittent use around the homestead, there would be better options.
Of course, their is no end to the amount of power capabilities that a back-up generator could provide. Many industrial applications have LARGE generators permanently installed on location to provide for outages. I took a picture of one that is installed at a pump location for a local golf course. This one’s a largediesel and has a good sized fuel storage unit incorporated with the generator. While these serve some commercial purposes, unless you are developing a neighborhood watch on steroids, we’ll keep the more manageable sized equipment.
In addition to the generator, what else could we do to have the back-up power we need when the time comes… What about something as small as a well stocked supply of batteries. Disposable batteries are the cheapest but aren’t as sustainable as the rechargeable one’s. I suggest taking a look into what your households true battery needs are. If nothing else having a spare set of batteries for all your equipment, should be the bare minimum!
"Mini" - power utility replacement
Like everything else you could take this level of preparedness to a much higher degree than the minimums. If you have the funds to get a rechargeable battery bank into rotation, do it! I have a ways to go in making this level a part of our power system.
I have incorporated two small additions to the normal household gear and they’ve come in handy on several occasions. One is this rechargeable jumper battery unit. It has a set of jumper cables attached to the back of the unit and will actually start a vehicle with a dead battery. I carry a real set of cables too but this option is far more convenient than getting someone to help me. It also has the standard cigarette lighter socket and a small built in light.
The micro-light would fall into the category of -”Better than nothing” but the power outlet is great for keeping the cell phone charged when the power goes out! I’ve had the power go down at my office on several occasions and this came in handy since my cell phone became my only office phone and I spend a lot of time on it.
This jump pack can be charged with regular 110 volt AC or while your driving around in your vehicle. It charges much quicker on AC but will eventually fully recharge in the BOV. I keep it charged b bringing it in the office with me once every couple of weeks. It usually is fully charged again before lunch and goes right back in the BOV.
Jump Pack and small inverter
The second little piece of gear is also pictured in the photo with the jump pack. It is nothing more than a small 150 watt power inverter. I know what your thinking, 150 watts why bother? I found this little guy on sale at the sporting goods store and it was perfect for keeping my laptop charged in the field. I could just plug the laptop in when I put it back in the case and let it recharge while I was driving to or from or whatever. I like to always have my equipment fully charged! I know this isn’t the best for the batteries but I just can’t ge in the habit of letting my stuff go dead before recharging?
Retirement, what retirement? Conclusion
Posted by: Prepper | Comments (4)Alright, alright – I’ll wrap this up and move on to something more uplifting… I’ve told you and told you, I spend a lot of time thinking about stuff and now I get to subject you to all of these ponderings! It really is my hope that something might click with a reader that hasn’t already put 2 and 2 together or seen a subject from my particular perspective. I know we have at least a few young people that are readers here and the earlier you catch on to what is happening around you the better off you’ll be at controlling your own future!
Let me pick up where I left off yesterday. We were going to discuss what we can all start doing to prepare for the future and our “Retirement” years.
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Part 3 – Conclusion
Any steps that we can take right now, I mean actually beginning to implement, will multiply our success in the years to come. The land that our home sits on should be utilized to help feed us, now and in the future. Cost cutting measures that can be put in place to reduce our energy or water usage requirements will save us money, now and in the future.
A few months ago I told you all about my “Poor Aunt Jane” and the lifestyle that she’s living. She is still having to actively make energy (her labor) and economic contributions to her own lifestyle and will probably have to for as long as she is physically able. If you go back and read her story, you will see that the inputs she makes are just part of the greater lifestyle she has put together for herself. Doing things each day and or each season to provide for herself and achieve a better life than most of us will have in retirement, if we don’t make the necessary changes now. Changes in our expectations and also in where we put our investment dollars.
Just for clarification sake, I am not advocating that we discontinue funding all of the traditional investment vehicles. I propose that we all make additional alternative, can’t lose, investments! We will be able to reap the benefits of these additional investments both now and in the future. Let’s look at a couple of simple examples of a non-traditional investments that will pay a higher return than most any safe financial instrument.
“Invest” in a tree and save hundreds of dollars - all while making ourselves less dependant on outside Food Systems… You can probably already see where I’m going, right. How much do fruit trees cost? Anyone, anyone? That’s right, not much – probably in the neighborhood of $5-15 bucks a piece for a 1-2 year old specimen. How long do fruit trees live? This is subject to certain specifics but lets just agree that its a long time! It will also take a few more years growth before we will see any significant level of production out of our “freedom” fruit trees.
Once this tree starts to produce, it will give you a crop most every year for decades. So, for a $15 dollar investment and a 3 year waiting period. Our return the first year of good production will probably be in the 300+ percent range. If we were to get 50 pounds of good organic apples off of just one tree and apples were valued at even a low $1 per pound. We would have a return of $50 bucks or 3.25 times our initial investment. Not to bad and we get to eat all those small delicious apples during the first 3 years as an added bonus.
