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We left stable jobs in Michigan and moved to California with no jobs and no prospects.
We had a strong work ethic and soon settled in with jobs.
Saved enough $ in three years to buy a starter home. Of course, houses were not pricey back then. Our starter cost all of $30,000. Worth over a mil today. Wish we still owned it. We sold it in two years for $79,000. A good ROI.
Moved to NC without knowing anyone and that worked out, too.
Started a drafting business in '81. That was prior to AutoCAD so it wasn't all that expensive to start, really. A small office (I think it used to be a janitor's closet, but it had a small window and A/C unit), built a drafting table, bought a chair at a yard sale, couple of lamps, furnished out the rest of the small space with bookshelves, a file cabinet and a small fridge, all pretty much from yard sales. I'd had an hourly job doing mechanical drafting and had been working nights at home doing drafting for some other small companies so there were already clients in place when the business started so I guess it wasn't really 'betting the farm'. It was more like 'starting a farm'.
A business license was $15 and the monthly rent & phone came up to less than $120 so it wasn't all that much to start. Most of the scary part of no longer getting a dependable paycheck, but I'd had several month's worth of expenses saved up so if it fell flat, I'd be able to go find another job before running out of food.
Still have the business although it's back to just me and no more employees. I only had several other employees at any one particular time, though, so it never got to be a huge business.
A couple of times for me. First time I was working for a surveying company. I remember driving home one night, probably in the fall. It was cold and rainy. I stopped at a red light and saw a crew of men digging around some kind of utility next to the road. I remember thinking, “I don’t want to be doing something like that when I’m 40.” I managed to save enough money to go back to school and get a degree. I recall eating a lot of rice and bananas for a while.
The second time involved a similar theme, back to school again, but this time deeper in debt. Somehow it all worked out and I’ll be retired in a handful of years. Who knows, maybe I’ll be headed back to school again.
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