Crushed by financial meltdown, ripped off by financial advisers

When you are over 50 and you’ve been crushed by the financial meltdown, and ripped off by your financial advisers, what do you do?

Well, if you are like Chuck and Barbara Stout, you end up living in a $500 RV that leaks, is cold and damp, then working as menial temps for Amazon (during peak season, ie, Christmastime) for minimum wage in terrible workplace conditions. The rest of the year, you squat your RV illegally on public lands so you don’t have to pay an overnight campground any land rent.

The fastest growing segment of impoverished people are made up of elders; especially ones who once lived in communities where there is basically little to no residual in their homes because either the suburban spaces where they lived are fundamentally unsustainable no-places or their hometowns look and behave like Detroit or both.

Here’s a note I sent to a friend of mine who is trying to buy an RV park. 

It’s about how to animate his newest acquisition to benefit not only the ownership but his clients too in what I call a 2-D (two dimensional) business model, one where you look at least at two layers on one, two or three sides of your model (supply side, demand side and marketing dimension).

I’ve changed their names by the way: 

Ben, I had trouble sleeping last night so I
read this wired.com article. It’s long but worth it IMHO. 

If you and Shelby do buy that RV park,
it’s highly relevant I believe. 

The fastest growing impoverished segment of our
population are elders… so as part of your animation strategy, you may want to
not only think about how to boost your revenues, but also the income earning
potential of your tenants/clients/renters… 

In other words, if you make your
tenants/clients/renters more successful, you, as their landlord, will be more
successful too. 

I can think of a number of ways you could do that—like helping
them rent their places on Airbnb when they are not there, teaching them how to
create PB4Ls (that’s what I call personal businesses for life) and other ideas.

It’ll help differentiate your park from others as well and give it a mission
so to speak.

It’s also heart-wrenching story. Here’s a tweet I sent out about it:

Dr Bruce M
Firestone‏ @ProfBruce

Ripped off by financial advisers

Crushed by meltdown

Living full time in RV

Working for min wage

https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic-retiree-army/ …

#happyretirement

Best, Bruce

This is why I got into real estate investment and business coaching; so my clients won’t end up like Chuck and Barb. Their story isn’t much different than what happened to California migrant workers George Milton and Lennie Small

in John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella, Of Mice and Men; here’s a quote from that work:

“I seen hundreds of men come by on the road an’ on the ranches, with their bindles on their back an’ that same damn thing in their heads … every damn one of ’em’s got a little piece of land in his head. An’ never a God damn one of ’em ever gets it. Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land,” Crooks, the educated, black

stable-hand whose name derives from his crooked back

Bruce M Firestone, B Eng (civil), M Eng-Sci, PhD, ROYAL LePAGE Performance Realty broker, Ottawa Senators founder, Real Estate Investment and Business coach 1-613-762-8884 bruce.firestone@century21.ca twitter.com/ProfBruce profbruce.tumblr.com/archive brucemfirestone.com

MAKING IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE

postscript: a bindle is bedding carried by a hobo on his or her back…