Well, you're a homeowner at twenty two with artist sweat equity and what was
the opportunity cost? Well, if your opportunity costs is college, you're going
into debt. You're not making money, You're losing money. You're listening to
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welcome. You are listening to watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host,
Carrie lets Well, one of my favorite guests from way back when is
with us now. You know we talk about getting off the grid, well,
maybe getting off the emotional grid, getting off of the societal support grid,
the validation there's a lot of other grids out there, and we're going
to talk about how you do it. Aaron Clary, aka Captain Capitalism is
with us now. Aaron, great to have you back. So Hey,
we were talking prequel. Do you think one of the best ways to get
off the grid is just to build your own home. Right. Yeah,
Now, I built a home out here in South Dakota. I didn't build
it necessarily myself. I did a lot of the trim work and all that,
so I had someone else pay for it. But because the tradesmen are
of such poor quality, not just here in South Dakota but generally the nation,
a lot of people I know are having to do a lot of their
own carpentry and home repairs and things like that. And I am no Bob
Via or Tim the Toolman Taylor or anything like that. But it dawned on
me as an economist that, at least in the beginning. I mean,
if you go back and do your younger days, when we were in college
and things, we did not have the finest of lodging. We were not
living in a five bedroom, three bathroom McMansion. And for a lot of
young people today who cannot afford housing or complaining about affording housing, I'm looking
at how young people I dare not say invest but kind of waste their time
pursuing education. And if people instead were to have kind of a I say
renaissance or a movement to actually learn to build their own homes, they could
do it and there's a huge economic opportunity to do so. And just to
provide a theoretical example, instead of you rushing off to college, if you
were to stay at home, you know, work a full time job,
make some money, but then also go and buy a piece of land,
pour your own concrete, build a frame, drill a well, etc.
Etc. Now that that is a tremendous amount of work, but you would
come up with a house at the end of four years. So instead of
slaving away learning about you know, whatever they're teaching in the schools now and
not really coming away with any kind of skill or trade. The education system
and I'd even say the labor market is so inefficient that the best opportunity young
people have today is to just go and build their own homes. Now,
I'm sure there's plenty of programs out there how to build your own homes.
There's also like prefab homes and things like that. They're even getting to the
point where you could take some of these tough sheds like at home depot.
Yeah, where you buy it, you install it. We're talking for like
twenty grand, but then you have to wire it up and provide the plumbing
and all that. It's an opportunity a lot of people aren't thinking about or
seeing because we just you know, got horse blinders on. Everyone has to
go to college, but you could very quickly. You know, the cost
of land might be your largest expense, depending on how much land you buy
it. But for young people today who want to actually own a piece of
the American dream, it's it's more possible. It's much more possible than you
think, especially doing this this BacT way. If you think about unconventionally and
so like it kind of it kind of ven diagrams or flows into like going
off grid independent living and stuff like that. But the biggest hurdle there is
getting off of the thought process where oh, yeah, we all have to
go to college, I got to get a degree, I got to go
work a job. It's like no, no, no, no. The
institutions of education and employment, especially with all this woke bs where it's like
it's no longer marecratic. A lot of people, I think, if younger
generations are willing to listen to this, or maybe slightly older generations, like
I really want a home, I think the opportunities there hidden diamond and the
rough to actually go and physically build your own home, and it would drastically
improve people's standards of living here in the United States, no matter what the
current housing market or job market has to be today for sure. And hey,
I gotta tell you, like, because I'm the kind of person the
first thing I do is call a plumber whatever and then have them fix stuff.
But then, you know, I had a toilet and it had a
thing called the phantom flush, where the toilet's minding its own business and then
it just randomly flushes because that thing, called the flapper leaks. So I
said, well, how hard can it be to fix that? So I
go watch a couple of YouTube videos. I go run down to a home
depot buy these flappers. I said, you know, not only am I
going to change it in that toilet, I'm going to change all of my
toilets. And I bring it back. Of course it said universal wasn't universal
as a wrong size. To go back to home depot, trade that in,
get the other ones, and I come back. And you know,
I missed the part on the video where it said turn off your water before
you attempt this, and there's a hoss that goes into the float. I
knocked that hose off, everything gets sprayed down. I am soaking wet,
cursing, screaming. I shut off the water, get the hose back in,
fixed, A flapper work perfectly, Phantom flesh went away all right.
So I paid a little bit more and lessons and a life experience on that
one, and I go and I change the rest of them and they work
perfectly. My point is that just about every household operation repair that you want
to do, you can figure out. And even if you don't want to
be the lead on it, if you find a handyman in you a system,
it's still going to cost you less, and you'll know you'll be able
to tell from that video that the job is being done correctly in most cases.
