Hi All: Just dropping a note to say HELLO and introduce myself. I'm 55 years old and live in south-central Ohio. I've been following @MJ DeMarco for a number of years and read all his books a few years ago. As with most books I read, I didn't really dive in and follow all his advice. But much of it "sunk in" to my subconscious brain and has influenced a lot of my thinking over the years. I've always worked a regular J.O.B. in the tech industry, pretty much since 1990 after I served in the Navy and then graduated college. Back then, I was NEVER a sidewalker, but was definitely following the conventional slow-lane advice of living below my means and saving/investing the difference. Eventually, I started experimenting with various business ideas, but never found great success. I thought "affiliate marketing" was the thing that interested me the most, but despite many attempts, I never really made any decent money at it.
I also got married in 1990 and my wife came from a family of entrepreneurs. We started dating in 1987 and at that time she owned and ran her own commercial cleaning service (while also working in the auto industry). She eventually sold the cleaning biz, and then over the years, her and I together started and ran a catering service, and a fairly large gumball machine vending route. We eventually closed those down and stumbled upon an interesting opportunity in the short-term log cabin rental/tourism industry. We bought land and built our first cabin in 2012. Someone else managed it for us initially, but it did so well, we decided to buy more land and build more cabins. In 2016, we moved, officially started our own new business and built 4 more cabins over the course of a year. We also took the original cabin away from the property manager and we ran the business ourselves with 5 cabins, until we eventually sold that business in early 2022 for a nice chunk of change (over $1M).
Through another twist of odd circumstances, my wife ended up buying a bar/tavern (with two rental units on the same property) at the end of 2022 which she has fixed up, increased the revenue 3X and plans to flip it sometime this year for a decent profit.
Keep in mind, during all this time, and running all these businesses together, I continued to work full-time in tech earning a nice salary and investing 40+% of everything I made. Today, we have a multi-million $ portfolio, we own two homes (ours and one our son & his family rent from us), we have two vehicles, a nice RV, and a Ranger 4x4 -- all 100% paid for/debt-free. The tavern my wife currently owns is also paid for 100% with no debt.
As crazy as it sounds... I'm STILL working today for a large tech company. That company, as with many other tech companies, has been doing WFR's (work force reductions) pretty much every quarter for the past 1-2 years. My manager of 16 years got fired late last year, and they told him it was basically because he was one of the highest paid managers. That was a wake-up call for me, and I started asking myself why in the hell I'm still working when I have enough F-U money to quit any time I choose. So, I put the wheels in motion... I don't want to quit before March because that's bonus time. Then, I recently found out they are planning another WFR that will have a May exit date. So, after I get my big fat bonus mid-March, I plan to tell my manager I want to volunteer for the next WFR since that will include a decent severance package. Even if they say no for whatever reason, I'm still leaving.
OK, I said ALL of that to say this... My biggest problem right now is, I have NO CLUE what I want to retire to. In other words, I have no idea what I want to do in my retirement, and I need to figure that out. I have lots of interests, and still have a desire to do something to earn a little extra money on the side, even though I don't really need to. Believe it or not, I also have 5 grand-kids and 1 more on the way, so that will take a lot of my time & energy (and money!). LOL! I will also get back to hiking, biking, working out, and generally focusing on being the healthiest version of myself I can be. I've neglected my health for too long. I'm still very healthy, but I'm about 30lbs overweight and need to fix that. But my doctor has told me, more than once, that I'm his ONLY patient in their mid-50's who takes ZERO prescription meds. So, I'm pretty proud of that and want to maintain it!
For these reasons, I've recently started re-reading all of @MJ DeMarco's books - and I'm going to take good notes this time around! I have a couple business ideas that revolve around the tourism/travel industry, which would be perfect for where we live now. It's a big tourist area that literally attracts millions of people every year. One of my ideas would also provide me a means and excuse to get outside and get exercise pretty much every day.
So.... I'm glad to be here, and I look forward to learning from others and building some new relationships with like-minded folks!
I also got married in 1990 and my wife came from a family of entrepreneurs. We started dating in 1987 and at that time she owned and ran her own commercial cleaning service (while also working in the auto industry). She eventually sold the cleaning biz, and then over the years, her and I together started and ran a catering service, and a fairly large gumball machine vending route. We eventually closed those down and stumbled upon an interesting opportunity in the short-term log cabin rental/tourism industry. We bought land and built our first cabin in 2012. Someone else managed it for us initially, but it did so well, we decided to buy more land and build more cabins. In 2016, we moved, officially started our own new business and built 4 more cabins over the course of a year. We also took the original cabin away from the property manager and we ran the business ourselves with 5 cabins, until we eventually sold that business in early 2022 for a nice chunk of change (over $1M).
Through another twist of odd circumstances, my wife ended up buying a bar/tavern (with two rental units on the same property) at the end of 2022 which she has fixed up, increased the revenue 3X and plans to flip it sometime this year for a decent profit.
Keep in mind, during all this time, and running all these businesses together, I continued to work full-time in tech earning a nice salary and investing 40+% of everything I made. Today, we have a multi-million $ portfolio, we own two homes (ours and one our son & his family rent from us), we have two vehicles, a nice RV, and a Ranger 4x4 -- all 100% paid for/debt-free. The tavern my wife currently owns is also paid for 100% with no debt.
As crazy as it sounds... I'm STILL working today for a large tech company. That company, as with many other tech companies, has been doing WFR's (work force reductions) pretty much every quarter for the past 1-2 years. My manager of 16 years got fired late last year, and they told him it was basically because he was one of the highest paid managers. That was a wake-up call for me, and I started asking myself why in the hell I'm still working when I have enough F-U money to quit any time I choose. So, I put the wheels in motion... I don't want to quit before March because that's bonus time. Then, I recently found out they are planning another WFR that will have a May exit date. So, after I get my big fat bonus mid-March, I plan to tell my manager I want to volunteer for the next WFR since that will include a decent severance package. Even if they say no for whatever reason, I'm still leaving.
OK, I said ALL of that to say this... My biggest problem right now is, I have NO CLUE what I want to retire to. In other words, I have no idea what I want to do in my retirement, and I need to figure that out. I have lots of interests, and still have a desire to do something to earn a little extra money on the side, even though I don't really need to. Believe it or not, I also have 5 grand-kids and 1 more on the way, so that will take a lot of my time & energy (and money!). LOL! I will also get back to hiking, biking, working out, and generally focusing on being the healthiest version of myself I can be. I've neglected my health for too long. I'm still very healthy, but I'm about 30lbs overweight and need to fix that. But my doctor has told me, more than once, that I'm his ONLY patient in their mid-50's who takes ZERO prescription meds. So, I'm pretty proud of that and want to maintain it!
For these reasons, I've recently started re-reading all of @MJ DeMarco's books - and I'm going to take good notes this time around! I have a couple business ideas that revolve around the tourism/travel industry, which would be perfect for where we live now. It's a big tourist area that literally attracts millions of people every year. One of my ideas would also provide me a means and excuse to get outside and get exercise pretty much every day.
So.... I'm glad to be here, and I look forward to learning from others and building some new relationships with like-minded folks!
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