Features But I just fed my kids yesterday... and now they're hungry again

Until I retired 3 years ago, I was an electrician. I used to have an agreement with my wife that my cars and collecting hobbies would be funded by OT, or scrap funds, and never touched the household budget. With 5 kids at home it was a challenge to keep a car build going, or collect anything, even with the OT and scrap wire! But I managed, and nobody went without.
Now after all the kids are long gone, and it's just the two of us; I have no OT or scrap, but we've got more disposable income, and much of what I collected has been gradually sold to fund more car projects! I spend most days fiddling with one of my three cars, or helping friends with theirs. It's a blast being retired and finally getting to do what I love full time!

 

kinda like theHighlander suggested, I flip cars. NEW cars. nothing older than year 2000. I research the shit out of my market so I know what will move quickly, usually within a couple weeks, and what I should avoid. I also know NOW is a bad time to do this, too close to Christmas.
tax season is right around the corner though, and that's the hot market for this kinda thing!
it's easier than you'd think...

 

I will do side work for people. Mostly auto body or light repair work. I flip parts and cars also. Latest score was $80 worth of 87-97 ford pickup new take off trim. Sold 850 bucks of trim so far and I still have tons of the stuff. I'm always watching for good deals that could be flipped. My suggestion is watch the areas your knowledgable on.

I also don't have any car payments on my daily drivers. (2003 & 2004). We're running them till they puke. Having an extra 500-700 around the house that may otherwise have gone for car payments allows a lot of money for the hobby.

 

A friend of mine buys totaled cars and parts them out on CL, eBay and local swaps. He does well with full size trucks, porsches and some ricers -- though I forget which ones.

 

D-I-V-O-R-C-E! ... Now it's All the extra money and all My time!

 

I use swap meets to buy/resell hotrod and old ford parts. I also have a deal worked out with my bodyman to do all his mechanical work [he has many projects] in exchange for his bodywork.

 

see, that's what I've always admired about car clubs and some of the tighter-knit hot rod communities, they help each other out like that.
that kinda thing is HUGE with the lowrider crowd.

 

I hear ya I am saving up to send my 1956 buick station wagon radiator to the shop to get it boiled out.Bruce.

 

The shop I work at let's you cash in vacation and sick days. I've been there going on 19 years. I get three weeks vacation and five sick days a year. I'm one of those boring kind of guys. I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, never even had a cup of coffee. I never call in sick and hardly ever take days off. Few years ago I cashed in four weeks vacation, that paid for the rebuild for the flatty in my Shoebox. View attachment 2074423 View attachment 2074424
Couple weeks ago I cashed in two more weeks and got me these for my Model A. View attachment 2074425

Its kind of like free money.


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I stopped at a McDonalds because my mom was craving one. I couldn't believe what a freakin' Big Mac meal was costing. There are TONS of ways to cut expenses. STOP spending money on bullshit.

 

stopping spending money on useless crap is good advice, hanging around rich hotrodders that build show ponys is always good too, they turf some real good old stuff, and youre doing them a favour by removin it so there sheds dont get cluttered up with junk.

 

Like some have said on here, cut back on your habits. Some times its not only good for the hot rod fund, but also good for your health. For example if you smoke, cut back or stop. Not only to you save on. Cigarettes, but your lungs. Do you drink? Cut back on that too. Eat out a lot for your lunch break? Cut back on that too. Shit that's like 8-10 bucks a day for eating out.
Another thing you could do is set a budget for yourself and if you don't use all of your budget, keep the left over for the hot rod fund. For example set 10bucks as your daily lunch budget. On a normal work week that's 5days, that's a $50budget. Lets say 2 days out of the week you take lunch from home that's 20bucks. Now lets also say the other 3 days you eat off the dollar menu and spend only 5bucks a day so that's 15bucks. Now you add up the left over money that 35 bucks a week more to the hot rod fund! Not only do you got a little extra hot rod money, you might also loose a few pounds too while your at it.
The possibilities are endless!!!!!

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You gotta get your hustle on....

within the last year or so...

bought a 1998 Honda CRV 130k broken timing belt. purchased $400 + $260 in parts. sold for $4000 in a few days after fixing. 1999 integra Free for picking up. Broken timing belt. $200 in parts sold for $2800 days after fixing. 2000 honda civic bought for $350, with a dead battery. sold for $3600,Sold same day. Vintage metal flake wheel.bought $20, sold $100. 1966 ford van bought for 700. spent 2000 getting running and driving, sold $5000 and still working on it for the new owners. 1987 Bmw bought $300 sold for $1000 in a few days. Bought a wrecked 2006 civc for $1400, spent another $2000K fixing it. Sold for $6500. 1998 Nissan altima bought with "bad transmission." for $20. spent $80 fixing. Sold for $3000. 1987 S10, free. applied for lost title. Sold for $1000.

