Pulling the rip cord. (Life Downsizing)

I always wondered what you did for a living. 

Choosing happiness will always have my support!

Pull the ripcord seems to be a popular terms. not sure where I heard it. Guessing Money Mustache at some point.  Not pulling out of work completely. I am a Fat Fire sort of guy. Another 7 years at least but definitely pulling back hard. 45-47 is my out the door age right now. Maybe do some startup work again but only if I want too.

So far so good. House is being cleaned tomorrow professionally, then up on the MLS then couple days for offers based on the neighborhood and hopefully we are off to the races. Couple solid bits already off the books from investors but until the check clears its not a deal.

I have been on Redfin for hours pricing in the neighborhoods I want seem to be reasonably stable so getting in is not a issue. Couple another 2 miles out have 4 car garages but larger yards to take care of which I am trying to avoid. 1500sqf and two car garage with a driveway and single story is not as bad up north as I thought.

Will keep the group informed. Wife is a little nuts due to stress over it all but she sees the light at the end of the tunnel and is pretty happy about going through the process.

In reply to wearymicrobe :

Definitely keep us in the loop so we can live vicariously in your new chapter!

Well we found a house. Its a small little thing ~1700sqf but it has a courtyard and a big enough garage and its just outside of the country club in the area. Built in 2010 as part of a custom group of homes. It should not exist, the average SQF in that area is 6500. Its comical to see the size of the houses around it. Below is one of the houses about 1 mile away.

It has no real front yard or backyard to maintain, ~2000sqf courtyard off the side of the house. Parking out front, minimal HOA fees. CCR's are very light neighbor has Harley, guy across the street has a rallycross WRX parted out front and properly prepped.

This is the one down the street, all 7200sqf of it at least that is what I was told. Some of them are surprisingly cheap for the money but with monster HOA/Mello Roo. Average in this neighborhood is ~3400$ a month give or take without taxes. Ours is 340$ a month. 

So offer goes out tomorrow. Its about 50% of the cost of the one that we are selling. Going to hold a very very small mortgage to keep something on the credit and it will leave us with a big pile of cash as well to buy an investment property out of state next year which will generate some more income. Plan is to take the savings and invest them in rentals over the next 5-7 years if the market retracts and just ride it out. 

Our place has had good traction and I dropped the price 100K or so to make sure it moves ASAP, open house tomorrow. I have decided to sell a large crank of the cars and just keep the Viper and the Thunderbird. I will have the Viper detuned and softened up a bit for a more daily roll.

I'm a bit jealous. Between the nuclear family, having my parents live here and my mechanical addiction, I'm a long way from getting there. Enjoy!! Hopefully I'll get there sooner rather than later

markwemple said:

I'm a bit jealous. Between the nuclear family, having my parents live here and my mechanical addiction, I'm a long way from getting there. Enjoy!! Hopefully I'll get there sooner rather than later

Yeah I have no real responsibilities which makes things a bit easier. Though I must admit I may look back later in life and regret not having kids. I have the extended family though and they have them and its fun being the crazy uncle. Also the place we found has access to ~7 pools and something like 21 parks as part of the HOA/Mella Roo. Which means we can watch the kids and let them have a night out with minimal issues. 15 miles of running trails as well and mountain biking paths locally and a gym that is shared. I am going to be pretty happy tomorrow if we get an acceptance on the offer. There are some noise restrictions but nothing I cannot manage. IE no grinding or making noise after 9:00pm.

Only real issue right now is moving my tools and getting a 220v line installed in the garage. I just built my lifts and I have no desire to move them and the mill and all my hand and power tools. Packing the house is easy tools less so.

You sir, are starting the life I want to start in about 8 years (We started with a "10-year-plan" 2 years ago).  Please live it up to the fullest, and tell me all about how awesome it is.
 

but most of all:  Congratulations

wearymicrobe said:

Only real issue right now is moving my tools and getting a 220v line installed in the garage. I just built my lifts and I have no desire to move them and the mill and all my hand and power tools. Packing the house is easy tools less so.

