Live in the truck save $ and become financially independent???

That's not a bad idea.

 

Hey I would love to find something to invest in but have no clue what....

 

My recommendations:

1) Yourself (learning, health/fitness, etc)
2) Real Estate (due to historic low interest rates)
3) stocks (conservative examples: SPY, BRK.b, MKL)

 

Your Dad was responsible for his own failure. He didn't do his own due diligence or he was a softy and should have stuck to his day job...it's a business like any other and is run by businessman not dabblers.

 

This is a good thread, with some good ideas.

When I was young, a ridiculously rich man put his arm around my shoulder and told me "you get two looks at every dollar - once coming in, and once going out." I think his point is very applicable to driving truck.

Most people who make 50k per year save almost nothing - just basic expenses and lifestyle eat through most of it. With trucking, the big benefit lies in having almost virtually no expenses. If you can make 50k and only spend 10k per year for food and entertainment, you can bank 40k. So, with a little bit of interest, you are easily a millionaire in 20 years.

Now, if you have a wife at home, a mortgage, two cars etc... well then you are just like everybody else making a 50 thousand a year job and have little to show for it. Sure it's a living, but not much more.

 

"Spend less than you make"

It's the foundation of financial success at any income level.

 

So true.

My father worked hard, but never once made into the six figures. He was, however, an avid saver and retired at 55 with not a financial care in the world.

Then there's me... I'm more careful now, but in the past I've stupidly lost more in a year than some make in lifetime. I'm doing fine, but I sure wish I hadn't been so cavalier with my earnings. Money came way to easy and I didn't respect it as I should have. I don't like sharing this kind of stuff, but hopefully it can help someone else who thinks they are too big for their britches. For those talking about real estate, it's easy to think you're Donald Trump if you make a successful deal.

 

I hear you, Bergy... and congrats to your dad and his saving ways. I too spent a LOT of money, with more than a little help from my wife and I'm suffering for it now.

Regarding your statement that "it's easy to think you're Donald Trump if you make a successful deal"...

... funny you should say that:

I had a friend who refused to invest in his company during the last decade, instead preferring to invest in real estate. He read Trump's book and got all fired up about selling a piece of property that some developers wanted in order to make a shopping mall. He finagled himself into becoming a partner in the deal by putting up his property... and ended up losing everything, including his business. Now's he's back to square one, but without a business to support him and on unemployment.

If it were me I'd invest in real estate now, something that could give me income. Farmland isn't a bad option if you can lease it out to a farmer and don't want to put in the work yourself. I know a guy that bought up land when it was cheap and has done just that, leasing it out to farmers.

 

I like that idea. Single family rentals never appealed to me because tenant phone calls. With your farmland idea, you have the revenue, without complaints about the a/c or backed up toilets. I've heard of lease deals being done where the landowner gets a percentage of the crop profits in return for lower lease rates.

I've bought and sold maybe a dozen properties in PHX when the market was going vertical, but conventional real estate is the "go to" for everybody, so there is lots of competition - and lots have more knowledge and deeper pockets than amateurs like myself. Farm land is intriguing...