And there's also like this cottage industry where I think a lot of people
are intimidated with you know why, I don't know how to do wiring.
I don't know how to do plumbing, And those are the two main ones
you might want outsource, but there's a cottage industry of people like building cabins.
A colleague of mine is not too far away from you. That's what
she is. She's just this little little woman. She's just this little spitfire,
five foot nothing, and she builds these. She built lodging. Not
it's not the fanciest, it's not five stories and it's not you know,
thirty eight hundred square feet, but you can live in it. And going
for especially for younger people, you're not married, you don't have kids.
Half of you are forecasted not to get married or have kids. And since
there's going to be such a high population of single people, I would strongly
recommend, especially with the advent of YouTube and self instruction, you'd be surprised
with some with some effort and work and practice, how much you could you
could actually build and save. And for example, a lot of people are
like, well, I don't know the first thing about foundations. Well,
there's ways you're gonna have footings or pilings or whatever they're called, and then
you have your house. Isn't sitting on You don't dig a hole, you
don't dig a basement, you don't put a slab down, but you put
pilings down first, and it's on a frame. So there's a lot of
cheaper, faster. It's actually just a fascinating world and there's a lot to
learn. But if you just pick up a modicum a medium amount of skills
you should be able to do I'd say probably about half the work. The
main hurdle is going to be ordinances where Okay, you're in a city,
No, you just can't build some random little hut you know, you know,
you can't go buy a framed hut over at minards and put it on
this piece of property. So it's going to result in you're going to have
to move, You're gonna have to go to states where you're allowed to actually
do what you want with your property. But it's just it's a it's an
opportunity and an option. A lot of people that have that, I don't
think they realize that they do have. It's a great point, and it
can so lessen the cost of homeownership that you know, you build your house
for maybe maybe you save twenty five percent In many cases, that could be
your down payment on a home, oh easily. And if you can combine
this with a little creative finance, with a little rent to own and you
actually do the improvements as you're paying down money every month, a portion of
your rent goes to the down payment. By the time you go to buy
that house and you get the appraisal, it can be worth way more than
than you ever thought. You could actually take money out of it in a
refinance or your initial finance. Right, well and put it. Consider this.
I know this is an ideal world I'm talking about. Require parents like
actually parent and parent on a far end of a spectrum, like have the
foresight to see this. But imagine you're eighteen, you graduate from high school,
and then you and your old man like, Okay, look, we're
going to buy this piece of property and we're going to work on it every
night, every weekend for the next four years. So while your colleagues and
student friends were going to college and learning whatever. At the end of four
years, here you are twenty two. You own a home probably with at
least half the equity. It's not the nicest home, but you're a homeowner
at twenty two with all the sweat equity. And what was the opportunity costs?
Like, well, if you if your opportunity costs is college, you're
going into debt. You're not making money. You're losing money. You could
work again part times all right, making you fifteen sixteen dollars an hour.
You're not making the greatest money in the world. But you're financing and paying
for your tools and your equipment and labor. It's it's something that yeah,
I'm off in the bushes on this when I'm off in the weeds. But
imagine that you're twenty two, you're not even a quarter century. You're a
homeowner. You got your little hut. It's a one bedroom, one bathroom,
very simple. Uh, you're not going to impress women. It's just
you may not have a six car garage, but you do have lodging.
And from there on out, you're not paying rent, you're not paying a
lot of interest on a huge, you know, four hundred thousand dollars mortgage,
you're not complaining and painting the rest of it. You gain avernsing so
we don't have to listen to that U. And then over time, it's
really the land value that's really going to go up over time. Okay,
maybe you do find someone, maybe you do fall in love, maybe you
do want to start a family. Well, now you have this piece of
property that you could sell or even rent out your little hut or whatever,
and now you could maybe build a sizeable home for a family. But again,
and this care is it's going to have an effect on housing. Uh
down the road, with half the population not getting married, you're having kids,
You're not in theory that house could last you forever because it's just going
to be you. So with half the Americans forecast to be single forever,
I think that I mean now already existing would be condos, which is another
simple, simpler way to do it. But for those of you, here's
one of the main problems. People are like, there's not enough housing.
You're right. Financial crisis wiped out a lot of contractors and tradesmen. We've
been promoting people to go to major and fluffy bunny studies, and so there
hasn't been an increase of the amount of tradesmen. There is a deficit of
housing based on the number of people. It's going to take at least a
decade to train another generation of tradesmen tradeswomen to come in and do And on
top of it, they ain't gonna happen. You're all going to keep majoring
in English, your journalism or political science. So the increase of supply of
housing is not coming. It's just not. So why not take matters into
your own hand and be like old school people used to be and build your
own home. And it's you know, going back to the past is the
way I think to do it going forward. Yeah, this is the way
they used to do things once upon a time. Here Aaron like you say,
you're up your basis. This is what we call sweat equity, and
literally it's a sweaty job. But the other thing is you might actually have
marketable skills after you complete your own house, and people might pay you to
do the same for them. You'll be a skilled general contractor. Effectively,
and in an average job, general contractor could take anywhere ten to twenty five
percent of the total price of the job, just in terms of profit.
