What to do

[Trenchcoat]

I have been healthy, but I started a new gig and have been ridiculously busy lately.

What have you moved into Bill?

I'm thinking of a change of industry myself. Soon my house will be finished, honestly this time

My present line of work I have been in a long time now, about 15 years. As gone through before on here it is low paid but stable. Many professional jobs in the UK are not so stable and I see no joy in being in and out of work on a potentially frequent basis. So finding another Employer doesn't interest me.

So instead I have decided to stick with my present Employment but try out a series of business ideas alongside. Since I will no longer have the house conversion to do then that will free up plenty of time. I'm aware that a lot of business ideas may flop even ones that seem good at the outset possibly even my preferred ideas. So I'm going to float them all out and see if any have any go with keeping cost as low as possible for each one. Hopefully I won't lose too much money on testing them out before I get to one that has some go in it.

Once I get to one that does have enough go in it I'm going to ditch the job and be in a better situation, hopefully

[2tallbill]

What have you moved into Bill?

I am in sales, same industry as before.

[Trenchcoat]

I am in sales, same industry as before.

Ah, I get you, now make sure you have on that paper hat Beel, I want no added hairs in my burger

[2tallbill]

Ah, I get you, now make sure you have on that paper hat Beel, I want no added hairs in my burger

Just as well, burgers will make you fat. 

[2tallbill]

Soon my house will be finished, honestly this time

“Procrastinate now, don't put it off.”
― Ellen DeGeneres

[2tallbill]

I'm willing to give it a go Bill, come Spring/Summer the house will be done

I was giving Trench grief 2 years ago, convinced he would never finish.

Trench, when did you actually start your remuddeling project? 2020?

[ML]

We have been renovating a second house for a year now.
Have two bedrooms done and kitchen almost done.
Two more bedrooms, 3 baths, a ton of major yardwork (not just yearly maintenance), new sidewalks and driveway . . . . and on and on and on to go!!!
Probably 2-3 more years.
We have equivalent of around $30,000 of our own labor invested so far.
Kitchen cabinets alone were to cost $23,000 if delivered assembled and placed on wall.
We bought same cabinets for $7,600 and assembled and put up ourselves.

[Bee Farmer]

I can remember people telling me that if you remodel a kitchen, that increased the home value $7,000.  (Of course, they were talking about a couple thousand dollar kitchen makeover, when flipping $30k-$50k houses.)

[krimster2]

pre-war, I could EASILY flip a $50,000 property for $150,000 in Ukraine
and do it as many times as I wanted to
buy a couple of adjacent dacha plots and then build on that, $50,000 move-in ready cost
less than a 1 yr construction project

I could EASILY make $100k/yr AND UP flipping properties like this in Ukraine, and work just a couple of hours per week, was my own contractor, wife's relatives did all the labour
TAX FREE PROFIT
and work on other "gigs" as well
total control over how much money you make and your time

Example Pics
the 18 yr old daughter of my neighbor used to skinny dip in my pool and drink marguaritas with me (blond teen Ukrainian village girl with "big naturals")
but ONLY after she saw my wife and daughters leave to go shopping

you have a swimming pool in Ukraine, and somehow there will ALWAYS be naked wimmin swimmin in it...
WEIRD!!!

[2tallbill]

I could EASILY make $100k/yr AND UP

Krim,

You are a creative, idea-machine, who knows the ground, has excellent interpersonal skills, knows some
Russian, you have a wife who knows how things work there. Most men would have difficulty navigating the
perils, hazards, tricks and snares along the way.

Trench spent years doing a relatively simple remodel. He absolutely should not try to flip houses in the FSU.
That is like giving a teenage kid a few boxing lessons, then setting up a little grudge match with a 22 year
old Mike Tyson.

[krimster2]

Trench...
It ain't "society's fault" me 'bruv....
you chose to live the path of least resistance
first BIG MISTAKE: not leaving your quaint little village and at least move to Manchester
but of course the STERLING's all in London....

SECOND big mistake...
not joining "her Majesty's Armed Forces"
because of that, you are undisciplined and weak
Russians/Ukrainians will EAT someone like you alive
you also don't get the social network benefits derived from the military for jobs, education, etc


Beel has shown ya 'bruv how to make $$$ without havin a medical/science/engineering degree
SALES!!!
before I quit the corporate world to work for my self
this TRUTH used to really PISS ME OFF!!!!!

