# Hello all, I'm back!



## kuma (Jun 26, 2015)

Hey everyone, I sincerely hope all is well!

I've been away for quite a while, because the truth is, even after all of this time my family and I (myself, my partner, and our three 'sprogs) are still living in the flat, the two bedroom 4th and 5th story flat with no garden, so as yet I've unfortunately still not had a chance to practice the majority of what I've studied and learned from being a member this amazing forum.

I'm still following from a distance, I've occasionally been lurking in the shadows, but I feel that we should be rehoused (fingers crossed with a garden) soon, so I'm here to brush-up on my knowledge in preparation.

I'm glad to see the same familiar names about on the boards, you know who you are, and I look forward to hopefully continuing my education from you all and the rest of the forum.

All the very best everyone, 

Chris


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## goldsilverpro (Jun 26, 2015)

Gone for more than 3 years. Glad to see you back.


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## Palladium (Jun 26, 2015)

Welcome back brother!


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## patnor1011 (Jun 27, 2015)

Nice to see you again.


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## kurtak (Jun 27, 2015)

Welcome back & hope all goes well with getting into a new place

Kurt


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## artart47 (Jun 27, 2015)

Hi!
Welcome back! 
artart47


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## butcher (Jun 27, 2015)

Chris,
I hope you get that house and you get a big garden, or lots of land for you and the 'sprogs.


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## g_axelsson (Jun 27, 2015)

Always nice to see an old member coming back. 8) 

Welcome back!

Göran


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## kuma (Jun 28, 2015)

I can't say thank you enough for your kind words and welcome, cheers everyone!  



goldsilverpro said:


> Gone for more than 3 years. Glad to see you back.



3 years already? That hadn't even dawned on me! :shock: Tic toc and all of that!



butcher said:


> Chris, I hope you get that house and you get a big garden, or lots of land for you and the 'sprogs.



That's the dream brother, that's the dream,  

Thanks again everyone, I'm glad to be back in all of your esteemed company. I still remember my first days on this forum, I had assured you all that I was going to "dig through the 'anals' of the forum" on my quest for knowledge. This place taught me some valuable lessons on using spellcheck!  

Thanks again all, Chris


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## butcher (Jun 28, 2015)

Owning your own land, and home is like owning gold, if you work towards that goal, you can accomplish it, like gold it may not be easy, or come to you easily, but if you work hard for that goal, and see the opportunity when it comes along, it will be possible.

Land and my own home for me is like gold. a precious commodity, has value beyond its beauty.

When I left Texas (where we sold every thing we had, except what we could haul in a pickup truck, mostly tools for that is the way I made a living, we had a thousand dollars, figured we would go north where there were higher paying jobs, (so we thought), or at least where there may be jobs in a bad economy, as a jack of all trades, I thought we could pick up jobs for money as we traveled, truth was nobody would hire someone traveling to work, and we did not stay in one place long enough to advertise, so that plan did not work out.

The economy up north was no better, and work was just about impossible to find.

The truck broke down, the transmission gave up it ghost trying to climbing up all those mountains overloaded with tools, we limped it to the nearest town, at this time we had 600 dollars left, but had no way of getting a transmission from a junk yard to replace it, so we put the truck in a shop that would rebuild the transmission for 300 dollars.

With just 300 dollars left, no truck for two weeks, a wife and two small children we were homeless, we headed out into the woods to set up camp, I would hike to town every day and look for work, which was just about impossible to get, found a dairy farmer that agreed to hire me, I would work 12 hour shifts, doing the first two shifts without pay (for training), and then 20 dollars a shift after that. 

With the wife and two small kids left out in the woods on their own, I worked 5 straight shifts, milking feeding and cleanup after of about 150 cows and calves, several cows were sick and had to be milked by hand into buckets, one sick cow needed a veterinarian, went I went to round up the cows and couldn’t get her up, I called the owner about this cow, and he came and started shoving this cow towards his barn with a tractor's front end loader blade, cutting the cow up with the tractor blade as he shoved her with the tractor towards the barn, this ticked me off I jumped up on the tractor and told him to shoot the #%*" animal and not torture it, he said it did not matter if he cut her up she was hamburger anyway, I told him I would not work for anyone who treated their animals that way to pay me what he owed me (60.00).

Back to the woods, no work, and no truck no home, back to hiking into town daily to look for work. Until we got back our truck.

We got our truck back, and had 300 dollars, which would not last long.

With only three hundred dollars we searched for a place to rent, or live, the cheapest rent we could find was 600.00 first month and 600.00 last month, plus a deposit to move in.
300 dollars was just not enough.

Out in the country we found an old couple also originally from Texas, who had a small trailer on their property for rent, I told them I only had enough money for half the rent, and would work to pay out the full rent, last month and deposit (if they could credit me until I could get their money), they trusted me and we moved in.

We gathered fire wood from the woods with our truck and sold it to pay the rent,we owed, and get some flour to make biscuits, as jobs were terribly hard to find. 

After that we worked many small jobs, many that were almost giving our labor for free just to pay rent, and buy enough flour to make bread to barely survive.

Each job was just a bit better than the last, we lived in the small trailer, heat only by the wood stove of one room only, the other rooms windows that would build frost on the inside during winter, and a roof that we constantly tried to patch, that would fill buckets full of water inside.



