A Few Decisions Away: Choosing the Rat Race, or opting out

tajudeen_bin_tijani · 7/2/2026, 8:49:47 AM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/2/2026, 3:25:12 PM · permalink

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tajudeen_bin_tijani · 7/18/2026, 8:07:09 AM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/19/2026, 5:02:08 PM · permalink

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j.k.harwood2 · 7/1/2026, 5:29:30 AM · permalink

5 years ago, I ended my lease where I lived in Woodstock, GA.  I had been working for a guy for a couple of years, and he always paid me well, and we had become good friends.  He told me one day that his daughter and her husband were going to build a house in Colorado on 51 acres of land.  They wanted us to move to Colorado and build the house for them in exchange for 5 acres for each of us.  I sold my motorcycles, and some other stuff, and we rolled out.  It was a big adjustment, being used to living where everything I wanted was available, where everyone was friendly, and kind and then moving to a place where I was hated just for being a white guy from another state.  Add to that my opposite political views of the liberal wierdos here don't fit.  The altitude here at over 8K feet was brutal at first too.  Before the construction job started, my friends daughter and husband started having issues which led to them splitting up and divorcing.  Suddenly, the house was not being built.  I bought an RV when I first got here, and I posted up at a campground.  Got a puppy, and have managed to survive by doing work for local ranchers when it's available, though it's not easy.  5 years now.  I am kind of stuck now.  In an emergency, friends or family could help me get out, but, I am going to do it myself.  I don't know if I want to leave. I am used to life here in the San Luis Valley now, and it's a safe place for my dog - lots of place to roam.  I don't think he would do well in a city.  It feels like a "homeless" life in a lot of ways.  I built a business doing security watch for people that own houses here but live in other states.  One of the clients is gone for six months at a time and I live at the house.  I have done that for the last 3 years, and this last year, after he came home he asked me to just stay instead going back to the campground because he likes the security of us being here.  So, I pulled the RV here, and here we are.  I am working on an AI Lab start up now - Sentinel AI Systems.  That's what I have dedicated myself to over the last few years.  I spend about 70 hours a week or more learning, studying, reading white papers and building.  Being near homeless is scary honestly, even though it is also liberating in a lot of ways.  In Georgia, it took a lot of money to live comfortably and have toys, so that meant working a lot.  Here...I work on what I want to be doing usually instead.  Grew some weed since it was legal and it was fun.  Did a lot of motorcycle riding out in the trails here in the national forests. Hiking, a little camping.  It's a beautiful place.  Rugged and wild.  Getting used to being around animals that can eat you was weird.  Knowing you could walk about the back door to the wood pile and get jumped by the mountain lions that steal the local ranchers sheep and young cattle...it's different than life in GA and the other places I have lived from Michigan to Indiana to Kentucky, to Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina...I have been around too and this place is really different.  I think a lot about what to do next.  Go back to a city, get a job?  Stay here?  I don't know what the future really holds to be honest and that is a little unsettling.  Mexico...I'd like to hear more.  I have a lot of friends from there, and a friend that was once a millionaire living in Florida that ended up sleeping on a roof homeless in Mexico.  I want to check it out some day.  I think when my dog dies I will take off on a motorcycle and ride until I die.  I've always wanted to ride a motorcycle to South America.  Maybe I will.  Yeah, the future is unsettling, but also...I feel free.

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wfgopack · 7/1/2026, 3:11:46 PM · permalink

Awesome story! My friend Phil wanted to do that motorcycle ride too. Would be an amazing ride but thats a lot of borders to cross. Looks like we grew up in the same parts. As a kid my family moved around NC, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee before I went on my own.   
That sounds like a great life in Colorado, but probably gets a little lonely. Freedom is the most important thing. But you always have to keep the future in mind. I was almost 40 before I started to think about it. Thats why I decided to get married about 7 years ago and come down here to MX.   
You sound like the type that would love it here. Big problem for you and most people, and what would have been my same problem had I not gotten out of restaurant management, is earning as you go.  
I was already in MX whe the fake pandemic hit, crossing the border for work. Thats when I knew it was time to get out of managing minimum wage people, they were being paid by the government not to work, and I relied on them. I lucked into a plumbing dispatch job sitting at a desk. Couple years later my company was bought by a bigger company and I became a call center manager. Cutting out a big part of the story for brevity here I am a couple years later in southern Mexico managing a small plumbing company in San Diego.   
  
The main thing I wish Americans would listen to me about is the true ability to retire down here that many Americans are never going to get without a miracle. The cost of living is such that a couple hundred thousand dollars or a good steady check of some type would have anyone retired and living well forever. Money does at least double the work here that it does in the former USA. Problem is there is little to no income down here without starting your own successful business. Any week to week work here is taken, competitive and low paying.  
Most people live on just a few hundred dollars a month down here, but they grew up that way and it all makes sense for them, systems in place, or many here have family homes that were passed down, or still have grandparents and great grandparents living with them. Its a different world, a much better one in my opinion. Problem is the transition can be hard. I don't see how an American can do it without at least a small chunk of savings or a steady American check of some type.   
Honestly you sound like the type who would love the self suffiient life I'm trying to work towards. If you ever want to come for a visit and see what I'm talking about you are totally welcome. You just need a plane ticket to Puebla and a few hundred dollars. One thousand dollars easily gives you a weeks vacation or longer with flight included. I'd be happy to pick you up and do the driving. I'd invite you to stay here but my wife and dogs wouldn't approve. But there are plenty of places to stay for about 20USD a day. You can easily eat here for $5 a day or less if you needed or wanted to.

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j.k.harwood2 · 7/1/2026, 5:02:36 PM (edited) · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/1/2026, 5:42:40 PM · permalink

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j.k.harwood2 · 7/1/2026, 6:36:17 PM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/1/2026, 7:08:05 PM · permalink

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j.k.harwood2 · 7/1/2026, 9:41:43 PM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/1/2026, 10:04:22 PM · permalink

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j.k.harwood2 · 7/1/2026, 10:15:33 PM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/2/2026, 12:12:36 AM · permalink

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j.k.harwood2 · 7/3/2026, 4:33:01 AM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/3/2026, 1:47:16 PM · permalink

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j.k.harwood2 · 7/3/2026, 6:39:29 PM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/6/2026, 2:32:27 PM · permalink

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wfgopack · 7/1/2026, 9:57:57 PM · permalink

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goyim · 6/30/2026, 9:11:14 PM (edited) · permalink

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