Converting a cattle barn to a shop

[fflintstone]

Wow, this is a really cool barn/shop. Love the siding!

I just spent awhile skimming your thread and I'm puzzled about something - forgive me if I missed it, but are you still unemployed? If so, how are you doing/buying all this stuff in the last two years? Does your wife make bank?

I had a 1974 LeSabre Luxus convertible (burnt copper color) back in high school for a summer. It had a 455 and I drove it - yes, drove it - out of a junkyard that was shutting down for $500! It was rustier than yours but cleaned up fairly well. Had it for a summer and flipped it just before winter for $1400. Only good car deal I've ever made.

The question is a good one. My finances are really nobody’s business, but were the subject of some heated talk on another garage forum I no longer frequent. I think I will address the question later, but the over simplified answer is I am exceptionally good with money, live frugally, and I have been back to work for 90 days.

 

[theoldwizard1]

The question is a good one. My finances are really nobody’s business, but were the subject of some heated talk on another garage forum I no longer frequent. I think I will address the question later, but the over simplified answer is I am exceptionally good with money, live frugally, and I have been back to work for 90 days.

Exceptionally well answered ! I can't imagine what more you could add !

How is the new job working out, especially the whole "9 to 5" concept. (I was un-retired for awhile; I don;t think I made it in before 9:30-10:00 more than a couple of times !)

 

[RaysnCayne]

Glad to hear you're back to work! A great feeling, I'm sure.

I didn't mean to pry. But I'm sure you can understand why I asked. You mentioned the unemployment thing and how progress would be halted if you didn't get your unemployment bennies extended. I didn't see any mention of extended benefits or returning to work. But I did see a good bit of progress/expenditures on the garage, a couple project cars, a big lift and a carport. So I was just curious.

I thought I was pretty thrifty. But you have me beat at that game.

 

[fflintstone]

Answer part one.


Living within ones means.

Wow where to begin, to start off and this is key, I live frugally!!!!!
I started planning for an early retirement in 1996. I do without a lot of the stuff most people “need” to survive, never had cable, and didn’t have a cell phone. Never smoked ETC. I buy my food at food salvage store. I eat out of date food and such at a tremendous savings. I do not eat packaged food. Today’s lunch is a bean soup made from the Christmas ham bone. I buy any clothes I can at goodwill. Eating out is a rarity and 90% of the time it is off the $1 menu.

I bought acreage in 98, started building my retirement house in 99 and have been working on it ever since. And I built the house MYSELF! While I took help from friends when available I can honestly say I have driven MOST every screw, nail, what have you in the house. No contractor has set foot in the house.

All that being said I buy quality on the things that are important to me. I spend money on things that give my family or myself joy. But I shop everything to death, I buy used a lot, I buy OSB when it is $6 a sheet, not during hurricane season. I have bought Romex at garage sales and off Craigslist. Every window in my shop came from HFH, CL or a garage sale. None of them cost more than $30.

I joke with the tellers at the bank or my wife about any time I get cash for my wallet it is my “booze and ****** money” the truth is cash in the wallet is great for garage sales or CL deals. And I always try to have something for the collection plate on Sunday.

The truth is. If you don’t smoke, do drugs, drink excessively, gamble, buy a lunch out every day, a $4 coffee, **** from the vending machine ETC. you can have money for “good stuff”

As said before, other people have given me **** about what I spend MY money on. I found it particularly rich when a drunk smoker laid into me about how he “lives within his means” but yet he could only throw a few bucks in the tank till payday. I had started a thread on the other garage site, about stopping at a gas station in a bad part of Saginaw, and all three the cretins in front of me each bought less than $10 worth of gas. I mean how F’in far do you get on $3.12 worth of gas?

Lesson one don’t spend more than you take in.

 

[fflintstone]

Exceptionally well answered ! I can't imagine what more you could add !

How is the new job working out, especially the whole "9 to 5" concept. (I was un-retired for awhile; I don;t think I made it in before 9:30-10:00 more than a couple of times !)

The job is great! And they love me. I found out why in early December. If everyone else has done their job properly before me I can produce CAD drawings in one day that they can invoice for over #$2,000.

They make allowances for my slight disability. If you consider I have no weekly copay for my blue cross and blue shield insurance, then my 1984 hourly wage is not bad for living in the sticks.

For the record most engineering jobs have always started at 7:00 some at 6:00. My work schedule here is 7:00 to 3:00 with a ton of flex time.

 

[fflintstone]

Glad to hear you're back to work! A great feeling, I'm sure.

I didn't mean to pry. But I'm sure you can understand why I asked. You mentioned the unemployment thing and how progress would be halted if you didn't get your unemployment bennies extended. I didn't see any mention of extended benefits or returning to work. But I did see a good bit of progress/expenditures on the garage, a couple project cars, a big lift and a carport. So I was just curious.

I thought I was pretty thrifty. But you have me beat at that game.

Making an honest living is great; it does give you a better sense of self-worth.
At the particular time I was talking about the extension was just before Christmas I think that was back in 2010.. My benefits would have ended in January if they had not extended them. Congress dicked around enough and didn’t approve them until something like December 22nd. They waited long enough that my sons Christmas was a little crappy that year due to stuff being sold out by the time I knew I had money coming in.

