February 2011
Elizabeth is welcome to ride along in the truck.  * * * So, February is already halfway through, and nothing much has happened this month. I think I sold a few dvd's on Amazon, but that's about it. Sold a pre-digital tv along with the converter box. Stuff isn't moving on Craigslist, and even though I'm trying to knock everything down a dollar a week, there's only so far you can go before you wonder if this is just a bad time to be selling stuff. I've made the commitment to sell the big drum set, and I guess that's the major push right now. Got Jose to polish up the chrome stands and assorted foot pedals, so next week is the actual cleaning of the kit. Deep breath, here. I'm not Romantically attached to this drum set, but still...deep breath. This will be me giving huge notice to the world that I'm on a one-way track, no turning back. I'm kind of excited about getting my traveling percussion kit assembled while I'm at it. Just how much drum stuff am I actually going to be carrying? Photos and ideas forthcoming. I am having amazing sleep every few nights in the Suburban, with my silly Walmart-Coleman sleeping bag. I think it's rated for 10-degrees or something, and I gotta say, I'm quite cozy. Hey, this is Maine, folks. This Winter has seen many many nights in the -3 to -10 range. I'm glad I can hold up. Of course, this has nothing to do with the Roll-O-Rooter diesel engine's inability to withstand cold; I wish it was as adaptable as I am. Naturally, there's a flipside, and that is me above 80-degrees. I can't handle heat. I guess this makes me an ideal candidate for the mobile lifestyle. I finished reading My Side Of The Mountain - hadn't read it since I was a kid - and without a doubt, this is where my whole preoccupation of forts, tents and hideaways began. I am 50 now, and emerge from this book with the same adventuresome spirit as when I was 10. Every day I look at maps and I think about the next town and the next. I think about running away and hiding. True, I don't have to hollow out a tree, and I'll never know my edible plants or animal species. Hiding is good, but I don't want to live off the land, and I don't want to dismiss people altogether. It doesn't matter how musically productive I become, a truck full of chord changes is not going to play itself. Twenty months to go. The days are already endless, and it is all I can do to keep myself pulled together long enough to show up at work, put in an honest day's effort, and try not to get too far ahead of myself. Twenty months. And in reality, only eighteen more payments to get debt-free. I was thinking about lattice panels this week. You know, the big 4x8 sheets you put around the bottom of your porch, or use as partial fencing. I have a bunch of these panels, and I think I'll throw a couple in the truck, flat against the wall inside. They seem like excellent lightweight building material for some kind of roof or lean-to out in the woods, maybe with some clear plastic thrown over. I'll figure out a use; they just seem so versatile as creative shelter for those times when I want to get outside the truck. * * * Part of my financial plan is the two-year period from ages 60-62 - assuming Social Security will talk to me at age 62. These two years will be financed by 1/4 of the "bank" I am assembling plus the few shares of various stock I own. I have bolstered that two-year period by committing to making $200 of new stock purchases each month in 2011. For January and February I added $400 worth of JP Morgan bank stock. I started buying some individual stocks back in 1999, just because it looked kind of fun - gave me that sense of gambling we are all born with - and seemed like a nice contrast to the Index Funds I so regularly preach as a no-brainer for your 401k distribution. I bought into Intel, JP Morgan, Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Texaco (bought by Chevron), Sprint, Dow, and uh.....Enron. These all offer DRIP plans (Dividend ReInvestment Plans) which means my quarterly dividends go towards buying more stock. If you make it a habit to buy $50 every month, you are automatically going to find yourself "dollar-cost averaging" which means you are buying more stock when it is cheap, and less when it is expensive. You want this. Over time you are getting a solid stockpile without trying to guess the market. Just commit to a certain amount of dollars per month. (you can begin at sites like www.computershare.com or www.melloninvestor.com) I was religious for about a year or so, and then I cashed in some Texaco and my Enron to pay for my move from Los Angeles to Virginia. (yes! I sold my Enron stock only days before the scandal broke! I am a genius!) I later cashed in some Coca-Cola and Intel to help pay for my move from Virginia to Maine. So these days, I'm not sitting on much - a couple thousand dollars - and it just feels like something I need to attend to so my age 60-62 years will be funded. I mention all this because, again, somebody will read my adventure and wonder how to prepare financially. Well, this is one way. A few choice stocks, a little at a time. Have fun with it. Some will tank (Sprint) and some will soar (Texaco/Chevron). But it's kinda fun. The one I'm really gung ho about now? HCN. It takes $1,000 to "buy in," so to speak, so that would take care of five months investment (March through July) right there. HCN is a health care REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust). REIT's are like Index Funds in that you are buying into a pool of different stocks - you're not just buying a single real estate company, you're buying into a collection. What makes HCN so alluring to me is that this is health care real estate: senior living, medical office buildings and such. Do you think this is going away any time soon?...uh...EVER? No. Annual dividend yields as of this writing - 6%. In my world, that's already saying enough. * * * Who put U in Utah? Me! New land purchase today! Now, before you get all giddy and start Googling "what's in Utah?" let me explain that my Utah land purchase is not a large contributor to the scenic splendor of this, our 45th state. It is pretty much 2.24 acres of scrub brush and dirt out in the middle of nowhere, and it's called Beryl, Utah. (pronounced "burl") I'm about 40-50 miles from the mountains, but the entance to Zion National Park is about 100 miles away - you can't just vault over the mountains, you drive around. Anyway, here I am again with a couple acres in the middle of nowhere. Three hours from Vegas. Ten hours from Denver. This is definitely the kind of place where you could go out and nail a few boards together, and call it a cabin, and nobody would care. I don't have pictures of the exact property, but here is the area for miles around...so, yeah, it looks just like this.   The real kicker for me on buying this property is that it's actually 14 lots. You know how somebody goes out in the middle of nowhere and creates a subdivision and makes a plat and names the streets.......and then nobody comes? (kind of like the Tres Piedras property) Well, this is the same sort of thing. The deed shows ownership of 14 separate lots, which means it would be hardly nothin' for me to go down to the county and have 14 separate deeds made out. Then sell 'em all off for a hundred bucks or so and make a little cash. That's if I wanted to. Someday. At least the option is there. Beryl - Southwestern Utah. 2.24 acres - $666.00. Annual property taxes - $80.87.  Here you can see the relationship of me (red dot) to Zion National Park, as well as the Nevada and Arizona state lines.  Interstate 15 is a major North-South passage running from San Diego, east of Los Angeles, through Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Idaho Falls, and into Montana (Butte, Helena, Great Falls). Note the convenient proximity of I-15 to I-70 which runs close to my Hartsel property, and into Denver.  March 2011 Should I Rethink My Exit Strategy? Buying Property In Chambers, Arizona The Plan Goes A-Ha! In The End...So What? Trouble In Michigan |