I quit my job today to work on wheelers...

[DayBreakJim]

Well, hello everyone. I figured I'd introduce myself with a post. I just turned 33 last month and today I officially quit my job to work on wheelers. I've been buying them broken for about 5 months now, fixing them and selling them for profit. I work on them in my garage and have been selling between 2-4 per month but it has been draining me while also working my full time job. I've slowly been accumulating the basic tools I need to get the jobs done. Nothing special, not a boatload of tools, money or skills. I taught myself through the years and finally got sick enough of working for the city as a sewer service worker to make the jump and quit. I was making 49k a year and now I'm fully relying on my income from repairing wheelers.

I live with my gf and we have no kids yet so that helps. We live in a major city and it has gotten so bad now that we refuse to have kids and raise them here. There's no way we're putting them into the education system. We're determined to move to the country, buy land and start a homestead. My gf is building her virtual tutoring business teaching kids to read and doing awesome! I knew that this job was the last thing holding us here and I would have to lose it anyway if we're going to another state in the next 2 years so we decided now was the time. 

So that brings me here!

I hope I can share things that I'm learning and learn more from you guys! Also I know I'm going to be needing those service manuals sooner or later with how many wheelers I'm fixing. Any tips for us to get to our goals are extremely welcome!! We have no land in either of our families and not much money either so the task of doing all this alone is daunting.

Nice to meet you all and wish us luck! The clock is ticking!

[Mech]

Buy a bigger bit of bare land somewhere cheap and get a caravan, build an illegal shed and start living.

Practical skills go well in the country.. 

Good luck.

[kp3004x4]

I traded two quads and 100 dollars for a old 1976 ford school bus  I'm fixing it up on side for a getaway   look out there have seen many that you can get cheap and could live in it until you get something lots of property in the woods and mostly if people know you can work on them they will come, install solar on that bad boy and you got something. Good luck

[Mech]

It's how lots of us got started huh.

and I suggest a big block because you can buy a 1/4 acre near a town, or the most popular ten acres, or eighty remote for the same price..

[autocustomizer76]

Find a cheap RV to put on some land. Later it can be a guest house, or a bonfire depending on how well it served you.

[kp3004x4]

Yes sir, sitting on 11 acre's now with view of the hills of the Ozarks,with hunting club/ forest all around.  Life is good, maybe a beer in my hand every now and then and my pipe with cheery tobacco can't beat it.

[Gwbarm]

Sounds great!

[Mech]

That's the one Kp.

I did it thirty odd years ago and had a family. The boys grew and roamed the land like hucklberry, then they left, got jobs, set up a beekeeping partnership for a sideline to their jobs, then both one after another decided they wanted families, so the two of them chipped in and bought a huge caravan and dragged it onsite over the ridge. Elder and wife lived in it till they built a small home and then they started a family. They dragged the caravan back down off one hill, down the road a way and back up onto the land for younger who set about building a small home. We've got about a third each of sixty acres, separated by a ridge and a small stream/swamp. Because they are financial secure daughter in law has been able to buy a small dairy down the road five minutes away, and son minds the daughters and takes care of all the light beekeeping duties and I go along to entertain the girls. The other one helps in the weekends with the harvest and stuff and we all have a fantastic life.

You do it Jim..  Find several income streams because I don't think you will make it just fixing or trading quads, but if you are happy to live simple, without much money, and break a few rules building etc.. it can be done.. Oh, and by the way. I'd been living on a small rough old yacht till friends invited mt to build a cabin on their place inland where I'd been mechanicing, and I owned a scrambler, my wife had a car and about four grand.. that was thirty five years ago. We sold the yacht, scrambler and car and borrowed a few grand off family. It was about four years between wife findng me and saying she wanted kids, till we had them once we'd repaid the money  and built our small core of a  home.

[Gwbarm]

Good you can do that, im the worst at charging people , i fix stuff for all my neighbors and they always try to pay me, but sometimes there are more important things than money, i know ican count on them if i need anything, but your situaation is different you quit your job, and have to eat, and pay stuff.

