This is my work partner. It’s been with me almost as long as my wife. It is a 1971 D200 (3/4 ton) two wheel drive Sweptline Dodge truck that started life as a ‘Camper Special’. It weighs 4200 pounds even before I get in it. I have loaded as much as 3000 pounds into it, though not often. It complains if I do.

It was not nearly so pretty when I bought it in 1980. The color was that icky blue/green often seen on these trucks back in the late 1960′s. I got it for $750 from a racing team in Tennessee. The engine was from one of their race cars, a 383 cubic inch thing with all kinds of leftover racing parts installed but worn out from abuse. It either stalled when I stepped on the gas or took off in a cloud of smoke and burnt tire rubber.

I sold the engine and its equally racy transmission to a local hot rodder who paid me more for them than the truck cost me. Then I bought and installed a modest 318 cubic inch engine and a more civilized transmission that I got as a set for $150. After I bought new tires, rebuilt the brakes and fixed all the minor problems on the truck I broke even. Well, not even, I actually had a great truck that had cost only my labor.

Long before I bought this truck I did a considerable amount of research on the vehicle I would need for my career as a builder. I preferred Dodges so I bought the repair manual for Dodge trucks built from 1961 to 1971 and learned all I could about engines, chassis and available equipment.

From what I read I decided I wanted a 3/4 ton truck with two-wheel drive. Four-wheel drive may seem useful and has that macho aura but I did not plan to plow snow or go where no man has gone before. Neither did I want the lowered gas mileage nor all the extra mechanical parts that could breakdown.

I decided on the 318 engine for its economy and because it had sufficient power for my needs. I learned to decipher the vehicle identification numbers which gave me information about horsepower, quality of internal components and lots more. I learned that one particular model of 318 engine came with 245 horsepower compared to the 150 to 200 horsepower of the others. Just knowing where ID numbers were located on the engine impressed junkyard dealers and helped when haggling prices.

I would have preferred a four speed standard transmission but I never found one I liked. I did learn that Dodge trucks of that era come with one kind of automatic transmission but there are subtle differences in the performance of various models and I made sure I knew which was the best. Identification numbers helped with this choice too.

The rear axle ratio is important knowledge to learn about any vehicle. How many of you knew that? The axle ratios (there are many) make your vehicle the fastest drag strip racer in town with the worst mileage or one with really good mileage but a little poky off the line, all with the same engine. My truck came with a heavy duty rear axle built by the Spicer company. With the 318 engine, an automatic transmission, a 3.54 rear axle ratio and slightly over-sized rear tires I got 26 miles to the gallon the three times I drove it from Maine to California and back. That was with the back loaded with stuff.

Okay, I sense some of you are getting sleepy from boring gear-head tech talk so I will stop for now. But I’ll be back, because there is more.

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First the bad news: the housing market is falling apart. And it is going to be in trouble for at least another year. Lenders have made so many risky loans, mostly of the deadly “interest only” type and adjustable rate mortgages, to people who do not qualify that it threatens to put us into economic collapse. Foreclosures are rampant and sales of new and used homes are way down all over the country.

Along with that are problems for businesses related to housing. Home Depot, Lowes and other companies that supply products for building, furnishing, and maintaining homes are losing money and letting workers go.

Listening to any news broadcast will show you how bad things are and how bad they will get. So…that is the bad news, but maybe not for you if you are starting your homebuilding Ph.D now.

Here is the good news: the housing market is falling apart. And it is going to be in trouble for at least another year. Why is this good? Well it is not good for many but it can be for you. This gives you time to do your studying. A large part of that study is going to include learning about the real estate market in the area where you intend to do your house project.

You will learn important facts by reading the real estate section of the newspaper. It will tell you the high and low value neighborhoods in the area. The site for your project must be where you can sell it to people who have the money and desire to live there. Figuring out the best locations to attract customers like that is something to do during the first year of your quest.

After a year of study you can make an informed decision on where to invest the money you have earned and saved. By then prices will be even lower. Tracking real estate prices will help you know when the market ‘bottoms out.’ Knowledge is power. Learning real estate trends and tactics is very interesting, even more fun than gossip because it has a direct, meaningful effect on you.

As the market goes down so do prices of materials. With an original budget of X number of dollars, during a time like this you might be able to save half. I will talk more about this later. Plywood here has already dropped 20%, maybe more. I have not checked this month. Frugal shopping, low prices and a year’s time equals good news for you.

Here is something for you to think about. The best area to do your house project does not have to be your own neighborhood or even your own town. There may be another location some distance away, maybe 20 or 50 or ?? miles. I’ll help you with a strategy for starting the physical work of your project, if it is at a distance, as these lessons continue.

Start looking at home prices and relate them to the location where you plan to build your project. Recording this information on a map is helpful. Read news stories to become familiar with good and bad parts of town and why they are that way. The police blotter tells you a lot about crime and where it could be a problem. Map out businesses that make noise, have heavy traffic or cause air pollution. Know where schools, stores, churches and other services are located.

Well, you get the idea. It may take studying several locations before you find one you have confidence in, but it is fun to do. As I said, even more fun than gossip, although Brittney forgetting her…. Never mind. Have to go now.

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It is raining nice and steady today. It will help the garden. This reminds me of the time I was preparing to do my first house project. It was a particularly rainy year and I was worried that when I was ready to start building the weather would hold me up.

I was collecting house building information from every place I could find it. This was during the era of ignorance before computers and the internet. I bought and borrowed books and magazines, got subscriptions to the best ones, and read them over and over. If I didn’t have firsthand experience at least I would have some knowledge, and references to the information I would need. The rain gave me incentive to study.

