O/T - Need Some Advice

jhiggins

jhiggins

Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Messages
3,258
Now that I think about it, this thread really isn't off-topic because it deals with my desire to go full-time knifemaking and how I intend to get to that glorious moment in life. I need some advice from all my friends here about what I should do with my truck. Now that my wife is working closer to home, I feel less of a need for having a nice Tacoma. I'm thinking I could give it up and get a clunker to drive around and save some huge money. Believe it or not, and this shames me to admit, but between my wife and I we spend more for our two vehicle payments than we do on our mortage.

There's something HORRIBLY WRONG with that!

I figure by doing this and eliminating a couple other bills I have, I can afford to buy another property. I guess what I am saying is that I'm outgrowing my current shop and I need to build on. Instead of doing that, and certainly before I become self-employed, I want to rectify my assests and liabilities. Being self-employed with no income history as a full-time maker, won't get me any mortages for new property, right?

So what I need is some advice from you guys on what woudl be the best way to unload my truck. It's a 2004 4x4 tacoma extra cab, 14k miles on it. Any ideas?
 
If you can make the payments and your not horribly far from having it paid off I would keep it. That way you end up with something thats paid for that you can put another 250K on without paying for much more than gas and maintenance, and you know its been serviced and will last that long.
Anything else is a gamble. You have to trust the other guy that he really did take care of it and your getting it just when things are starting to need replaced. Instead of having an 04 tacoma with 30K on it that doesn't really cost you anything in a few years, you'll have a truck with 150K on it thats needing a water pump this month, something else the next and something else the next.
You'll probably also take a little bit of a loss on the truck you have now trying to sell it. Trucks hold their value pretty well, but its a tough market on a truck a year old. Trading it in they're going to hit you pretty good, and selling it outright, it won't be much cheaper than a new truck so most people would be inclined to buy a new truck. Thats how things seem around here anyhow.
I really think your better off to pay for it now and save money with it later myself, providing its not too much of a burden right now.
 
Basically you want advice for finances?
Well, I'm only 16, so I have little or no first hand experience. Everything is vicariously (sp?) through my parents.

I'm probably gonna regret this but :footinmou , if you want good advice you might want to check in with Dave Ramsey.
(www.daveramsey.com)
He may look/sound like a fake, but he isn't. He's guided a bunch of people out of debt, including us, by just listening to his show/reading the books. you can listen to his show online, if you have a good 'puter to handle that stuff.
BTW, I'm not saying that I think you are in bad debt. I dunno, you only know that. Dave doesn't just give help for those people in debt, he gives advice for saving, moving, etc. Just like what you were talking about.

And NO, I am not affiliated with him :D
Well, that's my $0.02
Hope it helps.

~Brian
 
Higgy, The prices for vehicles are out of sight. I bought my first and second house for less than what I could by a full sized p/u for. The only problem with getting a clunker is they seem to break down when you least expect it to happen. One thing I hate do is mess with a vehicle I have no idea how to fix. Going full time knife making means you got to sell alot of knives and I mean alot of knives. According to the national average on wages I'm at the poverty level. I've got to admit I have never been as happy working for myself and have never missed being a heavy construction carpenter thats forsure. I'd really give it some thought before jumping into it....
 
Man needs a truck! That's a given. If the man is a knifemaker that goes double. Trouble is, when a customer see's you nice new truck, he knows he's payin' for it. When someone see's my rusted out '86 F150 - they know they're payin' just for the knife. ;)
 
Raymond Richard said:
Higgy, The prices for vehicles are out of sight. I bought my first and second house for less than what I could by a full sized p/u for. The only problem with getting a clunker is they seem to break down when you least expect it to happen. One thing I hate do is mess with a vehicle I have no idea how to fix. Going full time knife making means you got to sell alot of knives and I mean alot of knives. According to the national average on wages I'm at the poverty level. I've got to admit I have never been as happy working for myself and have never missed being a heavy construction carpenter thats forsure. I'd really give it some thought before jumping into it....
Click to expand...

This is good advice, Ray, and I appreciate your input. My wife has a an excellent career, and we could easily live on her salary alone if I trimmed the fat around here a little. Going full time is pretty much in the cards, but how easily I make that transition is up to me. I like my truck. No... I LOVE my truck, but I can live without it if it means not spending the cash each month to keep driving it. Sometimes if you want something, you have to think a little more creatively and be willing to sacrifice things for teh greater good.
 
