C40's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
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C40
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by C40 »

Augustus wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:49 pm
C40 seems, and I may be misinterpreting, bored.
I'd say I'm about 7/10 on the boredom/excitement scale (with 0 dead of boredom and 10 crazy excited). Last year I was at 8. So, I am less excited or more bored than before - but I'm not bored.

suomalainen
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by suomalainen »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 6:13 am
my peer with whom I was chatting differed from me in that she was dating with the serious purpose of "finding somebody who will marry and take care of me, because I already spent too many years taking care of everybody else"
Your friend is delusional if she thinks a man isn't going to want HER to take care of HIM (at least so says my late 50s female friend/colleague who recently remarried and regales me with tales of her marriage).

And @C40 - keep it up! Don't listen to these child-positive people! Else how can I continue to live through your adventures!?

Kriegsspiel
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by Kriegsspiel »

If she's still attractive and pleasant I don't think she'd be out of line...

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C40
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by C40 »

well, first off, it depends on what she means by "take care of".

7Wannabe5
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I think she did mean financially "take care of" in part, because she told me about her last date with a "dude" who just stared blankly into space when the waitress asked if dinner was one bill or two. She's very attractive, but she is one of those very nice bossy people who usually don't realize that they are even being bossy because they are so nice about it. If she could learn to be less bossy then she would probably have better luck attracting extremely aggressive control freaks who insist on paying for your coffee even though you already paid for it yourself, like the guys I date.

thrifty++
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by thrifty++ »

slowtraveler wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:25 am
Std testing is more than 99% effective in many cases. Condoms are just under 95% effective in the best cases. They don't protect against many stds including but not limited to hsv 1, hsv 2, molluscum contagiosum, hpv, lice, and syphilis. I've known people who've gotten HIV*, Chlamydia, and pregnant (different individuals for each situation) while using condoms.

Oraquick can also be taken with you anywhere if you can't wait a week but it only covers HIV.

*Condom broke in HIV case.
You can also take whats called "prep"now which prevents you getting HIV. I think HIV is going to die out into extinction in western countries at some point because of prep, so much caution towards using condoms and because as long as people know that have HIV they can take medicine to make themselves very unlikely to pass on any infection. But then there are other STDs to think about if your not using condoms. I think hepatitis is meant to be particularly nasty.

thrifty++
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by thrifty++ »

slowtraveler wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 1:21 am
Only in the ERE forums is somebody living in a van on under 10k/yr seen as seeking comfort.
Haha I was thinking exactly the same thing.

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C40
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by C40 »


--------------------------------------
JULY 2018
---------------------------------------



JULY SPENDING: $824

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FORWARD INCOME

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I got my yearly conversion from Traditional to Roth IRA done, finally. It was later than I’ll normally do. Most of the $10,300 that I converted was from dividends in the Traditional, so the purchases I made shortly after in my Roth with that money increased my income.

I have a lot of dividend-focused index funds in my Traditional IRA, and I want to convert most/all of those to individual stocks. That will get me another bump in income.




VAN FOR MOM
It’s coming along, slowly but surely. I only worked on it for about two weeks in July because I was out of town for a while helping my brother move.

The more recent progress can be seen here: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highl ... 132140457/ (you can use the arrow buttons (that appear when you move the mouse) to skip forward.

I will eventually share some better pictures here, but for now it’s just the quick and easy phone stuff.

As I go, I’ve been considering if I’d want to try doing van conversions for money. It’d be an option if/when I have a house where I could do the work. The more I do, the quicker they’d get. A lot of the time spent is figuring out how to do it, and is cutting pieces to size. Nearly all that time could be eliminated by only working on one van type and by saving templates.




FITNESS
Still going pretty well. I’m up to 162lbs. I’ve started having some issues, which tend to happen when I get stronger quickly. (A problem with a tendon getting inflamed, and a little shoulder issue). It’s harder for me to bulk up while doing a lot of physical work outside when it’s hot and humid. So, today I started cutting again and expect to go down to about 150lbs over the next 6 weeks.




PHOTOGRAPHY
I’ve started practicing portrait photography, expecting that I can shoot senior portraits, engagement/couples portraits, etc. in the future.

It’s easy to find good looking people on Instagram, Bumble, and Tinder who are happy to have me shoot them for free. So I can build up a portfolio as quick as I get around to shooting and editing them.

