u can retire to the 3rd world in 3 years,

[metoo]

in the US in 5 years, starting with nothing, if you know what you should do. A guy can get his 18 wheeler training as part of a contract with Sneider or one of the other trucking companies. they just pay you 30k your first year, instead of 50k, and your 4k class made them 16k.

Your second year, if you go at it right, you;ll have 50k in your pocket, and that will finance your "sober-living" house, which will make you 30k a year after tax, forever. that's plenty with which to live in the Philippines, where they speak English, you know. if you want to spend 2 more years at it, you can have 3 such houses, and retire in the US, on your 90k a year.

You can also finance this house, or the used truck, with saving of your college loans, or with a trick that helps you be worth 1/4 million $ of credit, in about 2 years, and costs you about 3k, total. You need not have more than $500 to get started at that, and then $150 a month to pay on loans that are building your credit, and 1k or so a year to spend on the fees for the credit cards.

so, no, you do NOT have to spend 20-40 years of beating your head against corporate walls, kissing asses, learning to "read" body language, etc. You just need to learn to make a bit of money, and how to invest it properly, and where to go to live a NICE life on what would be pauper type income in the US.

 

[backseatjuan]

If you make $100 per day doing computer services in Russia, that's 3 or 4 calls, in a month you'll have 3k, 30k per year.  Factor in occasional server setups and large scale installations and web design.  You could make $60,000 per year, or 1,750,000 rubles per year. Invest half in a restaurant and you could earn $100,000 per year. That buys you 1200 square meters of land, another 3,000,000 rubles builds you a small mansion. So in 2 or 3 years of work and smart investment can have you setup nicely in a 1st world country. Russia is where the money is made now, with the right approach you could become an oligarch.

 

[ATX1001]

Your second year, if you go at it right, you;ll have 50k in your pocket, and that will finance your "sober-living" house, which will make you 30k a year after tax, forever. that's plenty with which to live in the Philippines, where they speak English, you know. if you want to spend 2 more years at it, you can have 3 such houses, and retire in the US, on your 90k a year.

Wait, I can invest $50k and get a $30k annual return AFTER tax?? That's a crazy ROI. Where do I sign?

 

[Marvin Gaye]

Might do that, I've heard it's pretty easy to get citizenship in Panama and start a business

 

[OzyBoy]

Wait, I can invest $50k and get a $30k annual return AFTER tax?? That's a crazy ROI. Where do I sign?

In a ponzi scheme, a.k.a the property market.

 

[metoo]

u have to find the right place. Personal knowledge of a town helps, but knowing whom to ask and where/how to find them can substitute for personal info pretty well. Having the sort of mulitple listings for property that real estate agents and banks have is a huge help, too. you have to know the demographics of the area, too, lots of homeless? More of them than can be handled by the current number of sober-living houses? You have to put in a lot of work in the refurbishing of the house, and the running of it. you have to evict people, have lots of insurance, etc. It's not a cake walk, but it's MANY times safer than investing in stocks, where you have NO influence at ALL over what happens to that stock. If you buy that big old house at a righteous price and handle the refurbishing well, have located it in the right town and place in that town, advertise it well and run it well, it WILL make you big money, quite safely indeed.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Small farming is making a comeback, fueled by the "buy local" hippies and the new and cheap plastics for covering greenhouses. The high tunnel I'm going to build this winter will cost $1,000 to build and average $100/year to maintain. It will then make about $2,000 each year during its four-month season. That's not exactly mega-bucks yet, but the ratios are tremendous. The new high tunnel will be greenhouse number two for me, and if I can keep doubling everything each year, then one of these days I am going to get past minimum wage for all of the hours I put into it. Plus, the more the world goes to hell, the smarter it becomes to produce your own food.

 

[metoo]

well, at least you are thinking along the right lines, but if shtf, people will take your food, and kill you if they have to. any surplus monies should go into combat gear and training, shtf gear and stored food, then gold coins, mostly the 1/10th oz US Eagles. cut in half with a knife, they are still accpetable. don't buy a loaf of bread with one, instead by a bushel of grain and make a month's worth of porridge. all you have to do is crack the grain,it need not be flour, and then boil it a while, then simmer, add anything tasty that you have, like spices,meat, veggiies, tubers, inner bark of pine, etc.