FIRE: Feed Illusions, Retire Early
There's a popular FIRE guru who went to the same university I did, graduated the same year, got rich mostly through a charmed life, and now harangues his blog readers if they don't live like hillbillies. I, too, worked my ass off and saved money...and at age 28, I didn't have $50 to attend my high school reunion. I did not live a charmed life.
So I'm thinking about starting an early retirement blog myself. I'll write a lot about how awful it is to have to get up and go to work every day*, but how wonderful it is to spend the day growing a garden, walking in the forest and playing with my dog. Then I'll spring the pitch: there are houses for sale in Indianapolis for as little as $10,000! These are legitimate, GOVERNMENT sales! You can own a house, retire early, and tell the The Man to take a hike! I'll have a friend who bought and rehabbed a few houses and rents them out tell readers that this is FOR REAL!**
I haven't decided how to handle information about back fines and mortgages attached to properties, demolition orders, title searches, mold, termite damage, sinking foundations, flood plains, crazy neighbors, squatters, or anything else that can go wrong with an abandoned house in Indianapolis.
I'll sell a guide for $19.95 and do seminars for $99.95. And I'll leave out the bad stuff--who wants to hear that? Marion County (i.e., Indianapolis) advises people to do their research and not to buy a pig in a poke. That should be enough.
Further, I can monetize my blog and maybe even put some (secretly paid) reviews in, like advertisers have offered to do for Robert over at Living Stingy.
If people ask about potential problems with houses that have sat abandoned for 10 years, I'll call them a snooty primadonnas who'd rather have marble countertops than financial freedom. (All naysayers will be called primadonnas.) For buyers, I'll take the same tack. Basement flooding? This is Indiana, everybody's basement floods. The house needs a new roof? Put your back into it, slacker. Tools stolen out of their pickup for the second time? What am I, the police? You've quit your job and you're living the dream! I will have an answer for EVERYTHING. And I will rake in money through bullshittery and assholery and retire early myself.***
Kidding aside, I'm not going become a BS purveyor. Yes, you can buy and rehab an abandoned house in Indianapolis--but I'd be dishonest if I omitted the risks involved in doing so. And yes, some people retire very early in life--they hit the jackpot and managed to hang on to it. Getting rich on $200,000 per year is about as remarkable as digging a ditch if you have a backhoe. A family of three living on $20,000 per year, on the other hand, to save money and retire early, as this guru claims? Here in low-cost Indiana, that's literally called extremely low income, qualifying such a family for Section 8 housing vouchers and SNAP (food stamps).
*Actually, I like my job, enjoy working and get bored if I'm home longer than two days.
So I'm thinking about starting an early retirement blog myself. I'll write a lot about how awful it is to have to get up and go to work every day*, but how wonderful it is to spend the day growing a garden, walking in the forest and playing with my dog. Then I'll spring the pitch: there are houses for sale in Indianapolis for as little as $10,000! These are legitimate, GOVERNMENT sales! You can own a house, retire early, and tell the The Man to take a hike! I'll have a friend who bought and rehabbed a few houses and rents them out tell readers that this is FOR REAL!**
I haven't decided how to handle information about back fines and mortgages attached to properties, demolition orders, title searches, mold, termite damage, sinking foundations, flood plains, crazy neighbors, squatters, or anything else that can go wrong with an abandoned house in Indianapolis.
I'll sell a guide for $19.95 and do seminars for $99.95. And I'll leave out the bad stuff--who wants to hear that? Marion County (i.e., Indianapolis) advises people to do their research and not to buy a pig in a poke. That should be enough.
Further, I can monetize my blog and maybe even put some (secretly paid) reviews in, like advertisers have offered to do for Robert over at Living Stingy.
If people ask about potential problems with houses that have sat abandoned for 10 years, I'll call them a snooty primadonnas who'd rather have marble countertops than financial freedom. (All naysayers will be called primadonnas.) For buyers, I'll take the same tack. Basement flooding? This is Indiana, everybody's basement floods. The house needs a new roof? Put your back into it, slacker. Tools stolen out of their pickup for the second time? What am I, the police? You've quit your job and you're living the dream! I will have an answer for EVERYTHING. And I will rake in money through bullshittery and assholery and retire early myself.***
* * * * *
Kidding aside, I'm not going become a BS purveyor. Yes, you can buy and rehab an abandoned house in Indianapolis--but I'd be dishonest if I omitted the risks involved in doing so. And yes, some people retire very early in life--they hit the jackpot and managed to hang on to it. Getting rich on $200,000 per year is about as remarkable as digging a ditch if you have a backhoe. A family of three living on $20,000 per year, on the other hand, to save money and retire early, as this guru claims? Here in low-cost Indiana, that's literally called extremely low income, qualifying such a family for Section 8 housing vouchers and SNAP (food stamps).
*Actually, I like my job, enjoy working and get bored if I'm home longer than two days.
**There are, in fact, houses sold very inexpensively at tax and surplus sales here. Buyer beware, though, the aforementioned pitfalls, among others, are very real.
***No, not really. The point of all this: "If you see fraud and don't shout fraud, you are a fraud." -Nassim Taleb
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