Sounds a lot like "stress".  Pay someone else to worry about it 

New place sounds awesome! Hopefully it works out.

It would be interesting to talk to you sometime about Oncology drugs. I'm on the other end of the pipeline, facilitating phase I-III oncology clinical trials at a community hospital. I probably have some hands-on experience with the drugs you helped make a reality. 

Congrats on the decision. I think you'll be far happier in the end, and probably more productive to boot. 

Hungary Bill said:

wearymicrobe said:

Only real issue right now is moving my tools and getting a 220v line installed in the garage. I just built my lifts and I have no desire to move them and the mill and all my hand and power tools. Packing the house is easy tools less so.

Sounds a lot like "stress".  Pay someone else to worry about it 

Oh I am. 

Our offer got rejected by the seller today as they had a higher one. Current house is not under contract as well as they got cold feet. Got to love moving. STill happy face is on as there is a light at the end of the tunnel if I just keep working towards it. 

STI got sold last night to a dealership up north who payed full price and already has a buyer. Prowler is going to my father. Viper has a buyer lined up. Truck is going up on Craiglist tonight but my neighbor who is a gardener may take it. Cadillac still has not sold but it will.

Another open house today, ~3 couples coming back a second time before they present their offers. So down to just the Thunderbird and the Beetle. Going to have to figure out how I am going to get to work but I may just use the Viper/Cadillac until they come through with the purchase on the Viper.

Found another house to put an offer on, has space for the lifts and space to build something. Cheaper then the other and no Mello roo or HOA. But needs about 40-50K to make it perfect.

Then car shopping for something that can do all the things that my collection could do but can also be daily driver. Leaning toward a 599 or a 570GT or maybe a 911 GTS. All used of course though I may just pull the pin on this sort of stuff and pickup a used Prius and start building the 550 kit and keep the Tbird and the 550 on the lifts.

Glad to hear that things are progressing, and kudos to you for taking this step!

Which 550 kit?

OHSCrifle said:

Which 550 kit?

I have a thunder ranch unbuilt kit that I know the location of that was sold through Rock a while back. 7K for the body/frame and gauges and electrical. Been keeping an eye on it for a while. I offered 6K a while back and he still rejected. I know its just sitting in his garage so I can get it anytime as he is not advertising.

Figured I owed an update. 

House has been and out of escrow and it was dropped again last night. We removed it from the market. City is doing huge work right across the way and has rezoned another area near us and prices started moving up we have been told that average appreciation once they are done should be around 9% fo the next 18-24 months then settle off. So we are going to sit on it till then. 

Also the house we wanted dropped out when they could not find anything and the one after that dropped as well same thing. 

So 

Sold Truck/Prowler/STI and the Cadillac has a deposit but has not been picked up. Between the sale of the cars I was able to pay the Viper completely off and fund a few things in the background.  Prowler goes out next week still using it as a daily till then, going to family member. . 

Basically I cut 2300$ a month out of my budget by selling cars and eliminating STI lease, paying off a few loans I had taken from myself and dumped the monster payment (~800$ a month) I have on the Viper. Excess cash will go to paying down the house a bit and we will refi in ~3 months. That will save another 400-600$ a month. Depending on what I put down and rates. 

So as of right now we only have a mortgage.  I have ~9k in cash left over each month after the house/401K/taxes and the funding of the investments at a slightly higher level. We have nothing but those things. I am getting a housekeeper coming by once a week and I scheduled two week long vacations for this year with some of the extra sales proceeds. Still may trade the Viper for a Merci in the next couple weeks if we can get a deal done but the last one I looked at failed inspection (leaks/coil packs/ clutch) and we could not come to a good price if I did the repairs on my side. 

In reply to wearymicrobe :

While it sucks the house deals fell through, it sounds like it may be working out for the better long-term. 

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to wearymicrobe :

While it sucks the house deals fell through, it sounds like it may be working out for the better long-term. 

