[QUOTE] In 1959, J. J. (Jack) Luna sold his outdoor advertising business in the Upper Midwest and moved with his wife and small children to the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa. Outwardly, he was a professional writer and photographer. Secretly, he worked underground in an activity that was at that time illegal under the regime of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
In 1970 Franco, yielding to intense pressure from the western world, moderated Spain's laws, leaving Luna free to come in from the cold. By that time, however, privacy had become an ingrained habit. In the years that followed he started up various low-profile businesses, built them up and then sold them.
He is currently an international consultant specializing in personal privacy and security. He usually meets with individual clients or small groups in Las Vegas, Nevada.
LIVING WELL ON PRACTICALLY NOTHING
by EDWARD H. ROMNEYA frugal, tightwad, money-saving resource for independent living, survival and financial independence. Move to the country. find a new job, a new career or retire comfortably on very little money.
Maybe you have lost your job... Maybe you want to move to a nice, safe country place where you can't earn as much money as you did in the city. Maybe you are unable to live in comfort on your retirement income because your stocks and bonds now only earn 2% or 3% compared to the 5% to 12% they once earned. Maybe you want to live on one salary so the wife can bring up the kids at home and maybe home school them too. This book will help you with all your problems.
You can live on very little money if you know where to relocate to live cheaply ...and you know how to save money.
Good low cost locations to live: Rural North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama are some low cost places to live. Northern Maine, away from the seacoast, is good, if you like a cold climate. So is rural western Pennsylvania. In the Southwest, New Mexico is very low cost, and a beautiful, friendly place.
What you will find in the country...
Houses for $40,000 or less, land for as low as $1000 an acre, rents for 2 bedroom apartments $250 to $400/mo. Housing can be even cheaper if you build your own log cabin, A-frame, or refurbish an old trailer or abandoned house. Food is good and low cost from local farms; you can raise a garden; there are excellent flea markets and thrift shops to buy most anything. In New Mexico you can cross the border to get huge discounts on prescription medicine, eyeglasses, medical and dental care, auto body work, and upholstery in Mexico.
How to Get the Money to Move: Sell your expensive northern suburban house for $250,000 to $500,000. Buy your rural country home for $40,000 or less. Invest the difference wisely or use it to start a small business.
How to earn a living in the country...
Here are a few good businesses you can start for very little money...
1. Rent a power paint sprayer and paint houses for people. Hire temporary workers as needed from people hanging around outside the employment office. Have the homeowner buy paint in advance so you will not be out your own money. Should earn $150/day or more.
2. Become an antique dealer, deal in collectibles or flea market items. It is fairly common to buy an item locally for $10 and sell it for $200 at a trade fair, or on the internet. I've done this. My book tells you how. Many antique traders have become millionaires.
3. Tutor kids, help them learn to read, help people learn to work their computers. Design their web pages. Sell things for them on the internet.
4. You might learn welding at a community college. Mount a welding machine on an old pickup truck and go around welding all sorts of things. Should be possible with an investment of no more than $6000. Quite lucrative. Better paying than many jobs requiring a college degree.
5. Fix up an old step van or motor home to sell hot-dogs, hamburgers and ice cream at flea markets, county fairs and other events.
*************************************************
Here's how to get money enough to start a larger business...Both you and your wife work but you live on only one salary and bank the rest of the money. In two or three years you should have saved $50,000 or more, which is enough to start a small farm, a restaurant, a print shop, a used car lot, or a video rental place... or many other good businesses. People become millionaires this way. All it takes is willpower.
My son started this pallet business on an investment of $2000. Using retained earnings, he built this large factory after only 12 years. Many success stories like this are in my book.
Real Success Secrets: The secrets of successful people are closely held by old families with money. They are passed down from generation to generation. You will not learn them in college. Very seldom do you find them in books or articles. Why am I telling them in my book???? Because I am worried about our nation's future... There are too few people these days who are business or investment oriented for our society to continue to be successful. I am satisfied with what I have, and I have no fear of competition. So I have told all I know.
Consumer Mentality: Most people, you know, have "consumer mentality". They cannot resist advertising. They spend every bit of money they make...no matter how high their salary...often buying the most ridiculous luxuries, big powerful boats, SUV's, trading often, filling their closets with clothes and shoes they never wear. They consider money as something like ice that they must dispose of fast.
Investment Mentality: People with investment mentality, on the other hand, value their capital, their net worth the highest... Their prize possessions are things that earn money--like a Caterpillar tractor, a digital copier, a restaurant, a fine stock portfolio, or a bed and breakfast. Theirs is a different world, one you would enjoy joining...
