The Slow Motion Retirement Plan

[innrkid]

my wife and i closed on 40 acres of land 16 miles east of kiowa, co and 4 miles north of highway 86. we will retire there in about five years or so. the aim is to end up retired, debt free, and with everything we need finished. the land has 4 strand barbed wire fence on the east and west sides; the north and south sides of the lot are open. there is a gravel road on the eastern boundary that is well maintained by elbert county. power is available across the road. other than the two fence lines, the land is completely undeveloped. we will thus have to create a driveway, drill a well, run power into the property, add a septic tank, and then build.

it's going to be a long road, but the journey started today. the obligatory picture:i

View attachment 299634

I used to live near there and shot sporting clays near there. Nice area. If you want a great dog, Gary Ruppel at Kiowa creek kennels. Great guy.

 

[CWB Wyo]

dhagoog

Been reading this from the start. I was looking at moving down around Kiow before moving to Utah in 1986 .
Do you have a view of Pikes Peak from were your at? That's the view I wanted when I was lookIng down there.
One side of my family is from Victor. Not seeing the Peak is one thing I miss about Colorado
Did your wife work out at Waterton canyon?

 

[dhagood]

dhagoog

Been reading this from the start. I was looking at moving down around Kiow before moving to Utah in 1986 .
Do you have a view of Pikes Peak from were your at? That's the view I wanted when I was lookIng down there.
One side of my family is from Victor. Not seeing the Peak is one thing I miss about Colorado
Did your wife work out at Waterton canyon?

we do have a nice view of pike's peak. sadly, colorado's wonderful clear views have slowly disappeared along the front range, and there are days now where the haze is bad enough that the peak is almost hidden. progress

my wife did indeed work at waterton canyon. we both did in fact as we were introduced by a mutual friend in a cafeteria there (the ssb building) in the spring of 1983.

 

[rickyb01]

I find it curious how people in our microwave, have-it-now, culture have somehow managed to redefine debt. Somehow if the interest rate on your loan is low or zero percent, it isn't debt. If you have a 30 yr mortage, owe $40K on cars, but have no credit car debt you somehow consider yourself to not be in debt. In the mid-2000's before the banking and housing crisis, lots of people were claiming it was stupid to have no house mortgage. So now what do those people have to say about the millions of people who bought 0% down houses whose house prices dropped 20%, 30%, or 50%? Those people can't sell their houses and are trapped. Talk about a miserable position to be in without any good options!

A $100K mortage at 0% interest is still $100K of debt and still involves risk. When the great depression hit, the people who were in debt were the ones who lost their homes. The people without debt were able to manage and many of them prospered in the process.

End of rant.

Those people started the market crash. They woke up one morning and owed 25% more than market value. They then just walked away from the house. I have never seen anything like that in my life. Uhaul would be there on Friday and they would be gone by Sunday. No real estate sign or for sale sign just gone.

 

[dhagood]

on monday we had an open hole inspection by a geotechnical representative from one of our engineering companies. colorado has expansive soils and this first inspection was to ensure that the the undisturbed soil at the bottom of the dig would have sufficient bearing strength and lack of clay such that the foundation could safely be built. it's pretty much incipient sandstone which will do very nicely.

tuesday a worker showed up, laid out the house in the dig, and started putting together forms for the footings.

today the footings were poured. we missed all of that as we were off-site most of the day. i'll get pictures of that tomorrow.

 

[kevinwak]

on monday we had an open hole inspection by a geotechnical representative from one of our engineering companies. colorado has expansive soils and this first inspection was to ensure that the the undisturbed soil at the bottom of the dig would have sufficient bearing strength and lack of clay such that the foundation could safely be built. it's pretty much incipient sandstone which will do very nicely.

tuesday a worker showed up, laid out the house in the dig, and started putting together forms for the footings.

today the footings were poured. we missed all of that as we were off-site most of the day. i'll get pictures of that tomorrow.

What are the two or three (hard to tell from photo) sections of form going back into the hillside on the right?

 

[CWB Wyo]

dhagood

I bought a house in Aurora where East Colfax and I-70 meet. They built it so it had floating walls on the foundation. I was told it was because the ground had a lot of bentonite.
Is that what they were looking for?

 

[dhagood]

What are the two or three (hard to tell from photo) sections of form going back into the hillside on the right?

that is the footing for a structural reinforcement for the foundation wall. i don't know what the name of the reinforcement is. the house is about 70 feet long along the east wall. the reinforcement is a rebar reinforced stub wall at right angles to the east wall of the foundation.

dhagood

I bought a house in Aurora where East Colfax and I-70 meet. They built it so it had floating walls on the foundation. I was told it was because the ground had a lot of bentonite.
Is that what they were looking for?

yes. soil with a high percentage of bentonite is very expansive. if the house isn't properly designed to deal with expansive soils the foundation can be destroyed.

 

[dhagood]

after letting the footers cure for 7 days, the foundation crew came out yesterday (wednesday) and started work on the foundation forms.

they started on the long wall, got some reinforcing steel up, and hung the window frames for the basement bedroom escape windows.

and here's a view from just the other side of the frost beam looking into what will be the basement. you can see the rebar used to reinforce the forms.