I have a graduate degree in engineering
and the people in sales with high school diplomas would outearn me, WHY?

cuz in the corporate world
Engineering is a "COST Center"
and sales is an "INCOME Center"
and the INCOME Center got the $$$

by the time you are 30 years old, you shoulda had this all "sussed out"
and it wouldn't of been too late to do 'somethin about it....

but here you are....
and you STILL don't HAVE A PLAN....

look Trench...
work on a plan that you think would have a high chance of success
and borrow the money through a home equity loan
example: a furniture making/repair/refinish business

OK...???
next question, YES, YOU in the back...

[Trenchcoat]

Trench...
It ain't "society's fault" me 'bruv....
you chose to live the path of least resistance
first BIG MISTAKE: not leaving your quaint little village and at least move to Manchester
but of course the STERLING's all in London....

SECOND big mistake...
not joining "her Majesty's Armed Forces"
because of that, you are undisciplined and weak
Russians/Ukrainians will EAT someone like you alive
you also don't get the social network benefits derived from the military for jobs, education, etc


Beel has shown ya 'bruv how to make $$$ without havin a medical/science/engineering degree
SALES!!!
before I quit the corporate world to work for my self
this TRUTH used to really PISS ME OFF!!!!!

I have a graduate degree in engineering
and the people in sales with high school diplomas would outearn me, WHY?

cuz in the corporate world
Engineering is a "COST Center"
and sales is an "INCOME Center"
and the INCOME Center got the $$$

by the time you are 30 years old, you shoulda had this all "sussed out"
and it wouldn't of been too late to do 'somethin about it....

but here you are....
and you STILL don't HAVE A PLAN....

look Trench...
work on a plan that you think would have a high chance of success
and borrow the money through a home equity loan
example: a furniture making/repair/refinish business

OK...???
next question, YES, YOU in the back...

I would never join the British Army on account of having to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown, i.e the Monarchy. As an Anti-Monarchist Republican I would never do that it would revile me. Civil Service, etc in the UK is different as no oath is taken there, as it's Government, just the official secrets act. The British Army is really controlled by the Government also not the Monarchy but the ridiculous oath of Allegiance to the Crown/Monarchy remain. I refuse that not joining the Army has made me weak, Army guys think there tough but it doesn't mean those that don't join Armies are weaker than they are.

Sales sounds like a magic bullet and for some it may be, but let's face it those that do best in Sales are probably selling expensive gear, big systems, etc to Corporate clients, big companies with deep pockets. They are likely to be the very best Sales guys that geg those roles or people with good connections. They aren't going to let anyone walk straight into those roles. Bill was selling Windows last we heard, I don't know if he has moved up the Sales career ladder now or down (hopefully not McDonald's ) but let's take his Window Sales role as an example. Now I don't know how his job worked but in the UK, door to door Window salesmen can probably be expected to get the door slammed in their face a hell of lot or doors not even opened before you get someone willing to listen to you, possibly make a sale.

So if you even out the times when sales are not made (majority of the time) with times when sales are made (minority of the time) then the wage made per hour on average probably isn't all that wonderful. If you are good at it, get good at it then some decent money may come in but after tax, etc it's probably still not all that wonderful money. Get into the real good time corporate jobs and money probably is sky high but again it's an extreme few that get that stuff, almost probably like Hollywood film stars or guys that are exceptional at Maths

[krimster2]

I can see why YOU FAIL Trench....
why CAN'T YOU SEE IT?

[Trenchcoat]

Krim,

You are a creative, idea-machine, who knows the ground, has excellent interpersonal skills, knows some
Russian, you have a wife who knows how things work there. Most men would have difficulty navigating the
perils, hazards, tricks and snares along the way.

Trench spent years doing a relatively simple remodel. He absolutely should not try to flip houses in the FSU.
That is like giving a teenage kid a few boxing lessons, then setting up a little grudge match with a 22 year
old Mike Tyson.

You are right Bill, Krim has a lot of stuff going for him. Aside from his personal abilities and his wife, Krim has a lot of money. It's easy to get stuff built and renovated fast if you have a lot of money and can employ teams of others to do the work if you. Here in Wales I would have not employed a team of guys to renovate the house, it would cost a fortune, sure the house would uplift in value a bit but what I have done here would outstrip that uplift in value likely by a long way if I had got people in to do it.