Well, there's all yeah, and you're one hundred percent correct, because this
would be almost like going to college. But you're you're teaching yourself. And
right now I am no expert carpenter, but I'm pretty good, especially if
I had to learn to fix and do my own thing over here, because
the contractors wouldn't or they just don't show up. But you can't find them.
I mean, there's just there's such a shortage of them right now.
There is um kind of again a cottage industry. For I have a buddy
who just he does handyman stuff and he's paid sixty dollars an hour over in
Texas because these housewives can't find their husbands, don't know how to do it,
or they're you know, they're busy with their own job. And so
if you can just become a handyman and show up like assembling furniture, which
is not you. You follow the instructions, but have all of a sudden
like like you're saying, you can fix a toilet, or you can tile,
or you can frame, or you can sheet rock, maybe you can
wire a little bit whatever it is, or simply you could go on YouTube
and figure it out how to do it yourself. You, by the time
you build your own house, no matter all the mistakes you will make,
no matter everything that's wrong with the house, you will have a better skill
set than ninety five percent of the college graduates. And you could easily A
friend of mine he was never going to run with the idea, but he
always tinkered with the idea of having a handyman service called what your Husband Won't
Do dot com And so I was like, whoa, hey, hang on
here now, well, you know, because there's the honey du list,
and the wife is always complaining that it's not getting done well right, and
anyone could take this idea. It's not like it's not like there isn't enough
work to go around, enough for home repairs and handyman stuff. But that
that right there, you're right at the end of that journey. You would
have a skill set that you would you never you never have to work for
anyone again. You could be self employed right off, right off the bat,
Yeah, definitely. And uh, like you said, even as a
handyman. You know, there are handyman who change light bulbs right, and
and then there are handyman who actually can do some demo and renovate a bathroom,
do some work on kitchens, things like that. So it really really
you keep building your skill level, you'll be more valuable. And uh and
then you know, you can take these wrecks, these uh you know,
lips that are in horrendous condition, and you can make them beautiful. Just
knowing how to delegate and how how to actually get stuck priced. You know,
you learn so many skills, not just the physical skill of hammering and
nail into a wall, but actually how to do pricing, how to do
how to uh yeah, kind of price a project, right, you know
how to how to get supplies, how to negotiate all these things. Because
Ball of Life is a negotiation. It could take you way further than you
ever thought possible. Yeah. Absolutely, Hey, so getting off the emotional
grid, Like you said, you don't really follow the economy, you don't
follow politics anymore. Basically too damn depressing, right, right right. I
don't need to hear about transgenitalia. My life is too short to hear about
that. Yeah, I don't think I want to hear about it, but
they sure are looking to shove it down your throat. But but now we've
reached a point where the population appears to be rebelling at school board meetings,
at a bud light, at at target, right, target target, all
of that. So if we reached a tipping point here, I think sort
of. Um, I've never never underestimate the laziness of the conservative boycotter.
I mean, like, it took it till your children were being taught.
It wasn't, It wasn't. It's even worse than that. Now think about
it. For a while, kids have been being taught a whole bunch of
horrific stuff that is not under the purview or shouldn't be under the domain of
the public schools. Um, especially when it comes to sexuality. H And
I'm I'm pro gay and not straight, and you know if if you legitimately
are, but that shouldn't be taught to eight year old Yeah, I mean,
go do you think But it wasn't until your light beer was threatened that
now we get all up in a dizzy and some and so I don't I
don't think, you know, I don't know if we've reached we've reached a
tipping point. There's been a change, and there's been a little bit of
like, oh no, the normal people are waking up and they're sick at
tired of having uh you know, trans being taught to their elementary school kids,
or politics and any one of their products. UM. So, but
I don't know if I still I still heard a conservative firm mine like,
well I gotta go to target. It's like, okay, so this is
you're not You're not going to change your behavior. So I don't have any
faith in that. Um. But what I do think is that there is
a sub segment of people who are going to be saying no more I'm not
tolerating Gillette hating men. I'm not tolerating Procter and Gamble calling men toxic.