Then something happened that I took as a great omen and boosted my hopes that I could actually succeed in building a house. It rained so much that spring that there was serious flooding. In Vermont that means brooks swelling to rivers moving very fast down through the hills. The floods washed out bridges. Buildings next to usually placid streams, even a whole lumber yard at a mill, floated away.

It so happens my little house was on property near a 600 acre lake. I was safely high enough to stay dry, though the roads coming and going from there were washed out for a few days. It was an exciting time. We were declared a disaster area and a great time was had by all.

About three weeks after the flood waters subsided I walked down to the lake. The area where the river enters the lake had been one of my favorite places to visit. It was devastated. However, the devastation turned out to be a godsend. Every tree that had held its ground snagged huge piles of logs, boards, beams, bridge timbers, all that lumber from the washed out mill and much more. When I saw this I had one of those moments when your whole body quivers like it would if you had just won the lottery big time.

There was so much treasure I called up two friends who had been thinking about building their own homes and we spent a month collecting materials from that area. Three houses were built from that collection of goodies with tons of stuff left over. And it was quality lumber. I got a 14″ square by ten foot long hand-hewn beam for the mantel over my fireplace. There was 2000 square feet of 2 1/2″ thick tongue and groove yellow pine flooring. There were so many 4″ x 8″ mill-sawn bridge timbers one guy built a whole cabin with them. Lumber of every dimension was so plentiful we were picky about what we chose.

Unfortunately, word got out about what we were doing and the town fathers kicked us out, hired a contractor, bulldozed the remaining treasure into piles and burned it. They said it was done to clear the water shed area for safety during the next flood. Hogwash!!

However, we weren’t dumb. After finding all the places on the map where similar land/water relationships existed we roamed the countryside, gathering more materials. The locations weren’t as productive but we weren’t wasting our time.

So, Lesson One: arrange your money. Lesson Two: study hard. Lesson Three: pray for rain. I’m kidding. Lesson Three: look for deals on things you will need. You will be doing all this and more during Year One of your homemade Ph.D.

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It was good to visit with our old friend Robert, and the Amish couple he brought to meet us are interesting people. We talked about farming, gardening, cooking, herbal remedies and building. They can build just about anything, and they have. They are also adventurous, traveling here from a thousand miles away to look for a new place to settle. Their journey was difficult, traveling by horse-drawn wagon, earning traveling expenses along the way. Unfortunately they had bad luck. Their life savings was stolen by a land swindler and they may lose their beloved horses. They are resourceful, decent people with personalities that make them a joy to be with. I hope they find Maine a good place to live, despite their present difficulties, because neighbors like these are very rare. I hope their fortunes improve.

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In the last chapter of my story I was at the point of focusing on The Facts of Life and realizing that total dependence on money as the only control over my food, shelter and security was not a wise life choice. That is when I decided to pick a career that would give me physical control over at least one of the three Life Facts and, hopefully, provide income for the other two.

I chose shelter because I had some skills and experience in that category from my full- and part-time work over the years. Choosing is one thing. Getting it to work is another. I knew I needed to learn a myriad of things to make it happen. So I told myself it was time to become a student again, get books and study. I also started making friends with builders, plumbers, electricians and real estate dealers.

I moved back to my home town, took what I intended to be my last “job,” and began to study and plan. And that is where I would like you to picture yourself now if building is a career you want to take seriously. It took me the better part of a decade to reach the starting point. Hopefully, telling you about my experiences will give you a head start.

Next post I’ll give you some subjects to look into for your year of preparation. Meanwhile I am going to go collect the special herbs the Amish lady says might make my fingernail grow back.

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A note: Scroll down this website and find, From the Library/Making and Saving money. Read Darlene Campbell’s article, Get Out of Debt – Stay Out of Debt. It is excellent and will help you during Year One of what we are discussing here. She tells you things I didn’t think of. She is a smart lady.

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In my last post I told how I first began to suspect there was more to life than having a job and making as much money as possible as fast as possible. First, because of the hemorrhaging of money from my paycheck before I got it. Second, because of the cost of things I needed just to have the job.

I kept working at the factory because I applied for and was accepted into an excellent apprenticeship program and got a valuable education. I took part-time jobs for extra money and for interesting new work experiences. I was smart enough to know I needed skills in order to get jobs. After about seven years I had worked four full-time jobs and more than 20 part-time jobs.

There were usually part-time jobs available which required the skills I had learned. I felt safer in knowing that I could do a variety of things to keep the money coming if I lost my full-time employment. A good strategy, but I still had not put the best plan together.

Eventually I realized that fear of having no money was influencing me too much. What I lacked was security. Even with some savings in the bank the fear remained because something could so easily happen that would take it all away. Everything I did required money. Without it I was sunk.

That was when the fog began to clear. It was during the back-t0-the-land movement and I was reading all I could about it. The Nearings and Ken Kern were my favorite authors. What came through to me was how successful these people were with so little money. They, and many others, were doing well because they did things for themselves instead of paying for it with money from a job.

I could write all month about my revelations but it boiled down to what I call “The Facts Of Life.” I asked myself, ‘What are the basic necessities of life?’ After making long lists and distilling them down I came up with three categories: Food – Shelter – Security. All other subjects fit into one of these categories.

Food is obvious. It includes all things concerning food. Shelter is about a place to live and all things relevant to that. Security is the biggest category because so many matters in life involve staying safe. I am sure readers of this website and BHM are very aware of these three Facts Of Life or something close to them.

We have visitors coming today, new ones and an old friend. We are going to discuss self-sufficiency. I look forward to learning some things. The new friends are Amish and have generations worth of knowledge.

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