House builders in the UK don't make a lot of money these days because of the cost of all the material build up needed these days due to building regs and performance of the house. Some people have made good money over the years flipping houses in the UK, I believe JamesUK when he used to visit this board was one of them, his UK wife divorced him and took a nice large chunk of that wealth he made as I recall. Anyhow a lot of that was made as a result of constantly riding property prices in the UK over the last 20 years or so, some of it from the dork itself, but flipping property is different to renovation/conversion/extension for rental.

What I have done has been a long process, possibly not the most lucrative choice but I have been restricted on where I can buy and what I can put in. Once the ball is rolling and I have built up some wealth behind me I can get into more lucrative stuff going forward. Time and Money are two big issues in the Construction industry. Here materials cost a lot and many are needed plus the lord materials the more time it takes to instal them. Here we can't put up a studwork wall and not care if we can hear the person the other side and is freezing because there is no insulation in it, etc. Even in the US as ML illustrates it tends to take a long time, many, many hours. He likely has a way bigger house but in this house although small I've had to knock down walls, build new walls, etc to get more out of the house. A house where you don't have to reconfigure it as it's so large that you don't need to get more room out of it is easier. So adjusting for work being done, labour hours, time available, whether one, two or more people are at the job is all very relevant.

There are no doubt probably better and easier ways to make money than in property. Sure the right place, resources to throw at it as Krim has demonstrated and you can do well at it, but if you got into the right business buying and selling stuff you could potentially make way, way more money easier or you could stuff up and buy a load of stuff and not be able to sell it easy. It's all about taking opportunities and trying to take as good an opportunity as you think it might be and trying to make the best out of it. Some will work out better than others and sometimes it's not always easy to tell but we all hope not to drop ourselves in it with a real bad one.

[Trenchcoat]

I can see why YOU FAIL Trench....
why CAN'T YOU SEE IT?

You maybe think I'm finding excuses to take the easy way out.

I ask you this? Why did you not go for a top job in Sales the moment you saw you could get more money in it?

You could have gone for one of those top corporate sales jobs where you go around convincing companies to take on your company's big IT system or whatever and make bigger money than you were in software engineering as yiu put it.

My guess is that in spite of whatever skills you have, interpersonal, etc you lacked the top level Sales skills that come as natural to but to a handful of
people, your Autism etc possibly not helping to there unlike in IT. So for me by the same token I lack the top level Maths/IT ability like most people. I also lack the top level natural Sales skills. I've never been much of a Sales type of person, in a very specific low end situation I may do ok in it.

For a person to make top money in a job it usually takes a very top level natural ability and/or possible top level contacts.

The thing is I think you are thinking that if a guy works very hard as you have no doubt done then that guy will come good along the way at some point. What you are forgetting is that you'd hard work was coupled with an unusually high natural ability in Maths/IT. A guy that does not have a natural ability in something with a high pay reward can work as hard as he likes but the pay will still remain low, lowish, his progression will be stunted.

A lot of what you subsequently done was based off the money you made in IT. If someone has a lot of money behind them then it's easier to make more money. As you have shown you get people in to do the hard work and you just need to give a bit of thought as to what you invest in. A guy without that money needs to first get some of that money to get access to the better investment opportunities. It's part of the reason guys used to be paid more than women as it counted a while lot more for them as it's what the women wanted.

[krimster2]

"You maybe think I'm finding excuses to take the easy way out."

YES, you always do...

"I ask you this? Why did you not go for a top job in Sales the moment you saw you could get more money in it?"

because I found an EVEN BETTER WAY - which was to leave the corporate labour model completely and start my own businesses using the knowedge and skills I acquired from working within the corporate labour system
in other words, I was once an economic prisoner like you, but "I busted my way outta there"

