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Hey y’all! I’m Michael from SE TN. I have been a listener to the podcast for about two years now. I binge listened to most of the episodes during the first few months of finding the site.
I’m a single 50 something dad of two grown boys, one who recently moved back home with me after getting his BS degree, and the other is married and lives in Louisiana.
After getting divorced almost 9 years ago, I have since been dating the love of my life, who was also my high school sweetheart. We’ve been together for the last six years. She lives approx 45 minutes away from me.
After my divorce, I moved to the countryside and now have a hobby farm of around 19 acres. I have yet to start the hobbying part, because I haven’t yet found the time.
About 18 months ago, I left the corporate world of 30 years, in order to pursue my dreams of picking and selling.
I have a huge inventory of industrial equipment and repair parts (approx 4K items) as well as three houses full of clothing, hard goods, tools, toys, etc., that I’ve been storing for the passed 8 years.
The biggest hurdle I face is not being able to get things researched, photographed, and listed (sound familiar???). But I’m eating the elephant one bite at a time, and chewing very slowly, using lots of steak sauce, but the meat has been very tough!
Leaving the 9-5 has allowed me to care for several family members that are in failing health. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I had stayed at my job.
I am debt free, so it doesn’t take much $$ to keep me up.
I really enjoy all of the information I am able to obtain here at Scavenger Life. It has helped me more than once in knowing how to handle situations with customer issues, how to handle the unknowledgeable eBay reps, as well as how to improve my listings.
Thanks J&R for gettin’er done!! -
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Hi, Michael.
Just finished a memoir called “The Dirty Life” which was written by a journalist-turned-organic farmer in upstate New York. It was so well-written that I was fully engaged from just about the first page. I’ve never had more respect for the work involved than I do after reading that book. Fascinating read, if you’re interested.
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Jay- I occasionally buy now and then, but only if it’s one of those once in a lifetime deals that I just can’t pass up. As for the farming, initially I wanted to start a truffle farm but I’ve since put that on the back burner. The financial commitment up front to prepare the land and purchase the truffle spore infused trees is over $20k per acre. It’s also not proven enough yet that truffles will be produced in my knock of the woods. I’ve also considered growing strawberries. The land was onced used for growing those back in the 1970’s. This region is known for producing high quality berries. My son studied solar energy as part of his degree and he is interested in starting a solar farm for generating electricity for our needs and selling back to TVA.
Terri- Thank you for the reading recommendation. I’ll definitely check it out.
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I’m starting to become jealous of the people on here with acres of land, outbuildings and farms! It sounds nice to have so much space.
Just curious…out of the inventory of 4k industrial items, plus the additional 3 houses of stuff: how many items are actually listed for sale?
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The biggest step a scavenger can make it moving to rural America. Land and homes are so cheap compared to urban areas. It’s easy to have enough land to spread out, have outbuildings etc.
Land in rural america is so cheap because there are few jobs, but since scavengers know how to make a living anywhere…it’s the perfect opportunity.
Trust me. We do not miss living inthe city one bit. It’s easy to take a city vacation for a week and remember why we hated it.
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The insane crush of humanity is getting me down. I live in what is considered one of the most suburban parts of my city, and just the effort to get back into the main part of the city by public transportation is soul-crushing. Tourists spill out into my neighborhood during busy touristy times because the city is just so full of them that they feel like they have no other choice. I see them taking selfies in front of the most inane places. I guess they feel like they are off-the-beaten trail explorers (I get it, I travelled in a similar fashion when I was younger).
Still, I’m over it. The places I’m interested in moving to have a few restaurants, a coffee shop, and a lot of local farmers stands. Small farms with a few acres for under a half million, or a few acres with a house and a few outbuildings for a quarter mil. I don’t need 500,000 restaurants to choose from on a daily basis, or constant theatre & museums that I don’t go to enough because I’m sick of all the tourists at them no matter what time of day or weekdays I try to go to them on as it is.
This is such an extreme decision that it will probably take 10 or so years to actually achieve, I won’t be as young anymore, and there are a million factors to fully consider, but I think it’s a good direction to be heading in. Learning how to drive in my 40s will be fun, too.
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I had to go into Washington DC this morning for an appointment. It’s just a meat grinder, even on a Saturday. US cities just have such poor public transportation, but also are nightmares to drive in. I am breathing calmly back in our little 5000 person town. (I did scavenger a wool rug valued at $600 and a truck load of free firewood.)
For $150,000, you could get a couple acres and decent house in our area. And as you said, $500,000 would buy you a big farm with a house and outbuildings.
The biggest obstacles are no jobs, lack of culture, and few choices to pair up.
–eBay solves the job problem.
–the internet solves the culture issue. Plus just learning to cook and enjoy the outdoors.
–and it’s best to move to a rural area with a partner. People in the country can be crazy.Jay
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Jay- If we do it, I’ll let you know.
Almasty- I have probably listed over 700 items total in the last year. I currently have 350 or so active right now. My store is about 70% industrial and 30% other items. I feel if I only focus on one income stream and not both, I could be losing revenue. My goal is to have a minimum of 1,000 items in my store by the end of the summer. -
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Not all rural areas have no culture. Just a lot less in general, but again, how often do I need to go do cultural things? The rural area where I live (sorry, not revealing where) has a number of fairly well endowed foundations that support lots of performing arts events in our area, as well as several movie theaters. In the summer there are more jazz and classical concerts than I have time to go to, and most feature top musicians from the nearest big city several hours away. Better they come to me than I have to go to the city! And there are also 2-3 very large rock and country music event weekends every summer if you like the “hordes of people” kind of thing. On the other hand, the picking here is not as cheap as it seems to be in Luray. My average COGS is much higher than $1, b/c there’s not much here for sale for just $1, except at infrequent rummage sales.
So it’s just a matter of research to find an area that fits your requirements.
There’s also the option of smaller and cheaper cities. I heard Lexington KY is supposed to be cool.
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True. Some rural areas have a lot of culture. Hudson Valley, Woodstock, etc. But these areas are not cheap either. Not all rural areas are inexpensive if they’re being used as second homes or have attracted companies that provide jobs.
Since you’re keeping your general location secret, all I can say is you picked a peach if your area is cheap and full of culture.
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