One man's trash is another man's treasure

so the old saying goes. I spent some of my afternoon sweating like a pig, crawling under junked cars, and scouring this auto salvage yard in order to get some parts for a car that my friend and I are repairing and selling.

This may seem like a silly thing for an engineer who works in an air conditioned office during the week to spend his Sunday afternoon doing but allow me to explain.

My buddy is an automotive technician who can do most any type of auto repair and his current job has him doing paint and body work. Apparently the used car business is pretty lucrative and he's wanted to start flipping cars for a few years but hasn't had even a couple thousand to put into the first car. He works with people who do this regularly for extra cash and he knows one person who made $400k in a year just fixing and selling cars that are slightly wrecked. So he approached me about starting something small and eventually maybe turning into our own repair shop / sales lot someday.

After doing some research, I found he was right and that one can make anywhere from $1k-2k profit off an older car like we're fixing now. With newer cars that are kind of banged up but the engine and transmission are still solid one can pay $3-6k for the wrecked car, put another thousand or two into it and make a few grand off that single car. It's a lot of work and you definitely have to have the technical skill to do the repairs as well as be able to find parts that don't come from a dealership or auto parts store.

That's what I was doing at the junk yard. I would use the term "sweat equity" that a friend mentioned as I was helping her out a bit at her new business to describe what I was doing today in that hot, humid, dirty place.

This is one of a couple of seedling businesses that I've started on recently and I have had a lot of fun doing it so far. It was hot and miserable and at one point I had to crawl under a car on gravel to get a part that I needed but honestly I feel happier doing this than I do when I'm at my big boy job sitting on my butt in front of a computer or playing the game of corporate politics which I hate doing.

I think this is so satisfying to me because I realize that my friend and I are the ones who will reap all the rewards of our hard work. I love that my friend and I will own the profits, losses, bad and good decisions 100%. His current boss works him to death and pays him squat and he's ready for a change as well even though it's gonna take some years to get going because we both work full time.

I'll hold off on pics of the car for now because I want to show the whole process and what the car looks like after we're done with it. So I spent my weekend on Steemit, running around a junk yard chasing parts, and also doing some menial stuff around the house. I didn't really give myself a day off this week just as I haven't really done much in the past month but I don't care. Full speed ahead. I consider steemit an investment and earn money doing this so it is also something I consider "working" even though I love doing it, just like I've enjoyed working to get this car fixed and ready to sell.

I'm dreaming of the day when I'll look back on all the extra work I did outside my regular job and think, "wow that was a great decision to put in those long hours week after week, month after month, etc." Who knows when that day will come but it's gonna happen. Now that my work is done for the day I'm gonna relax a bit with my wife and watch Game of Thrones.

Goodnight all.