Stuff... And Life.

Dave

Dave

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Sitting in my garage I had a rare moment of clarity. We're living in a house that's too big, full of too much stuff, weighed down with too many frivolous bills, with a daily routine/schedule of obligations that is too full to really enjoy anything most of the time. Life, and "success", can really get in the way of LIFE. I spend way too much time and money maintaining that big house full of stuff, and wrangling a multitude of personal and professional "obligations" some of which may have zero benefit long term. Time to evolve.

So I/we are cutting back. I'm starting to get rid of things (I sold my Snow Peak IGT... that was difficult, but cathartic) to either free up space or free up funds (or both) for gear that we can enjoy as a family (tandem kayak coming soon) or for trips and quality time as a family. I'd like to pare down the "stuff" to essential gear only, and pare down the spending so that what we do spend is spent wisely, and so that when I do have time to get out I dont have to spend a day on either end just worrying about "stuff".

We started changing some things a few months back and paid cash for our next vacation (Carnival Cruise out of New Orleans leaving this saturday) and it feels great to have it paid for up front (said no to a lot of impulse buys over the last 6 months!) and to have finally made time for us the priority over either of our careers. Now we just need to continue the process of "leaning out" our lifestyle so that we get more out of it instead of just working non-stop.

Anyone else looking to break out from the routine and hit the reset button?
 
Yep, it was a few years ago now. I sold my Infiniti and bought a 12 year old, low miles Toyota. Paid cash for our 25th wedding anniversary trip this summer, 10 days in Costa Rica. Now I'm considering retiring early with just enough money to travel the way we want in our XP full time. I figure I can easily live on $2000 per month, and live the way we want, doing the things we like to do but can only get away to do once per month at best.

I'm trying to figure out if I'm going insane, just hit tired of people in general, or what, but I can't see a downside to walking away from it all and going full time for 10+ years the moment we can do it. That moment is potentially four years from now if I stay true to the concept. As I look at my pension, if I wait longer I get more money. But if I don't need more money, why wait? Every year I wait for more money is traded for one less year of life. The money is easy to track and see how much and when. The life isn't so easy to determine. I've seen too many people wait for the money and run out of life before that decisions ever paid off.

tick-tock
 
I think the part you stated about trading one more year of life for money is key. That really is what it all boils down to.

I'm not getting any younger, but I'm still in good enough shape now to do all the things I want to do (and keep up with the kids) so cutting out some of the "fat" from my life so that I can focus on LIVING is my goal. I'm 5 years out from full retirement, but I aim to maximize the time between now and then by evolving the way I travel and the activities I choose.

Less really can be more as they say.
 
I agree with you guys 100%. I went through this late last year. I got sick of paying payments for two cars, one of which just sat at home constantly. I sold the sitting car, and paid off my wife's car. We now own 2 vehicles, and I drive a company car, and both cars are paid off. We live in a house that's too big, but we bought at the wrong time, so selling doesn't make sense, or we will lose our butt. I've just started pairing things down, starting with the cars. Next up is starting to sell all the useless crap we have accumulated. I think we are doing pretty well, considering 2 years ago, we owned 4 cars, and now we are down to two. Heck, I've given thought to selling the dodge and buying an older 4runner or montero and a teardrop to enjoy our camping in... But that's still in thought.
 
Right now, all I can see is debt. Even after a huge relief in the form of bankruptcy (not ashamed to admit it; I went from a good paying job to a barely paying job and failed to make adjustments to how we spent on things, lesson learned), and living without credit cards since 2009, I'm still in debt.

It didn't help that I had to borrow to be able to file bankruptcy, but then the car was repossessed right after the BK judgment and cost $2,300.00 to get back, then the truck needed $1,300.00 in work (there went the 2013 tax refund that was supposed to get us a head start on paying people back for those two events!), it just doesn't seem to have an end to it.

We have cut a lot of things out that we used to be able do without thinking about money to do it. We too are trying to get rid of things we don't use/need, and refrain from building it back up with impulse purchases.

Personally, I'm very nervous about our retirement years, who knows where we'll be financially. Hopefully things will be better after the Second Revolution, and our country begins to focus on itself again.
 
I've been hitting the reset button, of sorts, but it includes a heavy focus on my career, fixing up my house, getting rid of "stuff", and getting debt free. It means very limited time for hobbies (most of my hobby time is spent while waiting for the compiler or DB extract), but I can't say it's not a labor of love. My hard work to finish school and provide financial security for my immediate and extended family are finally paying off.

