Money and Money
Money…always a concern. Sometimes it is useful to comparison think. Something like comparison shopping but not quite. Here is how it goes for our purposes.
Let’s suppose you are a fresh young high school graduate full of hope but financially worthless. Think about where you would get the money if you wanted to go to college. Mom and Dad (mostly Dad) would be the first source. Next would be college loans. Next, perhaps the military. You are thinking like a student.
Let’s compare. You are that same broke but hopeful young person and you want to learn house building - on your own. Where would you look for the funds? Well, start with Mom and Dad as before. Then, instead of college loans, you would look for Venture Capital!! Sounds exciting and it is. It means you can expand the money hunt to include Uncle Roy or Grammy Mavis, a wealthy family friend, a bank or a credit union. (You won’t have to resort to the Military.) Now you are thinking like a businessman.
You can do this with confidence and pride because instead of looking for a handout you will be borrowing in a businesslike manner, with legal papers, and you will be paying them back with interest. But not just yet. Read the next paragraph before you go loan hunting. You will see a plan developing here.
You may be a young person of no financial means but you are able to work. I recommend that you plan on having one, better yet, two jobs during the whole first year of this home building course. And those jobs should be building houses. Get on a work site and try to learn all you can by direct experience. Work with a mason for a while, then a framer, then a roofer, then a drywall installer and learn about finish work. Making money while learning was called an apprenticeship in the old days.
Watch closely the way each professional does his job. Be especially observant of the plumbers and electricians. Be respectful and learn a lot. Take notes, lots of notes. Take pictures and keep them in order for easy reference later.
This work binge does not have to be done in your home town. In fact, there may not be enough house building locally to be useful to you. But if you are young and fancy free maybe you could go to New Orleans, or Florida where they are begging for construction workers. The pay is very good. It would be a good adventure for you to get away from home and out on your own for 10 months or so.
Being away from hometown temptations might help you save your money. Or maybe big city temptations would be too much for you. I have heard there are lots of pretty girls in cities. Perhaps you should have your checks sent to your Mom and Dad. You know yourself better than I do, I hope.
So, at the end of 10 months you should have a very savvy hands-on understanding of professional home construction with notes and photos to study later. You should have a good stash of money in the bank too. Mom and Dad will be so proud of you they will insist on giving you a venture capital loan to add to what you have. Other loan sources, like banks, credit unions, even Uncle Roy, will have more respect for your proposal if you have some money saved when asking for a loan.
Next time I’ll have money ideas for slightly better off people who have a few assets and want to build a house. There is a lot to talk about yet.