[Mech]

People were always telling me I should charge more Gw..  I already said, my work was never about the money, it was about the challenge and helping people. I could have made better money with a job, but my wife and I both agreed that knowing and enjoying the family was more important too.. and given what happened(her dying), that was a blessing to know my sons so well.

There are more important things in life than money..  And I've known it since I was twenty-one and first started self employment.

[Cj Winds]

I run a small atv repair shop and have a large collection of pdf service manuals. Let me know if you want me to send them your way

[Mech]

This site is a good place to deposit them..  As good as any.

[Mech]

Jim..  Another good sideline if you move to the country, and if they have forestry over there, is buying and fixing chainsaws.

One of my sons buys husky or stihl chainsaws, but only the big ones the forestry guys use. The big ones are more repairable and sell easy. And, forestry guys throw their old chainsaws in a shed and leave them there. My son advertise he'll buy any of the three biggest models of either make, going or not, or any parts. Then he tells them he'll be at some place convenient and give them a fair price for whatever they have. Guys turn up with fish bins full of chainsaws, like three plus spares. He just has a quick look and offers them $100 or so and they are happy. He can get four sellers at a time and drops off saws while he's on the road. He goes home and sits up late(in his kitchen with the fire going), and builds one at least the very first night, then sorts parts needed for another.. These saws sell for $600 or a grand and he has no problem selling them.

[DayBreakJim]

On 7/22/2023 at 2:02 AM, Mech said:

It's how lots of us got started huh.

and I suggest a big block because you can buy a 1/4 acre near a town, or the most popular ten acres, or eighty remote for the same price..

That's a great tip. So the farther from the nearest city I go the more you get for your money... Is there a sweet spot you think? We're thinking maybe 20-30 min outside the nearest town...

 

 

On 7/22/2023 at 4:42 PM, Mech said:

That's the one Kp.

I did it thirty odd years ago and had a family. The boys grew and roamed the land like hucklberry, then they left, got jobs, set up a beekeeping partnership for a sideline to their jobs, then both one after another decided they wanted families, so the two of them chipped in and bought a huge caravan and dragged it onsite over the ridge. Elder and wife lived in it till they built a small home and then they started a family. They dragged the caravan back down off one hill, down the road a way and back up onto the land for younger who set about building a small home. We've got about a third each of sixty acres, separated by a ridge and a small stream/swamp. Because they are financial secure daughter in law has been able to buy a small dairy down the road five minutes away, and son minds the daughters and takes care of all the light beekeeping duties and I go along to entertain the girls. The other one helps in the weekends with the harvest and stuff and we all have a fantastic life.

You do it Jim..  Find several income streams because I don't think you will make it just fixing or trading quads, but if you are happy to live simple, without much money, and break a few rules building etc.. it can be done.. Oh, and by the way. I'd been living on a small rough old yacht till friends invited mt to build a cabin on their place inland where I'd been mechanicing, and I owned a scrambler, my wife had a car and about four grand.. that was thirty five years ago. We sold the yacht, scrambler and car and borrowed a few grand off family. It was about four years between wife findng me and saying she wanted kids, till we had them once we'd repaid the money  and built our small core of a  home.

I really appreciate the encouragement Mech and nice to meet you guys! The thing is I have so many skills and I'm not shy to hard work but living in the city doesn't suit me. I'm pretty sure once I can get to the country I will be able to generate multiple streams of income with my land/animals/skills over the years. Fixing wheelers is kind of like the bridge I need right now to get me out of my job and get my time back.

Between both me and my gf we only have 2 people in our lives that understand what we're trying to do and 0 people that are trying to do the same. We're really alone out here doing this all for the first time. So it's really inspiring to hear from other people who have done this! 