Looking at Craigslist, there are some people selling portrait shoots for really cheap ($75-100). I’d want at least double that. I believe acceptable prices scale fairly well with skill, and I am already better than those cheap ones.
Last edited by C40 on Thu Aug 02, 2018 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

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jennypenny
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by jennypenny »

C40 wrote:
Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:42 pm
As I go, I’ve been considering if I’d want to try doing van conversions for money. It’d be an option if/when I have a house where I could do the work. The more I do, the quicker they’d get. A lot of the time spent is figuring out how to do it, and is cutting pieces to size. Nearly all that time could be eliminated by only working on one van type and by saving templates.
If we convert our van after the last kid goes to college, I'd love for you to do the conversion.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by SavingWithBabies »

Have you thought at all about using vacuum infusion with foam, epoxy and fiberglass? That is often used in boat building and it can make some really light but strong structures. I guess if you go down this path far enough, you end up buying E450 vans and putting a fiberglass camper on them like the Lazy Daze class C RVs. But just using some of those techniques for interior pieces might work well. Upside is you could make molds (I think this is the wrong term but basically something to build the piece on top of -- not a two piece mold really -- maybe it's called a form?) and make the pieces and have them ready to go to install (if you went with specific brand/models).

Maybe too much to get started but it might be something interesting to look into down the line...

bryan
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by bryan »

Yeah, not a bad business idea. I've thought about van-centric businesses in the last few years but the closest I've come is checking out some real estate, leases for the HQ (Bay Area) and giving it a long think on whether or not I really want to put in so much time, effort to specific parts of the business. Others have definitely been thinking the same thing (kits): https://www.curbed.com/2018/8/1/1764047 ... t-for-sale

wheatstate
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by wheatstate »

C40 sounds like some neat business ideas.
Thanks, Bryan, for sharing the van kit article. That looks like an intriguing business.
I would be curious how a van conversion business numbers would look. The #vanlife hashtag people generally seem to be pretty thrifty with limited resources to spend. Would the buyer be a cash buyer or financing? Would the outfitted van be able to be appraised at a high enough value to be profitable? Maybe, you only need to identify a handful of good buyers.

One business model that I like is Hein. He is a mechanical engineer and bought a flat-bed, sheet 3d CNC milling machine. While building out his sprinter, he identified problems and designed solution parts. He now sells these in his ebay shop. His build is super cool with custom water heat exchanger with his radiator, custom water tanks below his van and fancy shower. He is also the dealer for selling 3m thinsulate to deaden car noise.

Hein's ebay shop: https://www.ebay.com/str/impactproducts
Hein's sprinter build: https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showt ... hp?t=27822

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C40
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by C40 »

C40 industries will soon be open for van orders. (well, sort of soon). Get your deposits ready :D :lol:

Gilberto de Piento
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by Gilberto de Piento »

I have a lot of dividend-focused index funds in my Traditional IRA, and I want to convert most/all of those to individual stocks. That will get me another bump in income.
Is this because the individual stocks have a higher yield than the stocks in the index funds or for some other reason? I am still trying to decide between a dividend index fund and individual dividend stocks.

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C40
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by C40 »

Gilberto de Piento wrote:
Thu Aug 16, 2018 11:09 am
Is this because the individual stocks have a higher yield than the stocks in the index funds or for some other reason? I am still trying to decide between a dividend index fund and individual dividend stocks.
Mainly higher yields. The index funds contain a lot of stocks with both low yields AND low growth rates. I do buy fairly low yields every now and then but it's only companies that look like they will make big dividend increases soon.

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C40
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by C40 »


--------------------------------------
AUGUST 2018
---------------------------------------


MONEY


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Got a $100 per year dividend raise from Altria. Thank you to all the tobacco addicts.

Things are looking pretty good for C40 industries:
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PROJECT MOM VAN

Ok, here are a bunch of pictures.

It’s a 2018 Dodge Ram Promaster 1500 with a pretty short wheelbase. The floor space inside is about the same as my van. You can see the vent fan and solar panel on top of the van here. I’m quite proud of how clean the top of the van looks. It could’ve been a bit more so if I used the thin and flexible solar panels, but I don’t like those (I think they fail much sooner)

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Installing the flooring. These are vinyl panels left over from my mom’s house.