I'm a "Wize Guy" touches finger to nose

my people have been thumbing their nose  to the Czar for centuries
"back in the day" the Russian aristocracy owned EVERYTHING in Russia
the people were serfs and dirt poor
the aristocracy didn't wanna tax itself, so it figured a way to tax the poor
it did this by creating an alchohol tax, and giving exclusive licenses to "connected" aristocrats to produce alchohol

my ancestors excelled at stealth bootlegging, and each generation got better and better at it
they invested in farms and bakeries they passed along to their offspring

my family started the Hellman's Mayonnaise Co (they sold it a long time ago and now the Chinese own it!)
originally poultry for Mayonnaise makin was the cover to acquire grain for mash
nobody in my family was ever caught

during prohibition, they made millions $$$ in CASH, DURING THE FREAKIN DEPRESSION!!!!
plus their farming and Mayonnaise biz

now in the USA - the money is in the Hemp-->CBD--D8-->HHC production
and it's EVEN LEGAL

a successful Hemp farm, even a small 20 acre one, is like having a legal printing press of hundred dollar bills running in the back room

find a NEED
and a way to FULLFILL IT
and $$$

[Trenchcoat]

"You maybe think I'm finding excuses to take the easy way out."

YES, you always do...

"I ask you this? Why did you not go for a top job in Sales the moment you saw you could get more money in it?"

because I found an EVEN BETTER WAY - which was to leave the corporate labour model completely and start my own businesses using the knowedge and skills I acquired from working within the corporate labour system
in other words, I was once an economic prisoner like you, but "I busted my way outta there"

I'm a "Wize Guy" touches finger to nose

That's a cop out. If you didn't have the natural high level Maths/IT skills or Sales skills then that route wouldn't have been opened to you since you wouldn't have the money. It's a natural progression to give the Employer the boot the moment you get well off enough to start your own business knowing that you have do much money it is almost certain to be successful and even if it tanks it you have the money to try other businesses and very worst case scenario you have to go back an work for an Employer again for a bit.

If you don't have vast amounts of money behind you then the business options are a lot more limited and full off other guys competing against you doing the same. What to do? Pick a trade, buy a burger van, run a market stall, make something, etc - these are all working class businesses that are essentially going nowhere. At best it might bring in done decent enough money but essentially extremely few will end up anything big. They are the sort of opportunities open to the everyday man doing the standard job working for an Employer. The situation is, do you stay with the Employer where you get steady income, holidays, etc or do you go self employed where often you have to work to get the work in before you actually do the work then probably get about the same sort of money that you would working for an Employer. Two things on that, one it can be ten times as hard getting the work in, in the first place, the other is that if you don't then you are with out money or much of it. So for most people it's not a possibility getting into the level of business you got into. I'm not too bad off compared to some in the UK and even I have to watch what I get myself into, there's so much competition out there that few think that they aren't the only ones thinking of the same thing at the same time.

We British own Hellmann's now Unilever bought the business in 2000.

[krimster2]

uhmmm hmmmm...life is so AWFULLY UNFAIR...

if opportunity NOT come to you
YOU must come to opportunity

didja ever try doin that?
the guys who never leave their hometown are ALWAYS the guys who fare the worst
you're a classic example of this Trench

you settled for a lesser life
so that you don't have to do hard things
I wonder if there exists a word in the English language to describe someone of that nature...
any suggestions ENGLISHman?

[Davo]

I hope you’re taking on board what krim and bill are saying Trench?…. Would you like to know the average $$$ required to achieve success in 2024 (if you’re a realistic man)? ….. Twice your average wage to court a woman to the point of her moving to your country (including visa costs) and that’s if you find a compatible women in the first few trips. Twice your annual wage again within months of her arriving (wedding, car, English lessons and 100 other things you’ve never considered and then a job that pays triple your annual wage to raise a child in a one income family and still maintain a good quality of life.

You better get on it immediately because every year that passes those figures are going to rise.

[ML]

I hope you’re taking on board what krim and bill are saying Trench?…. Would you like to know the average $$$ required to achieve success in 2024 (if you’re a realistic man)? ….. Twice your average wage to court a woman to the point of her moving to your country (including visa costs) and that’s if you find a compatible women in the first few trips. Twice your annual wage again within months of her arriving (wedding, car, English lessons and 100 other things you’ve never considered and then a job that pays triple your annual wage to raise a child in a one income family and still maintain a good quality of life.

You better get on it immediately because every year that passes those figures are going to rise.

Simple solution:  Seek out daughters of FSU Oligarchs.

[2tallbill]

Sales skills that come as natural to but to a handful of people, your Autism etc possibly not helping to there unlike in IT.