Its hard to give up a cheap 4.1% interent leveraged position that is paying so well. Plus moving is a headache. If the dream house was still available I would have pushed. Reducing the amount of cars I have is very freeing. I was putting a lot of work into maintaining them and just making sure they were all kept up to date on registration oil changes and the like. 

Real question now is what to get for a DD, sell the Viper like I planned nad go nuts on a daily. Pick something in the middle and pay cash hellcat/911. Or go seriously cheap and cheerful like a used Abarth or FIST and get something like the Merci.

Gut says get something like a ILX/Civic with leather and just be a normal person and keep the Viper and build someting I want but I am in a weird position where getting a serious grail car is a possibility and I afraid it won;t come around again. Maybe the market will crash and I go out and pick stuff up cheap though in the next year.

In reply to wearymicrobe :

The market will crash, so keep enough liquid assets to take advantage of it. For a DD is definitely suggest something you can pay cash for, and used so you don’t have to stress over keeping it pristine. It’s up to you whether you go for something comfy, or more entertaining & engaging. Or maybe find one that does a bit of both?

I have been doing the SAME THING.

Ex wife (divorced in 2013) was a packrat.  She loved stuff and things.  When I moved out I took all of my stuff and moved in with mom and dad and put the rest of my junk in storage.

I now bought a house (small house, cheap price, big down payment means my mortgage with escrow is $352/mo).  I'm gearing up to pick a few nice days in a row in August and empty out the garage, empty the storage unit, and have a big yard sale with all the stuff I don't need anymore.  Some of it I haven't even seen for 5 years.

Then phase 2 is to sell the 96 Impala SS, sell the 02 F150, downsize the boat, buy a cheap reliable compact pickup or full size van, apply the rest of the money to fixing up the LeMans, quitting the job, and taking up something like a monetized youtube channel documenting my journeys.  There are also airlines and travel agencies who will send you on vacations and pay you for a blog or vlog of your trip.  I have multiple other talents like bartending and a CDL, so if I need extra money I can always pick up a job.

I'm so tired of living the normal way.  I'm tired of "sorry I can't make your [insert very important event] because I have an [insert 80-hour-a-week task] at the theater"

For my entire life I lived simply.  Then the ex wife happened and she wanted the 1.2 houses, the 2.3 cars, and the 37.6 pets.  I'm now in a pretty sweet $350/mo situation where I can just go.  I could put the house on AirBNB and my neighbor's son has already said he will handle that while I'm gone for a little cut.

The only fly in the works is that they heard I might be quitting and basically asked me to write my own demands.  So I did.  Then they offered to try and find an even larger raise.  That makes it a little harder to leave.

So, I'm all for it.  I never liked the concept of working so you can afford the clothes you wear to work, the car you drive to work, and the house you aren't in because you're at work.  I started really thinking about that concept decades ago when I read a book about living off-grid with solar, wind, or hydro power.  The very first thing it suggested is that you can't think of it as attempting to generate enough solar or wind power to support your habits, the whole point is to reduce your consumption to where solar or wind will be enough.  That is so true for me in life as well.  I want to do real work that helps the world, but I don't want to climb a career ladder to make more money to support my bigger habits.  I have found great joy in cutting the fat so I don't need to slave away at work to afford it.

Curtis your better at putting it into words then me. That is for sure.

Long term plan is to still take a serious step back say at 45/47 years old. Right now not that the work is hard but its rewarding. Working on things that will save peoples lives is very rare opportunity. Just need to balance that with having a life of my own.

All things being equal I must admit I may have been stuck up my own ass on this one. I have been speaking with friends who have kids and real responsibilities and I look like a Waspy/Nixon era yuppie to them. guess I should keep that in mind.

In reply to Curtis :

I feel some similarities with your situation. My wife is more materialistic than I care for. Nothing can be replaced with anything “lesser”. Things have been rocky for a while and I know if I left I would only take my clothes, cameras, and laptop. The cat situation would likely result in a custody battle.