Life is good, but I don't have much time to smell the roses yet.
 
We've been on this path over the last few years...slowly letting go of "stuff" that doesn't really add any value to our life other than ownership. Its part of Michelle and I's plan to radically simplify our lives once we are no longer responsible for the day to day care of our children. We got a few years to go yet, but when we get the chance we don't want to be burdened with getting rid of everything at once. Far better to sell stuff over time and with a profit margin than to have a "fire sale" where your just giving stuff away to get it of your hands. Two years ago I sold my entire engine collection (a scad of big blocks) and all the vintage Flathead speed parts I was collecting for a hotrod build. I came to the realization that I was never going to have the time to build what I wanted and it was better to let them go to someone who would appreciate them. Watching that '50s flatty Offy tri-power intake and matching valve cover leave my garage hurt at the time but now I don't even wince (well at least I hide it well). And so it has been the last few years as I have slowly sold, bartered and traded my collections of stuff to acquire what we really need or to put back into saving for the adventures yet to come. This year I'm selling my beloved Jeep as it just sits in the garage most of the time and is serving no real purpose. The Heavyweight 68 (my street machine Buick) is also going on the market for the same exact reason. Having five rides has become a pain in the ass with buying tires, registration and worse of all insuring them; especially when your paying for teenager's policies.

We are fortunate that we have always lived a frugal lifestyle, only buying stuff after the cash had been saved and set aside. we avoid loans and credit at all costs and because of this we find ourselves debt free. Currently we are trying our damnest not to have to borrow money to put my daughter through college though her own hard work and skill at getting scholarships and grants have aided us greatly. Selling the Jeep and the Buick not only insures this but allows us to get a further head start for our boy's education. Our biggest obstacle now is my occupation and being self-employed. Over the last year the economic climate has worsen even more and money is tight in our community.

As Michelle and I grow older we have found that happiness isn't about how much money you have or how much stuff you've acquired but is more about appreciating all the blessings you find in your everyday life no matter what situation you find yourselves in. Happiness takes some drive to acquire and the willingness to allow it into your life.
 
Haggis said:
As Michelle and I grow older we have found that happiness isn't about how much money you have or how much stuff you've acquired but is more about appreciating all the blessings you find in your everyday life no matter what situation you find yourselves in. Happiness takes some drive to acquire and the willingness to allow it into your life.
Click to expand...

Amen brother!
 
We have ZERO credit card debt, other than that, I spend it as fast as I make it. I've got 14% going to my 401k, so I'm trying to have a little nest egg set aside for retirement.

I know too many people that saved all of their lives for retirement, finally retired and were in too poor of physical condition to enjoy their retirement. I live today for today, try not to worry too much about tomorrow.

Fortunately for me, my wife is pretty low maintenance, she enjoys being out in the sticks as much as I do, whether we're rock crawling, desert racing, or enjoying some adventure travel in scenic/historical areas. We've built our fleet of vehicles to meet our needs. None of them are best in class, all are a compromise in some area, but they do what we need them to do to have a good time.

As far as our "kit" is concerned, we've never found the need for titanium sporks, and coffee cups, when my 10 year old, ratty ass 7-11 coffee mug/lid works just fine, and a $5 set of flatware lasts for years. I've got no problem shopping for Coleman products at Walmart.

I think the high end products are cool as all get out, but they just aren't for me. First off, I'm a cheap bastich, and secondly, I'm hard on equipment. If I destroy a $50 Coleman camping table using it as a workbench out in the middle of no where that's one thing, a Snow Peak/Tembo Tusk type table getting destroyed would be a bit much. The easy answer is not to abuse the gear, the reality of the situation is, I use what I have at the time to get the job done.

I come from a rock crawling/desert racing back ground. We break things...a lot of things... in those sports. I haven't gotten used to the idea that not so much stuff breaks in adventure travel. Having said that, a 2wd Toyota Tacoma did just fine on our recent Mojave Rd trip. Meanwhile, me, in my double throw me down too cool to list all the stuff Jeep Wrangler, I found a washout to challenge on the main road, (with a perfectly good bypass already in place), and tore the front sway bar mount off the passenger front, and tore the hose off the Bilstein 7100 series shock to the reservoir, all because I was missing a bump stop spacer (and chose not to take the bypass). That was a couple hundy $$$ spent on STUPID, not to mention a 250 mile drive home with a patched sway bar and a blown right front shock (on 36" TSL/SX bias ply tires). So even driving a simple dirt road I can find a way to break things!

Holy crap, I think I rambled a bit. Back to the original subject.
 