This is just one way to look at this investment. Dollar for dollar, we have done exceptionally well but what else is there to consider? In addition to the money we save buy not buying the apples or whatever, we didn’t have to go earn the money to buy them with… As we have discussed recently the effective cost of earning money and then spending it can easily steal 40-50 percent of our purchasing power through various taxes, before we’re done.
Creating a system like this is a real investment and as you can see the returns are as real as anything you will get from any retirement account. All this is accomplished while making us more self reliant to boot! Multiply this strategy times dozens of food producing trees, bushes, vines or whatever you care to grow.
“Invest” in a skill and save thousands of dollars - If you are anything like me, there will be at least a few things that we regularly pay others to do for us. This is often out of convenience or just a small lacking in our own confidence to complete the job. Each of our lists of potential things will be different but I bet we could all make one…
What about changing the oil or brakes on the car? I used to do some of this work on my old cars when I was young and needed to because I lacked the money to pay a shops labor rate. It has been many years since I have taken an active role in my auto maintenance. It is so much cleaner and often easier to just pay the shop to do these items.
I have a very good and trustworthy auto mechanic but like everything else in life the cost is only going up! The labor rates are in the neighborhood of $75-85 an hour, at least in my area. Are we capable of doing all the things that a shop is? Of course not but what if we just started to do some of the basic maintenance items? An oil change and quick look at the fluids, usually runs me $35-60 bucks, depending on which vehicle goes in… I know, Minute Lube will do this for cheaper but I also know Minute Lube has left out the drain plug on more than a few cars over the years as well. Your choice but I trust myself more than the discount shops…
The cost of materials – oil, filter, etc still have to be purchased but we the consumer can often shop around or buy on a sale, where the shop is certainly making at least a slight mark-up, if not a significant one on the parts alone.
This is just one area of life to consider – automotive maintenance. There are others that come to mind though… Home maintenance? I recently had a copper plumbing pipe develop a slow leak at one of the joints. I discovered this purely by chance, I was under the house digging out the Christmas decorations and heard the dripping? I was fortunate as this could have been running for weeks or even months before I would have been under there for anything. It appeared to have started very recently but still needed to be addressed immediately.
I’m no plumber and have no experience with sweat joints, flux and the other details of dealing with copper pipe. I did have the belief that if I called the plumber at 7pm on a Saturday evening, I would be charged several hundred dollars for the repair. I don’t know for sure that it would be hundreds but I didn’t want to take the chance, so I headed over to Home Depot and talked to the plumbing aisle kid. In a matter of minutes I was leaving the store with under $20 dollars worth of materials and a reasonable expectation that I could repair this myself. Now, I am fairly handy and have most of my own tools for whatever project is at hand but again, I’m not a plumber in ANY respect.
I went home and shut the water off, made four cuts with a pipe cutter and installed 3 new pieces of material, turned the water back on and it hasn’t dripped a drop… I feel confident that my savings are in excess of $100.
There is no end to the savings of doing things for ourselves. In our area, we have several community colleges, trade schools and workshop type arrangements that could all be utilized to learn new skills. Whether we might choose to use these skills for profit or not is a personal choice but the saving alone are worth our time to learn something new.
“Invest” in a debt free shelter - Yes, this is basically the advice to get your home paid off. I personally think that this is GREAT advice but I hear from people all the time that they never want to pay their place off? It is a popular perception that they will lose money because they won’t have the tax deduction for mortgage interest anymore.
While technically true, we will all lose the tax deduction for mortgage interest, when we are no longer paying any… What have we gained though? How about the ability to NOT PAY MORTGAGE INTEREST! That’s a big one for me, if I don’t have to pay a mortgage company, than I don’t have to earn the money anymore either! Therefore I can choose to lower my tax bracket by working less hours, if that was important to me…
One thing that I always hear in my real estate business is that most people intend to make additional payments each year to pay down their mortgages. In practice however, I seldom see this happen! Don’t get me wrong, it does happen but just very rarely. On a 30 year mortgage, making only 1 additional principal and interest (PI) payment per year will cut roughly 5 years off the term of the loan.
If we were to look at this strategy in its most basic form, we would be getting a return on investment of whatever our mortgage interest rate currently is… Since I am working in this business, I know the current going rates are at least 4.5 – 5.5%. Many folks are still paying a rate higher than this which should make this an even better investment. I doubt that many retirement funds are doing this well over the last couple of years and they carry a lot more downside risk than paying the old mortgage note down!
This particular strategy will take years to complete but will be one of the single biggest steps that we can all take to assuring ourselves a successful retirement lifestyle.
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There are many investments that I feel fit this category but we will cover them at a later date. I hope this, like everything I write about will get your mind turning on the possibilities. Some times we all need to face the realities of what we’re up against here. We can count on no man to help us achieve our goals, we need to be self sufficient and our retirement planning is no different. Obviously the younger we are the more years we will have to implement a successful plan but even those of us that are closer or even close enough to dream of retirement, can take action now and see results that will make a difference!
Here’s to our success in accomplishing what so few will in today’s economic environment!
Prepper