The Slow Motion Retirement Plan

[vtsnowedin]

I find it curious how people in our microwave, have-it-now, culture have somehow managed to redefine debt. Somehow if the interest rate on your loan is low or zero percent, it isn't debt. If you have a 30 yr mortage, owe $40K on cars, but have no credit car debt you somehow consider yourself to not be in debt. In the mid-2000's before the banking and housing crisis, lots of people were claiming it was stupid to have no house mortgage. So now what do those people have to say about the millions of people who bought 0% down houses whose house prices dropped 20%, 30%, or 50%? Those people can't sell their houses and are trapped. Talk about a miserable position to be in without any good options!

A $100K mortage at 0% interest is still $100K of debt and still involves risk. When the great depression hit, the people who were in debt were the ones who lost their homes. The people without debt were able to manage and many of them prospered in the process.

End of rant.

Not a bad rant. Lots of truth in it. The part about people in the depression making money if they weren't in debt at the start of it is spot on as my father told me at least a thousand times. But there is this to consider: If you have a reasonable expectation of having competative cash flow for the next few years and you expect inflation to happen in a big way then it makes sense to buy hard assetes such as land , gold , or houses at todays prices and pay them off with inflated dollars over the period of the loan. I have my house and land payed for but property taxes keep eating away at it and those rise with inflation. I have his and hers vehicles at low interest rates that are worth about what I owe on them at any given time and I expect to drive at least one of them 100K after the last payments are made so I consider the asset of the vehicles as a wash. Then there is the tractor. Zero percent interest, no way to wear it out over the life of the loan and a solid asset once it is payed for and no property taxes or registrations to pay on it each year. Yes I have debt. But the debt I have is balanced by the value of the collateral so I have a positive net worth even if real estate prices take another dive down to what liveing space is really worth. And if inflation hits I will pay off the last of those loans with inflated dollars in effect getting a big discount on the purchase price where if I had just left cash in the bank inflation would have eaten away at the value of my account.

 

[grsthegreat]

The wife and I are not retired yet...but closing in on it. We own everything outright with NO DEBT. No home loans, no car loans, no credit card loans.

Its a sweet place to be. Took years to obtain it, but man is it a nice feeling.

I could physically retire any time i wish, but im still to young to do nothing. I admire your ambition and drive to build up your dream house and have it debt free come retirement time. You'll feel so good without that 500# monkey (mortgage payments) over your head all the time.

Definately get it all built while your still working. dont get lured into the zero % interest loans...like lots of people do. Save up till you have the cash to purchase what you want.

Its amazing how many things that "I just have to have" are no longer important after you've waited awhile saving up for it. Its happened quite a few times to us. Impulse purchases are death to a retirement plan.

As you design your home, make room for extra freezers and pantry space. living in the sticks does come with the problem of needing to travel 30 miles to pick up food and supplies.

Good luck in your endeavors.

And nice views.

 

[crbr]

Thanks for the pictures

 

[ETpilot]

Ahhhhhh retirement. That is a word dear to me. The key to a good retirement is having a good retirement plan. I started my retirement planning, by accident, a bit late in my career. I did manage to come up with a decent plan. My goal, as with most, was to be debt free. In 1990 I retired from employment at the age of 47. I have not worked for anyone since. It will be 23 years of retirement this June. I purchased 65 acres in East Texas and managed to pay that off in about 7-8 years. With some retirement money I purchased an airplane, hanger and other airplane stuff. Everything is paid for. I use credit cards to my advantage. I get a rebate on all purchases and I pay the account off monthly so I do not pay any interest. I do, most, all my home, vehicle, airplane and equipment maintence. That really helps a lot. Now this year I will pass my 70 1/2 years of age and I have to take the required minimum distribution from my last retirement savings plan. Life has been good. Bored???? Not on your life. I always have things to do. I am starting a 20x20' shed next week.

 

[jerrybob]

Congrats on the retirement plan.....5 years will go by quickly. Your property looks nice......pretty country....we hunt in Northwest Co......love it out there. Debt free is the way to go.....my wife and I had similar plans years ago.....we called it our 15 year plan....it worked for us....it will work for you! Best of luck!:thumbsup:

 

[Vanessas Pond]

Congratulations DHagood! Love your views!

Looks like we both will be here on TBN looking for a lot of the same answers as we recently just purchased raw land and are beginning the process of building our forever home. Looking forward to seeing pictures of your progress. I'll probably post some of ours on my profile.

 

[dhagood]

my wife and i were out and about this past weekend, and i took some more pictures. we keep noticing more features about the property, and add the attendent work to our ever growing list of things to do. we have a fenced in tree park where the vast majority of our trees reside. i'm not sure if these trees were planted this way or grew naturally but it sure makes the trees compete for the available water.

the first tree is roughly in the middle of the western fence line looking east; the second is at the south end of the western fence line looking northeast.

 

[ENG18LT]

Welcome to TBN and congrats on your retirement plan. My wife and I are attempting the same, to have a small, comfortable place, with no debt by the the time I retire in 12 years. Good luck and keep us updated!