How can you save money and live on very little? Here are some ways.
1. Avoid all debt. This is most important of all. Debts are for losers-- except in rare cases, for example, starting a business you know will be successful, or going to medical school.
2. Buy clothes, appliances and most items second hand in flea markets and thrift shops. We show you how in the book.
3. Raise food in a home garden, buy in farmers' markets and flea markets. Use economical foods like powdered milk, oatmeal and dried lima beans. Avoid frozen foods and convenience foods. Go hunting and get a deer or an antelope. Keep it in your freezer and it will give you meat for months.
4. Minimize your transportation cost. Live close to work. Ride a small used motorcycle or bicycle, or walk. Or drive a ten or fifteen year old used car bought very cheaply and maintain it yourself. We tell how in the book. Cars can last as long as 60 years or 600,000 miles if well cared for. They don't rust out in the Sunbelt.
5. Don't feel a college education is essential for yourself or your family. The brightest and most successful man I know personally, an inventor, never went to college. I, myself, learned much more studying on my own than I ever learned from a professor. It may be better to put the $25000-$35000 a year that a college education costs into starting a small business instead.
6. If you invest money, do not listen to brokers and financial publications whose advice is usually self-serving. Mutual funds are risky. Even if you have as little as $15,000 to invest, buy several good dividend-paying common stocks such as telephone companies, power companies, oils, strong industrials (such as GE) major banks and KEEP THEM through good times and bad! Old families kept good stocks for generations. Traders usually lose everything.
*************************************************
When you move to the country you will enter a different and more friendly lifestyle. Learn to enjoy nice social activities there- clubs like the Moose and the Grange. Go to the many local dinners, festivities, fairs, rodeos, square dances, auctions, and car races. It is great fun and quite economical. My book will show you how to get along with rural people, and really BECOME a country person.
How Do I Know All This Stuff? Dad lost his money in 1929, and we were very poor in the Depression. I was a small boy then. As an adult, I worked in a variety of middle level jobs in government and academia and also moonlighted as an antique dealer for many years. I've lived in rural areas most of my life. I worked in Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" for a time in the 1960's . I got to know the poor and realized that federal programs were NOT the solution. In 1969, I quit my regular job and have been self-employed ever since. I wrote the first "Living Well" book in 1992 and it has had a very good sale. The latest greatly expanded Living Well on Practically Nothing book was finished in 2001.
In 1970 Franco, yielding to intense pressure from the western world, moderated Spain's laws, leaving Luna free to come in from the cold. By that time, however, privacy had become an ingrained habit. In the years that followed he started up various low-profile businesses, built them up and then sold them.
He is currently an international consultant specializing in personal privacy and security. He usually meets with individual clients or small groups in Las Vegas, Nevada.
LIVING WELL ON PRACTICALLY NOTHING
by EDWARD H. ROMNEYA frugal, tightwad, money-saving resource for independent living, survival and financial independence. Move to the country. find a new job, a new career or retire comfortably on very little money.
Maybe you have lost your job... Maybe you want to move to a nice, safe country place where you can't earn as much money as you did in the city. Maybe you are unable to live in comfort on your retirement income because your stocks and bonds now only earn 2% or 3% compared to the 5% to 12% they once earned. Maybe you want to live on one salary so the wife can bring up the kids at home and maybe home school them too. This book will help you with all your problems.
You can live on very little money if you know where to relocate to live cheaply ...and you know how to save money.
Good low cost locations to live: Rural North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama are some low cost places to live. Northern Maine, away from the seacoast, is good, if you like a cold climate. So is rural western Pennsylvania. In the Southwest, New Mexico is very low cost, and a beautiful, friendly place.
What you will find in the country...
Houses for $40,000 or less, land for as low as $1000 an acre, rents for 2 bedroom apartments $250 to $400/mo. Housing can be even cheaper if you build your own log cabin, A-frame, or refurbish an old trailer or abandoned house. Food is good and low cost from local farms; you can raise a garden; there are excellent flea markets and thrift shops to buy most anything. In New Mexico you can cross the border to get huge discounts on prescription medicine, eyeglasses, medical and dental care, auto body work, and upholstery in Mexico.
How to Get the Money to Move: Sell your expensive northern suburban house for $250,000 to $500,000. Buy your rural country home for $40,000 or less. Invest the difference wisely or use it to start a small business.
How to earn a living in the country...
Here are a few good businesses you can start for very little money...