I could go on and on and on.

 

me and my son turned into weekend scrappers,,, we scrap anything we can find and also garbage pick stuff for the flee market as we' re scrapping,,, it has paid for our habit for damn near 5 years now

 

I declared myself an impoverished third world country that dislikes America and waited for the billions to roll in..................


I'm thinking I may have missed a step somewhere........

 

A man I know has an office building he is remodeling and gave me 6 rooftop HVAC units. I took them apart and scrapped them. one load so far paid $750.00, still have more to haul but the biggest payoff was the aluminum and copper coils. not bad for a day and a half work.

 

I work on other people's hot rods, buy sell, scrap what ever I can do to make an extra buck but NO ONE is gonna take away my Micky D's!!! LOL I only use my side work money to fund my junk.....guess thats why it takes me so long to build one, that and I have too much junk to keep it all runing. My wife says I'm a car "hoarder"???? WTF

 

My 40 ford came with enough flathead garbage that I've been selling it off piece by piece, and I made enough to buy a SBC. I've also bought many other parts by selling off stuff laying in the yard.

Also, I scan Craigslist for cheap stuff. Last year I bought a complete 56 Cad bumper/grille assembly for $50. I sold it on ebay for $350. That month it helped pay the electric bill because I was out of work.

Most car guys have enough parts laying around that turning them into cash can help a project along.

 

I've never had money to buy fancy shit anyway so it's no different for me. If it's not at the junk yard for $15 then I can't afford it.

The best way that I've found to support my car habit is to never get the Wife, Girlfriend and kids like most guys do. Such a waste of time and car parts money in my opinion.

 

No kids.
No wife.
No Girlfriend.
I live in my shop buy everything either cheap or used. Aside from the basics to survive it's all money for my toys.

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And here's a guy that gets it! I'm with you man.

 

^^ Yes Sir! 2,400 sq ft shop space with an additional 320sq ft office converted to a studio apt. 28 yrs old.

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You're missing out fellas, cars don't love ya back. Having a family was the smartest thing I ever did... but it's not for the faint of heart.

 

I did the family thing for a while with step kids and all that, it's just not for me. People always say that "It's different when they're your own" but I've always hated kids and can't stand them so I don't see it being any different whether they are mine or not.

As far as loving you back, cars may not love you back, but at least they don't stab your back like women do. I see where you're coming from, but there are equal arguments for both sides I think.

 

^^ Not missing out at all. Two younger brothers, five younger sisters, two nephews, and four nieces! I'm content being the kool older brother and Uncle!

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I was the same way I couldn't stand kids, even family members kids. But it is totally different when they are your own. My son is now 4 years old and he is the best thing to ever happen to me. I wouldn't trade him for anything. Don't get me wrong I still can't stand other people's kids. I still want to duct tape my wife's sisters kids heads together and throw firecrackers at them.









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You did, but it gets messy. You have to start a war or conflict with the US of A. Then, you have to lose or call a tie. Then, America will fund your rebuild and let your people come here and prosper.

 

Originally Posted by Fugly
"I declared myself


I'm thinking I may have missed a step somewhere........"

Originally Posted by tfeverfred
"You did, but it gets messy. You have to start a war or conflict with the US of A. Then, you have to lose or call a tie. Then, America will fund your rebuild and let your people come here and prosper."

Hope this isn't to political, but I worry that if we wait a few years, we all will be living in an impoverished third world country that dislikes America and waited for the Chinese billions to roll in..................

 

I've built a few off topic Jeep rock crawlers. First one, I was deep into it from direction changes i took and the day it was totaled it still wasn't anywhere what it "should" of been for the $$$$ I was into it for. The jeep I built as it's replacement, pennies into it when compared to the first and it was a significantly better/nicer rig. What was different, I put in my dues during the first build to learn that I need to stick w/one vision of what i want else it will get expensive quick. The 2nd, I put in enough time helping freinds and strangers both that when it came time to needing help with various aspects of the build I had lots of folk paying it forward for the help I had given others over the years. Mind you it took me 2.5yrs to build the 2nd rig,

Short, money will always be an issue but the time you take to help out others can come back to payoff big. I put time into helping others sacrificing that time when I could of been working on mine. In the end, I've learned more then I could on my own and I have friends willing to jump at the moment to help me out if/when needed, with both time and parts, still paying off as I'm back into old cars.