Well said my friend. This year I plan to start accumulating equipment like a tractor, bobcat, bulldozer, etc and will start a new business for these things. I’ve thought about passively putting them for rent for locals around here. I don’t plan to start a rental company but if it happens naturally then so be it. I wouldn’t be mad if they paid for themselves...
Trucking is a business. If you own a business and want to make it successful, you better show up with your “A” game, be it trucking, sandwich making, house cleaning, or dog boarding. Hiring some employees that mail it in isn’t going to make your business successful. EVERY business has its problems, EVERY business requires the owner’s attention to be successful. Elon Musk slept on the factory floor when it was crunch time, and he was worth many billions already at the time.
So true! I don’t mean to take this thread over but it’s something that interests me very much. Before we started a trucking company, my wife had a pet sitting business. I can’t tell you how many hours or miles we drove in all kinds of weather to care for people’s animals. Even a couple years into our trucking business we were still caring for animals and making it happen. Funny thing is from time to time older folks still call via an old phone book needing help. My wife still takes the calls and tries to pair them up with kennels and such. Yes, we were dead broke but gotta start somewhere!
I'm striving towards a business that can be more cash based with far less federal government involvement and doesn't rely so heavily on my health or age. I'm in great shape now. Better than 90 percent of the people around me in my age group (and even younger) BUT after waking up with an astigmatism I've realized anything can take me out of the driver's seat. With all that said, I've been building a service truck and collected a large amount of tools to keep my old iron on the road that it makes sense to use it as a source of income in later years. I'd love to see it grow enough to build a full on shop with a garage too. Keeping any truck and trailer on the road is pretty much guaranteed income where you set the rates and have the upper hand on lock down. I have a couple other ones I'm working on too but I'm not putting those on blast!
I'am gonna invest some time & money in getting my Broker's License to sell Real Estate. Then @Midwest Trucker & I are gona become good friends..lol..
Getting some farm ground is a good goal. I've had my rice acreage leased out to the same group of people for quite a few years and we're both happy with the way things are going. Well, as happy as farmers can ever be anyway. We complain a lot but that goes with the territory. The people who lease from me are very reliable and straight forward and that's absolute key to doing what I do. Our family also has some almonds that we lease out. The guy who farms it wants to buy it but I don't see any point in selling. Next year we'll start replacing the trees a little at a time and he'll bear part of the cost for that. It's not a "hands off" business or a passive income like a lot of people think but it's a fairly reliable revenue stream. I'll probably always mess round with trucks and equipment and logging mainly because I enjoy doing it but it's nice to have reached the point where it isn't necessary anymore. Keep plugging along. You'll get there.