I will get into unemployment and other income in part two.

 

[fflintstone]

Part 2 income and spending

Prior to 911 I made good money per hour and worked a lot of overtime. I was “single” and paid out the wazoo in federal taxes. For 1999, 2000 and 2001 each year they KEPT more in federal income taxes (not counting social security, and state taxes, just federal income tax) than you can receive collecting unemployment for a year.


A month after 911 GM had all them huge ads “we are putting America back to work with 0% financing on new cars” do you ever wonder how they paid for that? At the same time both GM and ford sent out nearly identical letters to all suppliers; Stating that they were only going to pay $0.91 on every dollar on every outstanding contract. The wording was such that if you didn’t like it you would receive no more work. My pay was cut 9% and overtime was history from then on.

Later on my pay was cut again, and in 2004 I was laid off. I had a **** load of money in the bank. I bought a new car, paid cash for it while I was unemployed! In 2005 I got a great non-automotive job at pre 911 wages but only 40 Hours. I had not had a loan out since 1996 other than my mortgage. I bought a tractor/loader/backhoe at 0% interest. I used 0% interest credit cards to buy stuff. I kept buying assets and kept flipping the balance onto a new card. By 2008 those 0% card offers were drying up. I had the tractor paid and was working on other debit when I lost my good paying job. Went back into auto engineering at a reduced rate. Worked until the height of the GM buyout in June of 2009.


I knew this was going to be a paradigm shift in my future employment. We cut spending, paid our mortgage till the bank account was drained. We got lucky and were able to short sell the house. While many in Michigan were defaulting hundreds of thousands ours was much, much, much less. In fact, my total default was less than half of the interest the mortgage company collected for the prior 13 years. IE the mortgage company didn’t “lose money” they didn’t make all their money.
To be total honest, they could have absolved the whole remaining debit, given me the house, and still not “LOST” money.



I was called back to work to work on stuff to hurry the CHEVY VOLT into production. These two months of working and my prior income allowed me to qualify for another state unemployment benefit. All my extensions ran out in May of last year. My wife got a minimum wage job at that time. She was working around 25 hours a week till I got my job, now it’s more like 5. (She doesn’t make “bank”)


People have given me **** for buying tools and stuff while on unemployment. F’em. I sacrifice in other areas of my life, if I want to buy tools, it’s my F’in business. Would I have rather worked the whole time? Hell yes! Would I have liked to have health insurance, hell yes! Maybe my health wouldn’t be as crappy as it is now. As I said before 3 years running the federal government KEPT more money per year than they ever paid per year in UA benefits. I just did the best I could with the hand dealt me. People are jealous that I actually know how to manage money. I qualified for benefits, IMO I paid for those benefits. I am going to use them. I want to meet the guy that is not taking an unemployment benefit out of principal. If you gather those three people together, even they don’t have the right to tell me how to spend it.


All this time I lived within my means, and paid my bills other than the house.


Lesson two: don’t spend more than you make. Make your income work for you. Buy assets even if they deprecate rather than frivolous **** like a $4 latte.

 

[Robleticia]

https://sphotos-a.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/207768_4066500423323_961257726_n.jpg

 

[power wagon]

you are right ,its no one business.i know no one here and would not talk to any one here about personal things,i think we should just talk about garages and keep all personal thought and ideas to our selves, i like to see more of your shop ,

 

[theoldwizard1]

Answer part one.

Living within ones means.
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The truth is. If you don’t smoke, do drugs, drink excessively, gamble, buy a lunch out every day, a $4 coffee, **** from the vending machine ETC. you can have money for “good stuff”]

WOW, you and I are alike in a lot of ways ! I eat a bit better than you (the wife she says going to make bean soup tomorrow ! Got to buy some smoked ham hocks.) I do have cable (no DVR) but it has been a long time since I have been "out to the movies". Our 2 cars are a combined 21 years old. Total miles last year was under 15k. Insurance is real cheap on a 15 year old truck with no collision or comprehension that gets driven less than 5k/year !

I worked "across to town" from you. Made it through 2 layoffs at FoMoCo. (I watched them walk one of my best friend's out the door in 2005 and then was told to do his job in addition to the one I was doing !)

Lesson one don’t spend more than you take in.

And after that, "Pay yourself (rainy day fund, pension, etc) FIRST !"


Looking back there are a few things I would have liked to have done when I was "young" (auto racing), but they would have cut into "family time" also. Due to some family situations, we have been taking care of our grandkids a lot lately. I can believe what I missed when my kids were growing up !

 

[RaysnCayne]

For the record: I didn't mean to stir anything up!

I only brought it up because it was openly stated in the first post that no progress would be made til bennies or a new job materialized. (It was voluntarily put out there. So please stop with the "it's nobody's business" malarky.) I saw a second post from early last year stating there was no job. But I didn't see a mention of extended unemployment. So I was genuinely curious as to how all this progress and purchasing was happening. That's all.

I'm certain extremely thrifty living can produce amazing results. This is a way-cool barn full of lots of thoughtful features!

 

[ScurvyPete]

8 months later, and I'm still waiting on an update