I know your hoping to start making knives full time in the next 6 months or so Jeff, and that it will help to cut back on things. I agree that a different vehicle would be cheaper right now too. I hope you didn't misunderstand that. The point I'm getting at is I think the loss from trading now might outweigh what you save in the future. We just bought a new truck after the old one blew up last year and its not really a good market for anyone but dealerships right now.
It was just about impossible to find a plain jane work truck thats only a couple years old. They all have lots of options on them and they're bringing prices above what a bare bones truck is brand new. Folks interested in a cheap user are holding onto them. You had to get into stuff that was really high mileage and 5 years or more old to get down to something cheap, and at that point you start running the risk of having to replace it really soon. Maybe the selection is different in your neck of the woods, you'll have to check it out.

At the same time, depending on how much you have paid off on your truck now, you might have trouble getting that out of it. Go to www.edmunds.com and figure up pricing on it. I would be surprised if the value is more than 75% of what it was worth new, value drops a lot after the first year (more like after you sign the paperwork :grumpy: ) and then evens out some. It sucks.

I'd hate to see you trade this one off now at a big loss and then go through several clunkers in the time this one would have lasted without costing you much.
 
Before you make any decisions , at all, about going full time,
I would STRONGLY suggest that you talk with Les Robertson
and/or Jerry Fisk.
Both men know the knife business inside-out; The do's, don'ts,
how-to's and Hell-no's.
Jerry also has written an excellent book on Business Management for the
Knifemaker...available from the ABS.

The best of luck to you...
Russ Andrews
 
When I first went fulltime I also sold my truck for a clunker that was more feasiable to drive to shows and such.Guese what,that was the biggest mistake I could have done.You always need a truck around,plus you need very dependable transportation to take you to the shows,I am now trying to get another truck but it is allot harder now than when I was employed and had a set income.I suggest you just try and double up on payments and get it paid off quick and keep it around as you never know when you will get to have another new truck..

Going full time is the best thing I ever did for myself,but not very good on the family income.Plus all the things we used to go out and do got cut out because I was on dedlines or had to get this one finished so i could pay a bill or get supplies,it never ends.I would also suggest Jerry's book before taking the jump.I for one did not take allot of things into consideration when taking the jump and when times got hard had to tuck the pride and go get a job again,Now I am about ready to take the jump again only want to do it wright this time.

Good Luck,
Bruce
 
Higgy, 2 questions. How old are you, and what kind of job do you have now.
Knifemaking is a hard business to make a living at and unless you have a good client list and are put into a situation that you no longer have a job, meaning lay off or discontinued. You better think twice. Knifemaking can always be a part time job, work when you want and go hunting,fishing, camping, playing when you want. But if you give up a full time job and take a somewhat part time want to be successful knifemaking business and think your going to keep up the good life of nice trucks,house payments, going out to dinner a couple times a week, etc. You'd better think again. Get your knifemaking business established first on the side, then when all looks really promising (lots of inquiries and orders) take the plunge. I went full time when my construction project job of 8 yrs. finally finished up and I was needing to hunt another job anyway. My truck was new and paid for, my house was paid for and we had a pretty good bank account saved, and its still been awfully tough more times then I hate to admit. I don't want to tell anyone not to go after their dreams, but a person needs to look at the long term picture, 10 yrs. from now and what your going to lose in saving, security and job advancement. I really like what I do, but I'm 52, and still I have nightmares about what if. I wish you the best with what ever you decide.

Bill
 
Man there is sure some good advice here. You folks just blow me away; is there anything you can't handle? I don't think so.

For what it's worth, my recommendation would also be to keep the truck. It's a good one, you know it's been maintained and it will last longer than you want it to. I'm one of those people who drive their cars until they just drop out from under them, and that seems to have been a good policy. Just hurry up and pay it off before you go full time if you can, and stick with it until it dies.

My truck is 14 years old, has 160K on it and still going strong. The beater I drive to work is 13 years old, has 120K on it and still going strong. Both of them have a good collection of Iowa rust and are not the kind of vehicles leggy blondes are going to notice you for, but they're paid for and they're dependable. Keeping stuff forever has worked well for me.

I'd heard about Jerry Fisk's business book, thanks for the reminder. I'm waiting until I retire to go FT but I think I'll get the book and start thinking this through as well as I can.

Good luck Jeff.
 
Humm...My only advise is to be flexable. I mean dont get set on one plan. As in many aspects of life you have to adapt. Dont turn away the thought to other options just because it didnt fit in your initial decision. Good luck and keep options out there. I still feel like aproaching your employer about contract work is a good idea. It may be what you need to fill in the off times with knifemaking.

About the car. How long do you have left to pay the truck off?
 