Sales, confidence and interpersonal skills did not come to me naturally. I was very shy when I was
younger, especially around women. I gained confidence in myself as I grew taller and more athletic.
If I was naturally good at something it was eye hand coordination, physical quickness and a growth
spurt. I also was willing to train incessantly to get better.

When it came to sales, as a school boy I had to do a couple things that made
me better. I had to call people who previously went to Church for donations
on the phone. Let me tell you only the first hundred are hard. I had to sell
subscriptions door to door for my school. Only the first twenty are hard.

As for girls, it was hard for me. I practiced my first phone call to ask a girl
out a hundred times in a mirror. When I called, she couldn't go with me.
When I asked girls out, I knew they liked me but even then it was difficult.

I hated that it was difficult, but just like my left hand hook shot, I worked
on it getting a little better every time. I had a few gal pals and they
would encourage me (even though they secretly crushed on me).

Talking to the homely librarian or the cashier with 25 visible piercings,
or asking a little old lady wearing a head band if she was trying out
for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders gives you skills.

Dave wrote about this far better than I have, but practice improves
your skills. Just like it does for me, Dave, Krim or you.

[krimster2]

A man is great not because he hasn't failed; a man is great because failure hasn't stopped him”

[ML]

I know nothing about the secret to success.
I grew up in abject poverty and left home at age 17 to join the navy to get away from it.
Just by happenstance, I was encouraged to start college even as I had only completed 10th grade.
My SAT and  ACT scores were quite high, so most every college would accept me even without HS diploma.
4 degrees later and a lot of business experience behind me . . . here I am comfortable financially and with a hot Ukrainian chick.

How I did it . . . I never gave up on anything I started or attempted.

Oh . . . and I am still working like a dog renovating a house . . . even as I could outright buy 5 new houses.

All this just to continue having sex . . . with someone I want to have sex with !!!!  :-)

Wife asks me if I would rather stay busy like this (on the house and with sex), or go to McDonalds and sit with a group of old men (who we regularly see) who discuss how to solve the problems of the world.

I think she is controlling me . . . but don't know who to report it to.

[Trenchcoat]

There's a lot of randomness in the World. ML, you may have begun in this world living in abject poverty but you also landed in this world in probably the wealthiest nation in the world. The US military spends vast sums of money, even in personnel and far outstrips the UK military. A few years ago, probably about a good decade or so back now the UK military laid of loads of it's personal just as they were approaching military pension service age/years retirement. So they were too short on military years service to get the military pension (which is good but not as good as the US military pension as I understand it) and got redundancy money instead. The redundancy money was still quite good but a poor deal in comparison to the UK military pension had the (Conservative Government I believe) not chosen to stiff them on it.

So you see the country you are in can affect your life chances, join the UK military and odds are you won't do as well as if you join the US military. The UK military tends to have a lot less University courses funding and the little it may have tends to be for Officer grade as I understand it. Basically they are a lot tighter, you can still do well money wise potentially better than the general population but not likely as well as the US military.

Other opportunities in the UK tends to have people crawling over them, so much so that it often buggers the opportunity up if it ever was any good.

I get what you guys are saying is that to take a chance at what may be a decent opportunity somewhere, work hard, keep at it and eventually it may come good. Sometimes it does but sometimes it can destroy people's lives. If you have a chick and pay a lot of money to get into a business and that business fails well there have been stories like that and the chick often leaves the guy (plus taking any children) to wallow in the financial mess. That guy may end up on the Streets and getting past failure from there is not going to be an easy matter. Most Employers won't touch a homeless guy on the Streets with a bargepole.

[2tallbill]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,  boo hoo, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah,  boo hoo, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
boo hoo, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada,
boo hoo, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, boo hoo,blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada, boo hoo,blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada,
boo hoo. 

Sometimes it does but sometimes it can destroy people's lives. If you have a chick and pay a lot of money to get into a business and that business fails well there have been stories like that and the chick often leaves the guy (plus taking any children) to wallow in the financial mess. That guy may end up on the Streets and getting past failure from there is not going to be an easy matter. Most Employers won't touch a homeless guy on the Streets with a bargepole.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained ― Chaucer

Slavic women aren't for everyone ― 2tallbill (and many others)