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Executing the Five-year Plan and Pitfalls to Avoid

shackLast week I told you about my 5-year plan and this week I’m going to tell you more about how I’m following through with it.

I was able to find a property with an older 2-bedroom mobile home on it along with a shop that had originally been a small convenience store and bait shop. The other beautiful thing about this property is, 1800 feet from the driveway the road dead ends at a boat launch into the Tennessee River. I paid only $12,000 in cash for all of it with the intention of removing both the mobile home and the bait shop and building a three-car carriage house with an apartment above.

Once I have the buildings removed I will pour the slab, paying cash. Frame and roof, paying cash. Run power, paying cash. Run plumbing, paying cash and finish out, paying cash.

My plan for the condo is to either hold it and let a real estate company lease it for me or sell it out right.

Learning to fly

Now, as a young 25-year-old driver, is the time to put some money aside from your check every week into a savings or investment account. Set a goal and stick to that goal marking milestones on a calendar so that you can see them and be encouraged to continue.

Keep in mind the toys that come with success are useless if you are up to your eyebrows in debt. I have been living an essentially debt free lifestyle for the past 6 years. My vehicles are paid for; my credit cards are maintained at a zero balance because I pay them in full when they arrive in the mail. My only debt is my mortgage and the usual fixed expenditures (utilities, home owners insurance, vehicle insurance, health insurance, groceries and HOA fees for my condo)

I work with a multitude of guys in this industry (and dare I say, my own company) that live large and NEED to work 365 days a year. They have NO time for themselves or their family. They have all the toys and no time to enjoy them, are miserable in their marriages because they are always on the road and generally are complete assholes personality wise.

WHY? Because they are in debt.

Debt is a control freak. It controls you like a drug for an addict or a drink for an alcoholic. You feed it when you try to compensate for other shortcomings in your life. We are consumed by the need and desire to have more stuff, thinking that more stuff makes us happy until we finally get to the point where we realize that the stuff controls our lives.

The older I get the more I realize that I don’t need stuff to make me happy. Simple things make me happy and one of the simplest of things is the ability to RELAX and just chill the Hell out! I do not now, nor have I ever had the desire to work 365 days a year living out of a suitcase.

So my fellow drivers, I say all of this to simply state, NOW is the time to start planning for the day that you want to walk away from all of this. Make a plan, set some goals, save some money, pay off your debt’s, live a debt free lifestyle and prepare to be happy in retirement doing what you want to do… even if it is doing nothing at all.

Until next time… motor on and Merry Christmas.