Wow, so much great advice here its hard to process it all. The fact is, the bulk of this advice is whether or not to go f/t and so on, when in reality all I wanted was some ideas on how to sell my truck. You guys know me well enough now to know I'm a pretty frugal guy, and by no means do I do things off-the-cuff. I've studied the various aspects of being in business for myself for many a year, and now that the kids are gone, it is time.

Oh, and I'm 46 by the way. I hold a business degree. I'm a maintenance manager at the printing company where I work, and I consider my salary is pretty good. My wife works at the local hospital. She is a clinical analyst. She carries a certification that is very hard to obtain and is one of only a handful of people in the state qualified to do her kind of work, which is to analyze medical trends in treatment and recommend a course of treatment solutions to physicians and surgeons. Needless to say, she turns a good wage - much better than mine.

So we aren't well-off because we still got six outstanding college loans to pay for over the next 20 years. But! We could manage all this on just my wife's salary alone. This is why it won't be too hard of a stretch for me to make the transition to full-time.

The real reason I want to dump my truck for now is to make more room in my budget for another property. My goal is to build a machine shop in which people can buy my machining/repair/fabrication services, and I can make knives all the while. This property would be a formal business, and not out of my house anymore. I'm getting to the point where I want my house to be my house, and not a shop with an apartment (sic) attached to it. It would be real nice to have a pool table where I have my work bench and so on. It would be so nice to have my own shop where i can keep regular hours and leave it behind once I get home.

My area is hurting badly for machine services. Being an industrialized country locale, folks with my skills are few and far-between, and worse than that - the remaining guys doing this are old and retiring. I'm already getting work from other self-employed machinists around here who can't handle it all.

I read somewhere that in order to truly succeed you have to be willing to fail. Well, I am here to tell you I have failed a bunch of times, and it has been disheartening. Now I feel like all my ducks are in a row and I got a full clip. If I can lose the $575 I pay per month for my truck, the $70 I pay for insurance, the $140 for my ATV payment, and the $190 for my existing business loan, I figure that would make lots of room for me to buy that shop I am looking at. They are asking $300k, but I bet I could get it for $275. It's an awesome place, too. Got 3-phase power and everything.
 
Trick said:
Now here is where I will p!$$ everyone off. Do you need that truck or do you need to be seen in that truck? Point is, I can't buy new stuff, knives form you guys I would give my left nut for, etc. But I am much happier poor and owning everything, junk as it may be, than trying to keep my head above water having stuff I do not need to make others think I am somebody I am not.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your candor, Trick. Truth is, I've been poor in the past. Nothing better in my honest opinion because you have nowhere else to go but up. The top of the hill is only a fleeting moment in life, and once there, you have no place else to go but either to Heaven to meet your maker or get knocked off the hill by someone coming up. It's how we get from one place to the next is what is important.

But I have surely driven my fair share of clunkers and being a mechanic of one kind or another my whole life, I did all the work myself. The only reason we opted to keep two new vehicles (with payments) is because my wife needed reliabel transpo for her one-hour commute, and I have a 1/2-hour commute. So two good vehicles were very much needed. Now that she works in the new hospital only 15 minutes away, and I am going to be hanging around locally, I don't see the need for two really fine vehicles, because frankly I would much rather drive an old beater truck around.

If I had an old long-bed F-100, I would be in heaven! New fancy stuff aint my style anyway, so I guess you could say I don't need a fancy new truck. I DID need the reliability, but not for long... hopefully.
 
Damn boy...NC aint in those plans! He he...

I like the fabrication shop / knifemaker idea best of all Jeff ;)
 
Jeff, you might consider that with the new machineshop business, you can write off the truck totally if you have something else you can claim to drive as a personal vehicle. You will obviously need something for a shop truck and if your aren't doing heavy machining a Tacoma might be just the thing.

I may be out of date, but I think you can claim it as an equipment capitalization and write the whole cost off over five years.
 
shgeo said:
Jeff, you might consider that with the new machineshop business, you can write off the truck totally if you have something else you can claim to drive as a personal vehicle. You will obviously need something for a shop truck and if your aren't doing heavy machining a Tacoma might be just the thing.

I may be out of date, but I think you can claim it as an equipment capitalization and write the whole cost off over five years.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely correct, Steve. The truck can be claimed under the business as a necessary part of operations, however the title and registration would have to be transferred over to the business. In this state, we can't claim personal assets under an LLC until the ownership is tranferred like that. In the end, I would still have the payment, and the payment is what I'm trying to get rid of. For only a few hundred more per month I could buy that shop. See where I am going with this? I figure that if I pay off my vehicle loan and my existing business loan, I can afford a new shop on it's own piece of land.
 
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