Lee

 

[dave1949]

They don't look planted, and it looks like there are some outside the fence. Do some look like they are stressed for water? What critter makes the track/trail that runs along the outside of the fence?

 

[dhagood]

They don't look planted, and it looks like there are some outside the fence. Do some look like they are stressed for water? What critter makes the track/trail that runs along the outside of the fence?

some look like they are water stressed; eastern colorado is still in the grip of a two year drought. the track-making critter was most likely the cattle that grazed on the property before my wife and i bought it.

the fence was installed to keep pregnant cows from eating too many pine needles. the "tree farm" is a triangle shaped area about a half acre in area. something like 75% of this triangle is on our property.

 

[dhagood]

i don't really mean to dribble pictures into this thread, it just seems to be happening this way. anyway, i found some aerial shots that might prove interesting. the first is an overview of the general area with our lot roughly marked in. these pictures were taken on december 28th of last year.



and a couple of other views giving a slightly different perspective.

 

[mojoinco]

The photos (and the weather this past week) are helpful for siting a house. You can look for drainage, drifts, and the dominant wind patterns (likely mostly North/South). The wind can really blow, and blow, and... out there. Nice to have trees. I believe that is the fringe of the Black Forest (from Monument/Colorado Springs). When you are driving around with the drifting you can see the terracing that was done post-Dust Bowl era. Amazing how much work was done then.

There are coal seams at ground level in the area. Go to the Colorado Oil & Gas Commission interactive map. Lots of info here, but it takes some surfing time. You can find a lot here. The coal in eastern Colorado is too low grade to mine and sell. I know a rancher (ok, did -- now passed) that told a story of his uncle in the late 40's being killed while they watched from blowing up a seam on the family ranch (like any interesting event, all the kids were watching -- him being a kid then). Lots of interesting info & history in the area. Stop off in Simla some time and talk to the Dad at the meat locker. He has interesting stories he has learned (they are from Denmark I think). A lot of the land was settled by Russian/Slavs. Last to the party I imagine.

 

[dhagood]

during this cold and snowy spring, i started to level a pad for the tent we will use to spend some time on our property before we start constructing living quarters.

in addition, this weekend i will hopefully install a vehicle gate into the property. currently the only way in is by crawling underneath the fence, which is getting a bit old.

i believe this little flower is a columbine, which happens to be the colorado state flower.

 

[dhagood]

it's interesting how often doing work on a piece of property begins with somebody digging a hole.

i'm using the old school post hole digger (you rotate to dig) as i really, really hate the more common "plunging" style of post hole digger. i went down a little over 36 inches. here is the completed post:

other than a temporary tent pad, this is the first tangible thing we've done, and it's the first "permanent" improvement we've made. i'm finally starting the vehicle gate into the property.

in other news, it has been a very late spring in the eastern plains of colorado. we finally have some color:

and we have a yellow flower i don't recall ever seeing before. the one of the left is your common dandelion, and i have no idea what the flower on the right might be. any ideas?

 

[GLyford]

Is it a type of Queen Anne's Lace, maybe? Nice place.

 

[vtsnowedin]

The one on the left doesn't look like the thousands of dandelions I've mowed off this week. So it must be a "Uncommon Dandelion".

 

[dhagood]

i had to make a quick run up to montana to see what was going on with a house my wife and i have been trying to sell. we got a very low offer, and the writeup accompanying the offer was really disturbing. i hotfooted up there to find that while the house was rather more shabby than i had expected (we've been renting it for several years) it wasn't in terrible shape. somebody was just trying to see if a lowball offer would succeed. my wife and i decided to pull the house off the market and spruce it up a bit, but another offer came in that was pretty reasonable. so, the house is now under contract. not having that mortgage payment will help quite a bit.

so, being back in town, i went out to the property and started working on our vehicle gate. i got the gate holding post for one of the h braces set this afternoon, and was pretty happy with how i got it set. then i went to set the horizontal member, and...

i'm going to have to dig one of the posts out and reset it. i hate myself :ashamed:

 

[dhagood]

well, ok, i don't really hate myself. i don't know exactly what the issue is, but i really struggle with accurately measuring things. i cut can to measure relatively well, but i can't measure to cut for beans. anyway, i finally got around to digging on my errant post.

and got it moved to where it should have been in the first place

a long journey can be completed with a bunch of little steps. here is a very small step, but i'm that much ahead.

 

[vtsnowedin]

Wow seven bottles of water for one post hole? Must have been a hyot day.

 

[MacLawn]

I was think the same about all the water bottles! And that's in dry Colorado! Dh, I was in Colorado Springs one time, beautiful country there! Can you grow a garden there? Soil looks kind of rough. We stayed at that catholic camp near garden of the gods, and man, that place is alive with mule deer! Them rascals need killin!! And eaten.

I'm nearing retirement meself, actually, could retire anytime, but, my self employed work is so little and stress free nowadays, I'm going to hang on a couple more years to maximize SS, and pay off remodeling on our house, which has been paid off for many years now. Adding an office for wife, expanding living room and bedroom. Bedroom was so small you couldn't cuss a cat without getting hair in your mouth. Ok, enough of my mess. I love your place! Keep us posted on how it goes!