So much going on

I see that Vivian updated you about this morning . . . . so much fun. There I was, water shooting up to about my waste, wondering what the heck I was going to do. It all worked out in the end, so that’s good. :-).

This is not the easiest thing to do, totally upending everything because, well, why not. Totally goes to my needs to always be pushing the limits, always be growing, always be moving. But TOTALLY goes against the man,s sense of “protecting the family, being a good provider, being a stable provider” on and on. So a lot of inner tugs and pulls in different directions.

We lived in a great house, surrounded by great friends in a great community.

We now live in a camper next to an old busted up house that many people here are wondering why we would ever do such a thing.

Why indeed.

Both Viv and I have lived fairly rough lives, really. Long stories that neither of us often tell or speak of, but not easy lives. And I think it’s mostly because of that, we want to make a difference, a very positive difference. Certainly we could have done so in Colorado, but we felt a need to better our own financial situation at the same time. For me, it comes down to making sure Vivian will be taken care of for the rest of her life, no matter what ever happened to me, and I didn’t feel I could really do that in Fort Collins.

I am sure that many of the feelings we both get are the same type of feelings that the settlers had. Which settlers? It doesn’t matter, choose any of them. They all wanted more than what they felt they could achieve where they were. I don’t think I have ever really thought of it like that, but it fits.

All in all, we are pretty darn happy with what we have done and what we are about to do. Our contractors start phase one of Landscaping on Wed of this week and will soon start building our first building for us, a shed. More on that later.

Don’t ever move

I mean it, moving sucks. What a PIA, even forgetting that once we decide something it’s balls to the walls. Vivi had a bunch of stuff boxed up before we left but there was still so much to do, uggg.

We hired a “U pack it” type trailer, they would leave it at the house for 3 business days, and we had to be packs and ready at the end. We asked for it on a Wed, looking to get the weekend as extra days.

We got the trailer (of which we were supposed to take just half of) on Wed as planned and started hiring help off of Craigslist on Thursday.

With the help of the CL folks, and a few really good friends, but Monday we had taken the full trailer – BUT we were ready.

The 94 Camaro that I had gotten from my Dad, would make the trip in behind our truck on a trailer I had bought in the Denver area.

Caution to the wind

We did it, we decided we will sell the house in Fort Collins, use that money to build the dream in Harlingen, then come back to Colorado and build on some other land we had there, for the summers.

We built a real nice website for selling the house, placed an ad on Craigslist and a few other spots and decided to go at it on our own, without a realtor. If everything went right, we’d make just a bit more than if we had a realtor, it would sell quickly and save the buyer some money as well.

Four days later we had an offer for $5K less than we were asking. Much to my wife’s shock (she had though I’d listed it for $15K too much), I said no. The buyer immediately came up to our price.

The deal was for cash and we closed 5 business days later.

To Go Or Not To Go

So at this point, we are $15k in at Harlingen, none returnable. $15K down on a dream, that just went to hell in a hand basket. The bank pulled back on the equity deal we were working on – we had other money but it wasn’t available as it was all company money. Hmm. Things got a bit bleak. Do we give up the dream and the $15K, or just find another way to make it happen?

We, as a couple of are lot of things, quick to give up is not one of them. We hadn’t planned on leaving Fort Collins anytime soon – but – we had a nice house, in a great market, with a lot of equity into it. We knew that this was equity that we could get to if needed. But, it would mean leaving FTC and all of our friends. And honesty, the best friends two people could have. BUT, we had a dream and we REALLY believed in it.

Shit Hits The Fan

We were about two hours away from home after returning from Harlingen (about 16 hours on the road) when we got the call from the bank . . not good.

We had been working a deal in Fort Collins that would allow us to leverage investments there and use that money for the work we wanted to do in Harlingen. Never had it entered our minds that the particular deal in Fort Collins (of all of the balls we were juggling) would not go through. If asked, we each would have said 99% sure that deal would have gone smoothly. After all, we were just tapping into existing equity.

So two hours outside if FTC, the deal went 100% sour. By 100%, I mean the bank went from no issues at all with the deal, to not wanting to do the deal at all. We were stunned. Everything we were planning counted in this money. As I said, we had never even considered it wouldn’t be there.

Prologue

For almost 5 years, Harlingen Tx has been hitting my personal radar.

Harlingen Tx

“Least expensive place to live”, “Lowest cost of living”, Best place to retire” etc. Every time I started to look for something different, Harlingen kept coming up.

In November of 2016 we decided, what the heck, let’s go down there for a month and see what it’s really like. LOVED IT! It was just amazing to us. Water, warm, wonderful people, inexpensive, great roads, great medical care . . . what’s not to love?

We found a great Realtor, made an offer on some land, dickered, got it for more than $40k less than the asking price and closed before we left back to Fort Collins Colorado on the 31st of November.

A very busy month.