I've been working towards "simplifying" since retiring last summer and it has been a struggle to really pare down all of the "stuff" I've collected during my career. I consider my load lightening a work in progress and don't have a defined deadline to have the process complete.

With regard to finding time for more adventures I always tell my friends, "you can always make more money, but you can never make more time."
 
Hi Guys:

Thank you Dave for probably the most important topic ever on this forum. If anyone is interested, here is my story of discovery:

Back in the nineties, I had the wife, the cars (including the '84 F-250 4x4), the house in the burbs up next to the mountains and two young awesome kids. I was living the dream. My wife could not be happy unless she could buy more stuff. By the time my marriage exploded in 2000, we had over $90,000 in credit card debt. I don't recommend going through bankruptcy proceedings at the same time as you are going through a divorce.

During that same period, I had left my big company and started a new business with several other guys to make entertainment systems for commercial airliners. After nine years of working my ass off, my company was starting to get a lot of orders and flying high. I was going to be a millionaire. Then 9-11 hit and within three days, the airlines cancelled all of their orders. My company died.

The next ten years were what I call my "Dark Decade". I didn't give a crap about anything except for my kids and my friends. But, I did learn a few things. The first thing was that I would never borrow money from anyone, any company, anyhow. Now, when my clients pay me, I convert it to cash. I now buy everything with cash. I can see it and feel it. If I don't have enough, I don't buy it. I am free!

In the mid-2000's, I looked around and it seemed like everyone was buying brand new Mercedes, BMW's and Lexus'. It occurred to me that most of these people were using home equity loans to buy expensive cars, big screen TV's and new kitchens. I told many of my friends that none of these new "wealthy" people did anything to earn or produce the money that bought this stuff. It was free money. I said "This is a house of cards and it has to end with collapse". Well it did.

So here is my Cam wisdom: The most valuable things that you have are your family and friends (the real kind). If you buy stuff, use cash and buy only those things that will last a long time and will be valuable when the second and much bigger societal collapse happens.

And yet, in the midst of all this pessimistic thinking, I have started a new company in California of all places. I now have a sense of new optimism because of all the wonderful people that have come into my life over the last few years and they have all been pushing me to market the griddle that I developed for my own use over many years of overlanding. I have not borrowed money from anyone to do this, I am just using every penny of extra cash that I have to grow a company and produce products that will last beyond a lifetime and will turn conventional wisdom upside down. That company is Mojoe Outfitters and the first product is the Mojoe Griddle. Many of you saw this product in action at the 2014 DRV pot-luck. It was sort of my coming out party for the Mojoe. My best friend Kris (for over 35 years), you know, the guy with the "Baja Civic", was there with me making quesadillas on the Mojoe. See what I mean about friends?

As soon as Dave lets me, Mojoe Outfitters will become a sponsor of this wonderful forum. In the mean time, you can check out the Mojoe Griddle at www.mojoeoutfitters.com. Yeah, that was a shameless plug, but what am I supposed to do?

Cam
 
Wow, an awesome thread. Makes me feel like I'm not the only one who has "seen the light" and hit the reset button. At the age of 45, I lost my father, got divorced, and lost a job of 20 years all in 10 months. I hit the reset button with full force and gave the big house to the X-wife, sold most of my stuff and took off for a summer working in Alaska as a guide.

Currently I am back on the east coast working in the DC area living in a studio apartment filled with fishing rods, guns and camping gear. I have no credit cards and my daily driver is my 95 Tacoma which has the kayak on the roof most of the time.

I have just restarted the retirement fund. The only "stuff" I own is the tools needed to have fun outside playing. I'm trying to remember to pray daily, learn from the past, live in today and prepare for tomorrow. Yep the reset button worked for me and I am happier than I've been in a long time. Heck I even run a website based on this idea.
 
im not sure how i missed this thread but my wife and i have been living this lifestyle most of this year. 8 years ago my construction company and online store (stealth automotive) were basically at the height of its game. i was blowing through money ( i was single) and didnt put any money away. then the market crashed and both business's pretty much came down to a crawl. 2 years ago it looked like the construction business was going to take off after a big celebrity job we did and out of nowhere i lost 2 big jobs days before signing the contract to a different contractor and i was out of work. This was an even more blow since i bought extra equipment and another truck because i was going to need it for these 2 jobs. Heck i already had a start date and had all my ducks in a row to start days after i lost the jobs to someone else. this same year my wifes company went out of business so that was another blow that basically crippled us. It came to the point that we were soo low on funds that i had to pick and choose which bills we were going to pay and which ones we could not. it was either pay stuff like student loans or not be able to feed the family. I called and asked them to defer the loans or help in any way and they turned me down 3 times and said there was nothing they could do.

