A decision made at 17 to retire in my 40s

Because it’s different. It’s different depending on the context every time. Yeah. How I make decisions. But almost, I’m very objective and it’s almost always mathematical. Oh, well then, because I was pretty successful at business, then I retired at 44. And I’ve not worked since. Just traveled. And I have a lake cabin at a lake and I just live there and I travel because these are the two things that give me pleasure. Working didn’t give me pleasure. So I had a set amount that I needed to earn, and when I got that, I just stopped. Oh, yeah, from 17. That was the goal.

You had a plan from 17?

It was just mathematical. It seemed like math. It was doable, quite easily.

No, I grew up on a farm until I was 17, so it was mostly running around and catching animals and killing them and dissecting them and just learning. I was usually just all by myself and just growing up in the bushes. The nearest neighbor was 18 miles away. So if I made the wrong decision, I learned very quickly. I didn’t do that again.

And again, at that point, I didn’t have a decision. It was just do it or get punished, right? For no money.

Until 11, I could do whatever I wanted except at school, whatever. And then, I just drove tractor till 17. Then I went to university and I never went back. I just did everything mathematically after that because there was no money. I only went after money.

The family wanted me to go into agriculture, but I went into business instead. When I first started at 17, 18, interest rates were 18%. On the first house I bought, the mortgage was 18%, but the house only cost $40,000. I just sold that house for over $400,000 now, so.

I buy the most boring, guaranteed return on investment things I can get, and I believe… I guess my decisions are, if I’m making money, I’m not losing money. And I just buy things and forget about them. I just buy super boring things. And a lot of them are very, very old companies, you know, and they were loopy, going down and down and down. For more than 10 years, they just kept going down. But do you know what? A lot of these companies are connected to the war machine. And just in the last month, they’ve gone up five, six hundred percent. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Like, General Electric and some of these really old-fashioned companies that have patents on guns and planes and stuff that are making ridiculous money out of this horrible thing.

So, just don’t be greedy, I think, that’s a way to do it. I never owned a credit card by choice. I felt a credit card was something that allowed you to buy things you can’t afford. And I only just got a credit card before this trip because I needed it. My wife had a credit card so we could get hotel rooms, but I needed it to come here and have a hotel room. Almost 65, and I just now have got a credit card, and I hate it. Unless I’m totally forced to use it, otherwise, I’d just spend cash.

I retired, and my returns on investment were far more than, exceeded anything I needed because it costs almost nothing to live at this lake and travel was – was – very cheap. The last three years, since COVID, it’s become [bleep]. Everybody wants to bucket list their travel. All these, just so many wheelchairs on the plane. It’s too late for them, but they’re driving up the prices of everything and traveling and doing their bucket lists now. And you can see like, oh my god like, what a waste of time. It’s like torturing yourself to try and travel, you can’t even walk anymore and you’re trying to travel, so. It’s causing, I would say prices have tripled, certainly in Mexico the last three three years since COVID.

I feel, Mexican people don’t like it, either. Nobody likes it. We blame Americans and then they blame a lot of Canadians who are buying real estate here.

Oh, I have a cabin at a lake and I live there every year in the summertime. And we used to do boating and sports and wake ski, wakeboarding and all that fun sea-doos and all that stuff. It’s mostly a lot of relaxing. I wish I had done it sooner.

Well, again, back when I was pretty wild, before 11, it was mostly hedonism. If it was pleasure, if it was a pleasurable thing, I would do it again. And if it was painful, I would not do it again. And that’s been pretty consistent through my life. And generally, money felt better, made things more fun. But I didn’t abide by traditions or things that people said you should do because it’s fun or something like that, because it was either fun or it wasn’t for me. And if it was fun, I did it. And if it wasn’t, I didn’t do it.