Even after we could afford to get a little better place to rent we stayed to save our little bit of money we made to be able to get us a piece of land of our own. 

Buying property is expensive, saving money when you barely make enough to keep the kids eating bread is almost an impossible goal, but a goal we would not give up on.

After years of saving we saved up two thousand dollars.

We seen where an investor that was buying property and logging the property for money, he bought 12 acres for 20 thousand dollars, logged it for 150 thousand dollars for the logs, and was wanting to sell each of the 6 acres for 23 thousand each, I offered him my two thousand, and $250.00 per month to buy the 6 acres of land on payments, he agreed.

So we moved to the 6 acres of woods, (or the mess of the woods after it was logged), and we built a small shack out of shipping pallets and poles from the woods with a tin roof, big enough for a bed and a wood stove, and began to work to clear the land for a home, again saving our penny’s to build us a home.

After two years of digging stumps, putting in a road by hand and burning slash to clear the land for a home, we began digging the septic system, and laying the piping, after we save money to get the septic tank we had it brought out and installed.

Meanwhile we were contacted by the man we were buying the property from, he said he was going to sell the deed to our property to another investor, and we could buy it for the same price, 19 thousand dollars, we did not have that money, so we went to town to the bank to try and get a loan, the bank said they do not loan on bare property it had to have a house on it to get a loan.

Back to the property to met the man with our septic tank, we were discussing having to get a home to be able to borrow money from the bank, He said he had a fishing buddy who sells mobile homes, and he could make us a loan on one, for us to go talk to him.

So we tried, went in and asked for the cheapest home he had, he said he had a demo model he showed and was upgrading the demo, and we could get it, he would make the loan on it, Then I asked about a loan on the land, he said he could add it to the mobile home loan, then I asked about money for us to install a well, electric and so on ,he said he could add that to the loan also.

Well we signed the papers for the loan on the home, and improvements, we would buy what we needed on credit to install the well,electric ,and so on and would take the bill to him, He paid it off and added it to our loan.

A goal that was just about impossible but a dream we worked hard to achieve. 

Basically we have our home in the woods on 6 acres of land, thanks to seeing the small opportunity's as they showed themselves, and taking a gamble at times, along with a lot of hard work, blood sweat and tears, and not giving up when times were hard, luck may have played a small role, and doing what was right kept us in the place to achieve that goal.

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My girls Now had a home.

My daughters started working at age twelve baby sitting, I told them to save their money and buy silver (rounds, about $2.80 each at the time) and save them like a bank account, at the age 16 years they got a job working at a vineyard, and doing other odd jobs, breaking horses and shoeing them... 

My youngest saved all her money in silver rounds, at the age of 17 years old, she came to me and said she wanted to buy her own property, I told her I would help her where I could with her goal (as she worked so hard for me when I was trying to provide her with a home).

She cashed in her silver for a small profit on what she had bought each round for, and with ten thousand dollars in silver, she put a down payment on 6 acres of beautiful land with huge trees in the woods, the land need cleared for a home, a septic, well and electric, she asked me for help to build her a home, and said if I borrowed money on my house, she would pay me back, 

So we went to work building her a home, on her property, I borrowed 50 thousand on my home, we rented a backhoe and cleared the pad and built the road, dug the septic, and installed a septic system, electric and so on.

At my work a man who was building a new home had an old double wide mobile home on his property, he said I could have for two thousand if i moved it off his property, I tore it apart and hired a trucker to move it to my daughters property, we poured the foundation and put the mobile home back together and made repairs to it. After several years of hard work, she had her home, and she worked hard and paid off the loan on my house, and her loan on the property (never missing a payment). 
She eventually sold the home and land in the woods at a profit, and moved to town closer to work, and is buying her home in town now.

A home is like gold, dream about it, but also work hard, do not give up, and look for that opportunity when it comes, and always do the right thing, you will see the glow of that gold in your hands.

Work hard for that silver and gold, save it up, and work hard to get that home, so you have a place to bury your small nuggets.


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## kuma (Jun 28, 2015)

That's amazing!  It just goes to show that hard work and patience pays off in the end, I'm really happy for you! 

I've never actually thought about trying to acquire some land (having said that, I've always wanted to own one of the many German WW2 bunkers dotted around the island), land over here is incredibly pricey - an average 2 bedroom house costs around $440,000 but can set one back for as much as $600,000, I guess that's just part of living on a small island (9x5 miles) with over 100,000 other individuals :| 

Just the other day I was thinking about encouraging the boys to start buying silver, they're good at saving any money that they get and with the silver spot on it's way back down now seems like a good time to be in the market for some, I doubt we'll ever see 70's prices again, but 2011 prices and beyond are a mathematical certainty 8)


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## butcher (Jun 28, 2015)

Aim for the moon , because even if you miss , you will land somewhere among the stars :!:


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## goldsilverpro (Jun 28, 2015)

Very impressive and heartwarming, Richard. You're a true Renaissance Man and pioneer!


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## kuma (Jun 28, 2015)

butcher said:


> Aim for the moon , because even if you miss , you will land somewhere among the stars :!:



True story! 8) 



goldsilverpro said:


> Very impressive and heartwarming, Richard. You're a true Renaissance Man and pioneer!



... and amen to that one too!


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## kurtak (Jun 29, 2015)

Awesome story Butcher - thanks for sharing it :!: 

Kurt


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