1. Rent a power paint sprayer and paint houses for people. Hire temporary workers as needed from people hanging around outside the employment office. Have the homeowner buy paint in advance so you will not be out your own money. Should earn $150/day or more.
2. Become an antique dealer, deal in collectibles or flea market items. It is fairly common to buy an item locally for $10 and sell it for $200 at a trade fair, or on the internet. I've done this. My book tells you how. Many antique traders have become millionaires.
3. Tutor kids, help them learn to read, help people learn to work their computers. Design their web pages. Sell things for them on the internet.
4. You might learn welding at a community college. Mount a welding machine on an old pickup truck and go around welding all sorts of things. Should be possible with an investment of no more than $6000. Quite lucrative. Better paying than many jobs requiring a college degree.
5. Fix up an old step van or motor home to sell hot-dogs, hamburgers and ice cream at flea markets, county fairs and other events.
*************************************************
Here's how to get money enough to start a larger business...Both you and your wife work but you live on only one salary and bank the rest of the money. In two or three years you should have saved $50,000 or more, which is enough to start a small farm, a restaurant, a print shop, a used car lot, or a video rental place... or many other good businesses. People become millionaires this way. All it takes is willpower.
My son started this pallet business on an investment of $2000. Using retained earnings, he built this large factory after only 12 years. Many success stories like this are in my book.
Real Success Secrets: The secrets of successful people are closely held by old families with money. They are passed down from generation to generation. You will not learn them in college. Very seldom do you find them in books or articles. Why am I telling them in my book???? Because I am worried about our nation's future... There are too few people these days who are business or investment oriented for our society to continue to be successful. I am satisfied with what I have, and I have no fear of competition. So I have told all I know.
Consumer Mentality: Most people, you know, have "consumer mentality". They cannot resist advertising. They spend every bit of money they make...no matter how high their salary...often buying the most ridiculous luxuries, big powerful boats, SUV's, trading often, filling their closets with clothes and shoes they never wear. They consider money as something like ice that they must dispose of fast.
Investment Mentality: People with investment mentality, on the other hand, value their capital, their net worth the highest... Their prize possessions are things that earn money--like a Caterpillar tractor, a digital copier, a restaurant, a fine stock portfolio, or a bed and breakfast. Theirs is a different world, one you would enjoy joining...
How can you save money and live on very little? Here are some ways.
1. Avoid all debt. This is most important of all. Debts are for losers-- except in rare cases, for example, starting a business you know will be successful, or going to medical school.
2. Buy clothes, appliances and most items second hand in flea markets and thrift shops. We show you how in the book.
3. Raise food in a home garden, buy in farmers' markets and flea markets. Use economical foods like powdered milk, oatmeal and dried lima beans. Avoid frozen foods and convenience foods. Go hunting and get a deer or an antelope. Keep it in your freezer and it will give you meat for months.
4. Minimize your transportation cost. Live close to work. Ride a small used motorcycle or bicycle, or walk. Or drive a ten or fifteen year old used car bought very cheaply and maintain it yourself. We tell how in the book. Cars can last as long as 60 years or 600,000 miles if well cared for. They don't rust out in the Sunbelt.
5. Don't feel a college education is essential for yourself or your family. The brightest and most successful man I know personally, an inventor, never went to college. I, myself, learned much more studying on my own than I ever learned from a professor. It may be better to put the $25000-$35000 a year that a college education costs into starting a small business instead.
6. If you invest money, do not listen to brokers and financial publications whose advice is usually self-serving. Mutual funds are risky. Even if you have as little as $15,000 to invest, buy several good dividend-paying common stocks such as telephone companies, power companies, oils, strong industrials (such as GE) major banks and KEEP THEM through good times and bad! Old families kept good stocks for generations. Traders usually lose everything.
*************************************************
When you move to the country you will enter a different and more friendly lifestyle. Learn to enjoy nice social activities there- clubs like the Moose and the Grange. Go to the many local dinners, festivities, fairs, rodeos, square dances, auctions, and car races. It is great fun and quite economical. My book will show you how to get along with rural people, and really BECOME a country person.
How Do I Know All This Stuff? Dad lost his money in 1929, and we were very poor in the Depression. I was a small boy then. As an adult, I worked in a variety of middle level jobs in government and academia and also moonlighted as an antique dealer for many years. I've lived in rural areas most of my life. I worked in Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" for a time in the 1960's . I got to know the poor and realized that federal programs were NOT the solution. In 1969, I quit my regular job and have been self-employed ever since. I wrote the first "Living Well" book in 1992 and it has had a very good sale. The latest greatly expanded Living Well on Practically Nothing book was finished in 2001.
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