Just sold my car lot for 800k - Need a new job - What now?

I don't - it's her kid from a previous marriage - but the reason I can't just retire on 800k as I provide for my wife and her kid.

3 year old dog or kid wrote:

usedcarguy wrote:

I'm not single - I have a 3 year old (and a wife)

Except that in your OG post you said you don’t want to teach because you don’t have any children of your own. I can see how you sold used cars so well.

Forget these other ideas. Learn to be a plumber or house carpenter/handyman to work on all the aging houses in your area. All you need to do is master some basics and show up on Time when expected to quote and do the job! Most people won’t quibble on price; they just want it done NOW and CORRECTLY DONE. Some will pay you in cold cash.....I’ll pay extremely well to get stuff done but no one I call shows up to even quote the work. I need a guy I can call on year round for this stuff. Sure, I could possibly learn some of it but not all and will never be good at it. The point is, get paid for doing what others don’t want to do. If it takes off, hire helpers and start a company.

That sounds pretty solid. A couple reservations I would have are: - It seems there are a LOT of handymen (ie. barrier to entry is low) - The pay wouldn't be as good as say, a software dev.

With your “seniority” and previous sales experience, maybe be on the front end of the software side. PM, requirements gathering, FSDs, etc. It’s completely different from car sales, but it does require customer-facing interactions that some devs really hate (or are bad at due to being super awkward). It’s more solving problems for customers and translating into your companies capabilities and configurations and less about creating urgency to close a car sale. You might like it.

usedcarguy wrote:

I'm not single - I have a 3 year old (and a wife)

Rainy Day wrote:

Maybe not rich, but a single 42 year old could make that money last a long time.

Plenty of places you can do that on 20-30k a year, not even the full amount your invested 800k will earn you.

UNLESS you're spoiled by luxury. Too used to wasting money? Is that really worth working your whole life when you have the option not to?

Bad Wigins wrote:

usedcarguy wrote:

I'm not single - I have a 3 year old (and a wife)

Plenty of places you can do that on 20-30k a year, not even the full amount your invested 800k will earn you.

UNLESS you're spoiled by luxury. Too used to wasting money? Is that really worth working your whole life when you have the option not to?

He probably could make it work, but there is "sequence of returns risk."

usedcarguy wrote:

- Other paths I've considered would be teaching (I think I would get bored and am a bit awkward around kids as don't have any of my own)

Unless you're just an awkward person with everybody, you would pretty quickly become comfortable with kids in whatever age group you teach. If you just think you'd find it boring, then don't do it. But don't avoid it as a career just because you're not comfortable with kids at this moment.

I’m intrigued.

After 20 years I’m seriously thinking about becoming a plumber, handyman, councilor?

Drive a school bus. They'll train you and get you your CDL class B ( if you don't have one already), hours aren't too bad (plenty of time to train) and you get summers off. Pay isn't that great but then you have a million in the bank so not that big a deal. I'm in NoVa and the healthcare benefits are phenomenal, complete medical, dental and vision with no premiums and very low deductible.

The OP says he doesn't have any kids, then someone points out that he should have low expenses since he doesn't have kids, then he says he's married with a 3 year old.

Gotta love this thread!

Background like that?

Next step: run for office.

The real traumatic event that made him want to get out of sales:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEisTLIWZ-c

You could always become a mechanic. Pay is decent and would keep you around cars.

Bad Wigins wrote:

usedcarguy wrote:

I'm not single - I have a 3 year old (and a wife)

Plenty of places you can do that on 20-30k a year, not even the full amount your invested 800k will earn you.

UNLESS you're spoiled by luxury. Too used to wasting money? Is that really worth working your whole life when you have the option not to?

Does OP live in the USA? You can spend 20k/year just on health insurance for these 3 if there's no employer to absorb most of the cost.

Does OP have a mortgage/rent payment? I doubt that's less than 10k/year. Maybe he paid off the mortgage after selling his business.

Anyway, you just said he was rich and therefore shouldn't work anymore. Now, you say he can't afford any luxuries. That is not rich.

Sorry to derail the thread.

Biostatistician, computer programmer, data-scientist. Or best yet, all three at once (there's considerable overlap). Lots of interesting work, high pay, and good job security. Because the tools and skills change with each decade, a lack of prior experience is fine, as long as you are okay with putting in time and a steep learning curve.

Yolo it on Telsa or SPY calls and maybe you'll never have to work again

knox harrington wrote:

you just said he was rich and therefore shouldn't work anymore. Now, you say he can't afford any luxuries. That is not rich.

Countless celebrities with millions of dollars have spent themselves into bankruptcy on luxuries like drugs, cars and mansions. Turns out they couldn't afford them. Were they not rich?

We're talking about a guy who is almost a millionaire. If you have enough money to feasibly never have to work again, you qualify as rich, mansion or not.

Mate 800k? why don't you just take a chill pill and enjoy life, go on adventures life is short to make money. you probablly wasted a huge chunk of your short time on this earth running that business. If I had 800k i would buy a villa in Spain and live happily wife my girl, rescuing animals.

knox harrington wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Plenty of places you can do that on 20-30k a year, not even the full amount your invested 800k will earn you.

UNLESS you're spoiled by luxury. Too used to wasting money? Is that really worth working your whole life when you have the option not to?

Does OP live in the USA? You can spend 20k/year just on health insurance for these 3 if there's no employer to absorb most of the cost.

Does OP have a mortgage/rent payment? I doubt that's less than 10k/year. Maybe he paid off the mortgage after selling his business.

Anyway, you just said he was rich and therefore shouldn't work anymore. Now, you say he can't afford any luxuries. That is not rich.

Sorry to derail the thread.

He's saying that no one could possibly spend more than $2,600 a month, and he guarantees it.

gremlin green wrote:

... You need to be pretty introverted to like software development. It will also be very hard at your age to get hired with no experience once you have a degree.

...

Developers being introverts is a stereotype. It was once somewhat true. Now it no more than any other industry.

It can be a difficult career to start at 42. Not impossible, but not easy. Make sure you have the aptitude before you start down this path. Watch some intro level python or javascript videos. Try to set up to a computer to try things out on your own.

If you choose this route, you need to learn the follow: how to use the command line terminal, git, a source code editor. Then pick a starting language. Python is a good choice.

To get a job at your age, you'll need to set up a git repos somewhere ev (github, gitlab, or something), maybe do some leetcode, contribute to a open source projects to contribute to, or have a CS degree.

It can be financially rewarding. I'm in my 60's with 30+ years experience. I could retire today, but I still work because I enjoy it. (Yeah, I'm an introvert, but I know plenty of extrovert developers).