 

[DayBreakJim]

2 hours ago, Cj Winds said:

I run a small atv repair shop and have a large collection of pdf service manuals. Let me know if you want me to send them your way

Thanks Cj I really appreciate that! Have you had more luck repairing atvs or buying them broken and fixing them to sell? I live in a big city so there's not really much need for atv repair around me but a couple people have asked me about repairing. One guy I met recently payed me to repair his. He bought an Arctic Cat for $1200 that ran but he didn't know anything about atvs so he brought it over and wanted me to look over it and fix whatever I found wrong. A couple simple things later (drive shaft boot, brakes, bushings, carb clean) He payed $200 for parts and I charged him $500 for labor and he was happy as hell. Seemed like a good deal but I'm not too sure about taking on repairing other peoples atvs seeing as I don't have a legit business or insurance and I'm not sure I want to form a business for this as everything is done in cash anyways.

 

2 hours ago, Mech said:

Jim..  Another good sideline if you move to the country, and if they have forestry over there, is buying and fixing chainsaws.

One of my sons buys husky or stihl chainsaws, but only the big ones the forestry guys use. The big ones are more repairable and sell easy. And, forestry guys throw their old chainsaws in a shed and leave them there. My son advertise he'll buy any of the three biggest models of either make, going or not, or any parts. Then he tells them he'll be at some place convenient and give them a fair price for whatever they have. Guys turn up with fish bins full of chainsaws, like three plus spares. He just has a quick look and offers them $100 or so and they are happy. He can get four sellers at a time and drops off saws while he's on the road. He goes home and sits up late(in his kitchen with the fire going), and builds one at least the very first night, then sorts parts needed for another.. These saws sell for $600 or a grand and he has no problem selling them.

That's actually really great advice Mech thanks! I thought alot about repairing small engines like weedeaters, mowers, chainsaws etc. and after repairing and selling a handful I came to the conclusion that the profits just weren't there. But we don't have a forestry industry here in the city. That's a great point if in the country there's forestry and a big market for high cost saws, then just stick to those. Awesome advice, thanks. I didn't even think about that...

Edited July 24, 2023 by DayBreakJim

[Cj Winds]

I only repair

[Mech]

All good Bro.

I'm like you and have a wide skill base, all practical stuff, and work hard(well I used to), and I was invited to settle and live on someone else's land after I'd been living on my yacht for three years. They even offered to subdivide but I didn't need that so I just built a cabin and worked there helping out on the farm and mechanicing. 

Get a bus and go.. you'll fit in.

Land.. It's not so much the distance from town, though the more remote the cheaper, but the ten to twenty acre blocks are the most popular with the lifestylers. I needed a through road so people could access me easily, and we found a semi cut over forest block, on a main through road about twenty minutes out of a small town. I'd had interest in forestry and knew the industry went in cycles, and that the loggers and truckers would be back in a few years. As it happened, about two years after moving into our new place the market came good and we sold most of the remaining trees for $38,000.. The land cost $25,000.

Hope it goes as well for you. Get into the community, talk to people, take advice and offers of help. Be helpful.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Mech

[Gwbarm]

Real gutsy move, i like it, i hope everything works out for you. You can get you a U-Tube channel and film what you fix, those are really popular right now and people are making their living doing only that.

[DayBreakJim]

22 hours ago, Gwbarm said:

Real gutsy move, i like it, i hope everything works out for you. You can get you a U-Tube channel and film what you fix, those are really popular right now and people are making their living doing only that.

I've definitely been thinking of it. With the new time I think I could start a channel and be pretty consistent. I do enjoy being able to sit back and watch other people work on things! If I make my first video here in the coming weeks I will let you guys know first to get some feedback!

[Doublewidekings]

This is very brave.  I have thought about doing the same but just the risk outlays the reward for me at this point.  How much business did you have before you figured you could quit.

[DayBreakJim]

10 hours ago, Doublewidekings said:

This is very brave.  I have thought about doing the same but just the risk outlays the reward for me at this point.  How much business did you have before you figured you could quit.

I bought, repaired and sold around 9 wheelers before I was confident that I could do it consistently. Around 2-3 a month pretty easily while working the full time job so hopefully I can keep finding good deals and work on even more now!