Tractor

The law is written to make this possible with deductions, especially when self employed or operating a company. There's nothing dirty about any of it until you start doing things like buying a boat and calling it a part of your midwestern dog sitting business. On the coast you could prove you drive it out to yachts hauling owners dogs around farily easily LOL. My small business gets me deductions to the point where it looks like I barely make anything. The downside to this is that when applying for loans I look like I don't make anything. I could fix this by changing my pay situation to become my own W2 employee, but I don't make quite enough for that to be worth the additional tax to the company at this point. My point is tax law is tricky and in reality I'm all for zero income tax and higher sales tax for most people and situations. Larger companies especially operating in multi countries might need a different tax.

This, all I want to see is responsible management of finances. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, but a couple more percent across tax brackets and control of costs over the past 75 years and we could be running at a much smaller deficit. Its both sides fault and I also think we could have restructured US industry to be building all the plastic crap and electronics we buy from overseas. At the same time I totally get that we are going to have a "sub class" of people who simply do not have the luck, mental capacity, whatever to be middle class and no amount of money or education is gonna help them. Running a country is a much bigger problem than either side and I don't see either side trying to do much of that over the past 25 years that I've been paying attention so I don't have any faith left in them period.

My problem with this is it's really just an expansion of government and the people on the committee will end up being corrupt eventually and we'll be right back where we are today with more red tape.

I understand the theory of HOA's, the part that pisses me off is that basically every new community is an HOA and in reality it regulates the cost of homes to a pretty high price for working families. This is good for banks, good for investors, and good for the older people who got to build back when there was basically no regulation and was able to profit from it. I know its kinda off topic, its a very sore issue with me. Now the younger generations do not have the same conditions in which to grow. So now you want a driveway, LOL there are rules on how thick, how to build its base, and on and on. No thank you, I went completely the other direction, yes I live 10 minutes from the beach, but I live in a country area which allows for mobile homes and almost no regulation. The county however does have nazi building code guys, but at least I can do what I want and leave everyone around me along to do what they want. Its almost funny really, we make plenty of money and could live in the HOAs, but we save, invest, do fun things, buy whatever we want blah blah and maybe even retire someday.

And the laptop thing will go away after election if Trump wins. If he loses it will get much more important but nothing will come of it. Either way they are the elite and nothing ever comes of any thing. I've been so over the two parties for years now and don't usually care however it has been entertaining lately.

They have two Trump stores here at the beach. https://www.myhorrynews.com/news/local/conway/trump-store-opens-in-myrtle-beach-and-conway/article_b3309196-00f2-11eb-82df-43d908930deb.html

I've looked from time to time and can't find anything real. Mostly either empty/low traffic shells, or worse, start up forums with bots and paid writing to generate traffic. I have local networking groups here, but I don't want that, I would like to find an online community especially a chat server with some active people sitting around BS'ing about business stuff or whatever while doing the freelance thing. I've been feeling a bit better lately and am trying to do something about my zero adulting/nerding out on business stuff. I have a lot of free time and I spend a lot of it bugging my kids lol.

Assuming this is epoxy, are the different colors applied by masking off and painting separately like I imagine it being done? I might do something similar and start with the spots I'll park cars to help control spills and make it a project that I can do in several stages over a few weeks/months vs working my ass off.

That's awesome. From what I've been looking into epoxy really is knowing what your doing with the prep work. I'm a cheap ass and DIYer so if I do any it will have to be DIY. I'm my case I have plenty of time I just have to take my time and not over exert myself with projects.

I'm thinking about options as well. I'm in the process of building a 30x40 shop. If I do any custom flooring I'll likely do a combo of things, ie something to help with fluild control where I work on cars and maybe get fancier in the area I do more creative stuff like wood working and electronics.

My neighborhood is full of cats I was gonna suggest this. We don't have any sign of rodents anywhere;)

Thats awesome!

Harbor freight for me has gotten to where you have to watch the prices very closely and get the cheapest brand they carry to get the value out of the tool. They started carrying more than just the Chicago electric stuff and it's too pricey for the junk that it is so I just go buy Milwaukee or something similar at Lowe's. I love my old harbor freight tools and still have a ton of them that I use constantly.