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And here I’ve started on the ceiling. I put those green bubble wrap pieces in first to fill the higher ribs, and then put some solid foam insulation panels under that.

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Wires for the lights:
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It’s tricky to attach these ceiling panels. Here you can see some a wood piece I added to screw the ceiling panel into (into the bottom surface of the wood)

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Mom wanted the bed to not be particularly high (there’s a trade off between having a high bed vs having a lot of storage space under the bed)
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Ceiling panels and vent fan all in:. You can also see the start of the frame along the wall for mounting the upper cabinets
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These are a certain shape in order to fit in the horizontal ribs and have a vertical surface for mounting cabinets
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And here I’ve added boards for mounting the lower cabinets and the walls. This is tricky to get a vertical surface to mount the cabinets to and to have the wall match up with the top/back of the counter (that’s mainly what those vertical boards are for, more for positioning than support)
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The vertical boards slope inward going down. At the height of the counter, they are directly above the cabinet mounting boards
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Installing the wall panels:
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Top cabinets were next:
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And then the fridge. There is storage room under and behind the fridge. This is the only right way to position one of these kind of refridgerators. Some people put them on the floor (too much bending over) or on a drawer/slider (too annoying to have to move the fridge whenever you want to get in). The tricky part in this is having room for the vents to function, the power cord, and access to the display and control buttons.

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The storage compartments ended up being shaped a little oddly, but they work out alright. The bottom one ends up particularly good, which you’ll see some of in a future post.



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Getting the lower cabinet and drawers ready to install.

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They went in really easily. It took me a LOT of time to get those wall mounting boards positioned right and installed, but they worked out great when it came time to install the cabinets. We used mostly drawers instead of cabinets because they are easier to access. The annoying part is that the volume inside the drawer compartments is actually way less than the total volume of the outside frame. I never noticed how inefficiently drawer space is designed until I got and installed these things.

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Here are the holes for the side fridge vents, the power cord access, and the display and button access.
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With a backsplash installed. The lights on the ceiling are also in. They are LED strips just like in my van. There is one covering each of the white trim boards on the ceiling. They blend in very well with the trim boards.
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Staining wood for counter/table surfaces. We originally bought a manufactured countertop, but decided to return it and get these wood boards. They are not butcher block, but rather “laminate project boards” or something like that. They’re way cheaper - like $35 for the biggest one we used for the counter (which is on the right in this picture). Mom’s staining process is shown from right to left. She was going for a sort of aged sun bleached driftwood look that matches up with the wall panels and floor.

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The counter top. I screwed another board into the back of the wood piece.
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So, what’s left is: (half of these are actually done already, but aren’t shown in the pictures yet)
  • Install counter top
  • Finish the storage boxed below and behind fridge
  • Install the desk/table
  • Install electrical system
  • Build water bottle holder
  • Insulate and add wood panels to (parts of) the side and rear doors
  • Make window covers for the rear doors
  • make/install a curtain to block off the front of the van
  • Do a bunch of little things and finishing touches





INSTAGRAM STORIES:
These are mostly short video clips I’ve shot on my phone throughout the build:

(you can use the arrow buttons (that appear when you move the mouse) to skip forward.

First group:
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highl ... 066174684/

Second group:
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highl ... 132140457/

Third group
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highl ... 151300541/

7Wannabe5
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Very nice! If you do decide to go into the business, I might be able to direct a couple buyers your way. (Unfortunately, not me, unless you offer a super-budget, rust and milk crates version.)

daylen
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by daylen »

Impressive work!

wolf
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by wolf »

Great work C40! Thank you for the pics. Vantraveling is on my list of adventures I'd like to do/try in the future.

How many hours of work did it take?

There are also many RVs in the states. What are the biggest advantages of Vantraveling vs. RV in your opinion? Size/customization/etc...

SavingWithBabies
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Re: C40's Journal

Post by SavingWithBabies »

That is awesome!

Looking at the approach, vacuum infusion fiberglass would slow you way down I think. Maybe at some point, it would be more efficient but it would be way down the line so I think you can safely ignore that suggestion :). I've just had it on the brain.

Is the backsplash plastic? And where is it from? It looks good. And I like your mom's approach to staining to match.

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