no time to plan

NO TIME TO PLAN


I know that many of you will keep reading my drivel as comedy. Some will agree with what I say. And a small minority will both agree with and plan on emulating my wonderful and carefree existence amidst the sagebrush. Okay, perhaps it isn’t that exciting. There are a few wrinkles such as frigid cold, bland diets, mean spirited wives and neighbors. But compared to an indentured servitude of corporate serfdom, a lifetime of so much debt that there is never a respite from juggling the budget every payday, running faster and faster just to keep from going backwards on your cute little gerbil wheel, and suffering an early death from stress and expensive but poor nutrient diet, living in a cold tin box huddled around a feeble LED light bulb is indeed the epitome of luxury and bliss. You know, I know and most certainly Ross Perot knows that what I’m saying is the gospel truth. And, yet…Although…Except… You just can’t get yourself to take that final step. You can’t find where your wife hid your testicles, and you know she won’t approve an existence outside of easy access shoe shopping, on demand hair driers and finding a fool to look after your overweight, asthmatic, X-Box playing offspring. You are trapped in one form or another. Yes, ending up in a zombie stewpot after your fifth AR magazine went dry is going to really suck. But if you leave the unsupportive, vindictive, greedy whore of a leech she will rake you over the coals and you will end up sending ninety percent of your paycheck to her so she can keep driving her BMW, screaming from one date to another as she tries to find a suitable wallet she can drain, even if she rarely drains the set of testicles hanging due south of the money receptacle. There is a 20% chance you will die before theapocalypse, which are much better odds than 110% that you won’t survive a financial anal reaming if you leave the bitch.

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And so we now come to a time shortly in the near future when the first paycheck to dry up is joined by the second in the household. Unemployment barely covers more than half the bills, and the wife refuses to cut spending. Even as she has castrated you, demanded full control of the budget and bank account, she still demeans you and hectors you, accusing you of being less of a man since you have failed to provide for your family. Along with Obammy balancing the budget by cutting the yearly increases in spending by one percent, the Tea Party insisting we shall never run out of oil if we just drill more empty holes, your wife lives in a Alice In Wonderland reality where none of her bad decisions have consequences and jobs need merely be wished for ( evidently your sin is not wishing harder ). After refusing to look into the abyss until your credit cards have been maxed out, she finally relents. It is time to move out to a trailer and junk land ( one assumes in this scenario that the bank has yet to get you out of the home and you act first before everyone else and all the junk land disappears- there is plenty of it out there, but you need one that lacks prohibitive zoning and hideous taxes- these are a lot rarer ). You have almost no assets and time is of the essence. You never planed ahead, so what do you do now?

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Myself, and for that matter most writers talking about dropping out of the rat race, had plenty of time to make the transaction. We looked carefully, made manageable mistakes, and finally got it right and have successfully set up our debt free living arrangement. You don’t have that option. The last few unemployment checks are going to fill the gas tank, put a down on the land and get some kind of shelter. You need to act in weeks, a month or two at most, but certainly not over a matter of years. It is panic time, but let’s try to minimize your mistakes. First off, you can’t be picky about the land. It won’t grow a garden, it has no running water, and certainly little vegetation outside junk plants. You need four things. A road to it ( even legal access is fine, if the road is grown over- you’ll be biking more than likely, which is much easier to do without a road ). A source of surface water within reasonable distance. Zoning for a trailer, tent or other unconventional structure. And a town within biking distance. Anything else is gravy, and don’t expect it. I ended up in Elko for the simple fact that few other counties in Nevada are as relaxed about zoning outside the city limits. And I could get to town. I still needed a job to survive. You minions are in all honesty paragons of generosity ( as long as I keep performing like the brilliant circus performer with impeccable hair I am ), but even so since your numbers will never be vast I don’t think I can use my writing income to survive on, needing outside income ( I can’t say I couldn’t do it if needed, just that it would be a mean and stringy existence ). This was why I didn’t pick west Texas ( besides wanting to stay close to my folks ). Most towns were 90% Mexican. Don’t get me wrong, I admire the culture and the old fashion attitude of their wives ( remember, half my wives were Latinos ). But I don’t think I could get hired as the towns minority.

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Even with these few restrictions, finding suitable cheap land will be a challenge. But not as challenging as finding a travel trailer. In short, almost every seller thinks trailers don’t depreciate. They will try to get you to subsidize their mistake of buying new. Don’t buy an overpriced unit out of panic. Here is my story, which hopefully you will learn from. When I moved from Florida to Carson City, Nevada, I was at the end of options. It had taken a good part of a week to get across country ( I can’t safely drive in the dark, and older age helps cramp up my muscles after sitting too long ). And then we spent an unproductive week in northwest Arizona ( that was our original destination which luckily didn’t pan out due to lack of employment ). I was down to mostly just credit cards ( I sold my 45’s for moving cash ). When we pulled into Carson, I didn’t have the luxury of time. I sold the van for dimes on the dollar for lot rent and got credit card cash advances to buy a travel trailer from a dealer. WOW! What a rip off. Worst trailer I had ever owned. I’ve bought better trailers that had been sitting idle for a decade. The bitch leaked like a sieve ( and couldn‘t be patched up regardless of my efforts ). And I really overpaid for it. I immediately started looking for another one. Now, keep in mind this is Carson City, original home of every rotten, whore hound, bitch boy, anal spelunking Yuppie Scum Of The Universe from California. There are few if any trailers to be had used and cheap. They clutter up the refined view of our social betters, you see. Can’t have THAT kind living anywhere near us. They may tend to our every whim, but goodness gracious we can’t have them domiciled nearby. Servant quarters in the same mansion is SOOO 19th century my dear fellow. May all their fat worthless sour hides burn in the hottest depths of Hades for all of eternity. I’ll even go out on a limb here and declare my fondest wishes for Apocalypse, even if it kills me, just for the chance to kill off as many of those pretentious pukes as possible before I go. Not that I’m bitter.

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Yet within three months I had found a much larger trailer for one quarter the price. Yes, it was in sorry and sad shape. It took over twenty tubes of caulking and several cans of expanding foam to seal it all up. No appliance worked other than electric lines. The propane lines were worthless, the holding tank was cracked and the toilet needed to be replaced. My cost was $30 in sealants and $50 for a new conventional toilet. Being in a park, we just went all electric using thrift store appliances. The old owners had bought family the trailer ( who then ditched it ) and were facing the deadline of the lot rent coming due. Which is the whole point. Avoid living in town, and you can avoid buying too much trailer. You can wait for a bargain. Even if you live in a tent or your car, just wait until you find a reasonably priced unit. If you bought your land on payments ( a reasonable amount like two or three years, not ten or fifteen ), and you couldn’t find a job, nor a trailer ( we are of course assuming a trailer is desirable- you could build a cabin after you secure a job ), you could just walk away from that land, out only a few hundred bucks. So you have some flexibility. I never really cared where I moved to, nor what my four walls looked like. I just wanted out of the rat race, away from bankers and landlords. Which is why I don’t care that I’m in a trailer, or that this land only grows sagebrush. It is MINE! Just do it smart, even if you are in a hurry. Live a few month camping, it will save you thousands once you find a bargain shelter ( you might even save enough to pay off the land with the difference ). And stop being so damn picky about the land. You waited too long for a farming homestead. Be happy you got a debt free lot of junk land.

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You can do this, even waiting for the last minute. Buy the land you can afford, not the land you WANT. And don’t buy a trailer until you find a bargain. Now you can live on one income, minimum wage.

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