I'm ordering a prefab steel building in the next few weeks myself. I've talked to bigbuildingsdirect.com and got a quote for a 30x40 with two roll up doors. Very good price and I can't get anyone else to follow up with me. I'm on the coast in South Carolina so I have hurricane wind loads that make a traditional pole building a bit more complicated to get past the code dept in my county.

Awesome build for sure. I like the idea of integrating rack mounted equipment though. You can pick up rack pieces easy enough and custom build the enclosure to do whatever.

Yeah true in the platforms I do have an edge and I've used my SEO skills profile writing skills and such to my advantage with good success. The hard part for me will be translating that down to customers in my local area. Right now I deal directly with large Corp it departments and project managers for hundreds of managed services companies on a very task-specific job and pay type. I have one law Office customer here that I actually got myself where I cover his server maintenance. Otherwise I do deal directly with a large Denny's franchise owner over 30 restaurants.

I have no existing customers right now my work is 99% market based field service work that I 100% do not have to sell myself to anyone to get. They need a body to go do something and I do it and for them I'm cheaper than flying an engineer here and for me it pays a shit load because I'm still cheaper than the alternative. It's all done through apps off my phone and I don't even talk too anyone at times. I know some people who say they can't sell just haven't tried, but in my case I'm absolutely not able to do that. I have autism spectrum disorder so I'm extremely awkward talking to people and just need any social encounter to end as quickly as possible. I am however extremely good at what I do with the technology and I have thousands of five star reviews on the platforms that I use to get jobs. on the bright side I do have a large network of companies who have moved me to their preferred list because I get the job done every time no matter what even if I have to lose profit to do it. My competition around here is pretty lame and I find that project managers have a lot of trouble getting a guy to show up or maybe not show up drunk.

While we're on the subject, does anyone have any experience finding a partner? I'm dreaming of the day when I get diagnosed and maybe even treated so that I can stop just hanging on and actually begin to grow my company. My problem is I'm an introvert and just don't have friends and don't meet people like a normally social person would. My dream partner would be able to handle the sales side of the business and I'll let them have it. So direct sales, client relationship stuff, hiring and training sales staff etc. The entire sales side that I have zero experience with and zero ability to handle. Right now I could hire a dispatcher at a minimum and if they could do sales they could get a cut and probably make a very good wage for a work from home position that is actually extremely easy, right now I do it myself from up on ladders, underdesks, or while working on complex systems and I have to miss a lot of jobs while working. Right now the company is doing very well considering its just me and I can only put 5-15 hours a week into it which is extremely frustrating when you have big goals.

I looked into SCORE awhile back when I was starting my company. I got sick so I haven't been able to revisit them. It does seem like a very good idea and I'm sure its only as good as the people volunteering within it and how well you can find a match to you and could be very a very valuable resource. For me I'd need help more in the legal and HR realm and have a pretty good handle on daily operations, accounting etc for now.

Oh one of those. Well I hope it works out I was thinking it was more established. I have no idea then other than if you think it's really gonna work keep yourself involved so you can get something eventually.

Well if its not 50/50 then who's business is it, you say your the doer. Does that mean the labor only? and sounds like the partner does the office work so is that a glorified accounting guy or is he doing a bunch of sales? Without knowing the rest of the story and business type its hard to say. I'm hopefully about to venture down the partnership road myself and have been thinking a lot about how it will work. In my case I'm capable of executing the work, doing all the office stuff, and need help with dispatching and sales. I'm willing to give my partner 50/50 pay if they are as dedicated as I am. I'd prefer to keep control of the company and that can be written into the legal stuff.

I wouldn't bother with any wrangler older than the TJ's. The YJ is gonna suck unless your only goal is a total ground up build and you like to punish yourself turning it into a TJ. My Dads neighbor is one such individual, he builds some nice looking Jeeps in his garage, but they still aren't TJ's so you'd have to really like Jeeps to want to drive it.

To late now, but yeah I've installed my own waterlines several times over the years. You own anything on your side of the water tap so they don't have to know about it, you just turn off the water and make the repairs. Not sure if you can still get away with it or if they turned off your water.

I've now heard the same a few times, can't verify it myself I guess I could show up to one and then leave, here in my area. I don't have much else to do lol.

I see you live in my world