it took almost 2 years for my wife to find another job in her field for almost half the wage she was making before. The biggest problem is that we both went to college and acquired big student loan debt. Mine is almost paid off but my wifes is something that will prob take the next 20 years to pay off. on top of that we have some CC and vehicle debt. we dont live a lavish lifestyle. the last vacation i took with my wife was our honeymoon about 3 years ago. were basically living/working just to pay off our debt.

but im happy to say that as of this week we paid off one of her store cards and my CC. im hoping that by the end of summer well have her CC paid off and her expedition. then that just leaves my 2 trucks (1 is for sale) and our student loans. we will continue to live this low key lifestyle until everything but our student loans are paid off. then hopefully once thats done well be able to afford to travel with the family more and possibly add 1 more child to our family.

Anyways. i wish more people thought this way instead of just getting themselves more in debt.
 
My wife and I are right in the middle of reducing our lifestyle. Its a painful process to be sure but I can't wait for it to be over. I'm happy we started down this path while still pretty young and I'm hoping it will give our youngest daughter a good outlook on life and happiness. Pretty soon she will be the only child left in the house and I'd really like to get her out and experiencing life more than the average kid.

Sent from my VS950 4G using Tapatalk
 
Raul B said:
im not sure how i missed this thread but my wife and i have been living this lifestyle most of this year. 8 years ago my construction company and online store (stealth automotive) were basically at the height of its game. i was blowing through money ( i was single) and didnt put any money away. then the market crashed and both business's pretty much came down to a crawl. 2 years ago it looked like the construction business was going to take off after a big celebrity job we did and out of nowhere i lost 2 big jobs days before signing the contract to a different contractor and i was out of work. This was an even more blow since i bought extra equipment and another truck because i was going to need it for these 2 jobs. Heck i already had a start date and had all my ducks in a row to start days after i lost the jobs to someone else. this same year my wifes company went out of business so that was another blow that basically crippled us. It came to the point that we were soo low on funds that i had to pick and choose which bills we were going to pay and which ones we could not. it was either pay stuff like student loans or not be able to feed the family. I called and asked them to defer the loans or help in any way and they turned me down 3 times and said there was nothing they could do.

it took almost 2 years for my wife to find another job in her field for almost half the wage she was making before. The biggest problem is that we both went to college and acquired big student loan debt. Mine is almost paid off but my wifes is something that will prob take the next 20 years to pay off. on top of that we have some CC and vehicle debt. we dont live a lavish lifestyle. the last vacation i took with my wife was our honeymoon about 3 years ago. were basically living/working just to pay off our debt.

but im happy to say that as of this week we paid off one of her store cards and my CC. im hoping that by the end of summer well have her CC paid off and her expedition. then that just leaves my 2 trucks (1 is for sale) and our student loans. we will continue to live this low key lifestyle until everything but our student loans are paid off. then hopefully once thats done well be able to afford to travel with the family more and possibly add 1 more child to our family.

Anyways. i wish more people thought this way instead of just getting themselves more in debt.
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It's all about learning from what happens to us. Sorry those things happened to you brother, but sounds like you're doing the right thing now, and I wish you guys the best of luck and success!
 
I've been working to minimize debt for several years now. I owe a few grand on a Mazda, and that's it. Recently shed my office job, and I hope I can manage to keep it that way. Nothing is worse then being trapped in a cubicle, in front of the soul-devouring glow of a computer screen, while there's a whole world out there whose nooks and crannies are still ripe for exploration.
 
Mitch said:
I am SO stealing this.
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Sorry, I can't full credit for the quote, the orginal was from Albert Einstein, I just changed it up putting my own twist to it. [h=1]“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”
[/h]

- - - Updated - - -

So as we ponder the qualities of simplizing life, and I thought the final thread between the X and me was gone with the selling of the house, I get hit square in the jaw last night after my daughter's softball game. The X is taking me back to court for more money. ARGG....
 
venture4wd said:
I've been working to minimize debt for several years now. I owe a few grand on a Mazda, and that's it. Recently shed my office job, and I hope I can manage to keep it that way. Nothing is worse then being trapped in a cubicle, in front of the soul-devouring glow of a computer screen, while there's a whole world out there whose nooks and crannies are still ripe for exploration.
Click to expand...

Great first post. Welcome to AAV!

:home
 
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