I'm not going to target and I'm not dealing with any of this in my
entire life because I think what some people are realizing is they don't have to
accept woke stuff or politics in their lives. And so you're going to see
a lot of people where they're turning off the TV, they're turning off the
YouTube in the media, they're not going to movies. I mean, just
recently, I have no problem mentioning this, but I used to be a
member of Anytime Fitness. I'm going to be leaving Anytime Fitness because I went
to a gym and now there's tampons in the men's bathroom. It's like,
yeah, I don't have to tolerate then, and I don't care. Well,
it's the franchise ee, and you have to understand that. I'm like,
yeah, that's right, but I'm done with having tampons in the men's
path That's where the line right, right, And so I don't have to
participate in the society. I don't have to go watch the news. I
don't have to be culturally aware. I could spend a lot of time at
home work on my projects, play my video games or whatever else. And
I think that's where you're going to see is a migration where people are just
saying that's it, I'm done. And you will see this kind of lifestyle
boycott where instead of like oh, Target, darn you to hell, that
kind of thing like no, I'm not doing Target, and you walk in
and whatever, you see some kind of political trade based advertising or leftist based
advertising, or they're not they're not going to know. We're not going to
see the Little Mermaid. We're not gonna what is the one that Cleopatra Black
people? It's like, no, we're done. And so I think people
are going to start pulling back away. Then a significant percentage of normal people
are going to start pulling back away to their great mental benefit. And what
they're going to say is, all right, well, what if society has
lost its mind? What is there to now invest in? I think there's
going to be people rediscovering themselves and family and community and friends or just the
outdoors or as we were talking about that not only has the labor market and
the education market become untenable, society has become untenable, and so people are
going to start It's like, well, maybe I will build my own house,
maybe I will go in and improve myself. Because right now you look
at society, it's the communist would always say, oh, the degenerate what
was the word? The materialist capitalists, Well they are, Yeah, they're
not wrong here in this one. It's like, yeah, I don't care
to be part of a degenerate society. I'm going to go do my own
thing. So I don't think it's gonna be the majority of people. I
don't think the majority of Fox News listeners are going to say, yeah,
you're right, I should build my own home and I am going to boycott
Target. No, they're still going to go to Target. There's the conservative,
libertarian, good old fashioned Americans are still gonna watch professional sports, the
participants and owners of which absolutely hate your guts. You're still gonna watch your
sports ball, So that that's going to continue on. But I think there's
going to be a group of people that are probably more of the libertarian variety
not only going to tap out of traditional forms of participating in the economy and
education and building the homes, but socially as well. They're going to find
something else to do. So it's going to be a silver line to an
otherwise dark law. But you know, like for exit, you're going to
go to a salsa workshop in Colombia. You're gonna have way more fun than
anyone watching CNN while you're there. I guarantee you that's true. Yeah,
and so I think that that's where where people are going to start abandoning and
going investing in themselves. Are agreed, all right? So Aaron, any
books in the offing, No, because I'm having fun like the one I
do. I try to do a project a year something. Mostly that's a
book, but this time I put together a course. Um it's called The
Dad You Never Had. That was my latest project. That's unteachable. So
we've got a lot of a lot of guys and gals didn't have dads.
Dad wasn't around, or the dad doesn't know dad doesn't know how to fix
a toilet ball. So that course is unteachable. It's twelve hours long,
it's quite thorough. But that's the latest project I had. UM. But
I am going to be coming up with um uh. My next book will
be based on sexual economics. Too. I don't want to give away the
that's the general topics. It's going to be talking about the uh, the
economics through the lens of the sexes, not not sex, but the sexes.
But that one is not going to be told twenty twenty four because once
my house is done with my little projects I got going on here, I'm
riding motorcycles, on playing poker. All right, I'm gonna go hike in
the Black Hills. So yeah, you you won't see me doing too much
real work next couple months. All right, We still find you over at
Captain Capitalism dotlog. Yeah, you can find me at the blog. The
blog is kind of dormant. I haven't really written much. Everyone's been moving
to podcasting a YouTube, so I guess more modernly, go just go to
my YouTube channel, just search Aaron Claire. You'll find me there, and
that that's kind of where most of my new material is. All right,
well we will. We will put the link to your YouTube channel in the
show notes this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. We always wish you
the best, love talking to you. One of these days, I'm hoping
that I will see a new book out of you. I loved your books.
They were literally a chuckle a page left hysterically throughout. Just totally fun
and hey, one day we'll get together do another event. Appreciate you coming
on. You've got a question for Aaron or myself. K l at Kerry
LUTs dot com is the email address. Write your comments on the YouTube channel
below. Aaron, always a pleasure. Thanks Gary, thanks for listening to
carry Lenz's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's trying times. For the
latest, go to Financial Survival Network dot com. Financial Survival Network now more
than ever,