The Unconstrained Podcast

In this off script episode, I get real about the lies they tell you about 401Ks, IRAs, Superannuation funds, etc.  I explain what they promised and what was delivered and why it is far from optimal for retirement vs. residential rental real estate properties.

This is a little tale about the dangers of proprietary technology and, when I broke my own rules, it came back to bite me big time. Let this be a warning to you all – your first option should always be to find an open source version of anything you need.

I’ve made about 16 flights between the USA & Mexico in the past 12 months, and I’ve learned where the deals are, even if you are not using frequent flyer miles. On this episode, I’ll let you know what I found and where you can look to find super cheap deals.

This episode is a reset moment. Maybe one that is sorely needed. Our attention is all over the place these days, and yet we forget the simplest things that leads to true peace. As an embracement of the principles of a Simple Life, I give you something to think about – how you can survive in our journey through life, and to realize the wrong path that most of us are on.

A good friend of mine who works in the community college world in Arizona sent me an article that he found on why international students won’t come to the USA to study.  I spent the next 30 minutes or so explaining the entire reasons, and I thought you might be interested in the whole story.  Here we go…

The episode continues from 224.  More of the things you need to consider as part of an early retirement strategy.

Everyone who slaves over a 50 hour a week job, sacrificing time from the family, the stress of meeting other people’s expectations, living paycheck to paycheck, dreams of exiting the rat race.  The hope of early retirement drives them to save more, work harder now, and one day they can tell their boss, “Take this job & shove it”.   But few understand the reality of what it looks & feels like after that event, and how it is easy to become a non-person in early retirement.

I am recording this episode at the end of the calendar year of 2023. It is at these times, when workers often get some break for the holidays, that their employers will praise them for their annual contribution – and often with some paltry “Christmas bonus” that typically is best portrayed in Charles Dickens “The Christmas Carol” with Ebeneezer Scrooge not rewarding Bob Cratchit with some hopeful bonus for a year of toil. And yet if only Bob Cratchit recognized his contribution and talents, and had the courage to ask for what he was really worth…

Recently the state of Arizona had one of its border checkpoints in Lukeville closed by the US Federal Government.  This was in response to an unexpected surge of inbound travelers and asylum seekers coming into the USA.  The immigration challenges that we hear about on the Nightly news are far from the real story here, so I wanted to delve into the real story of what is going on and how it affects those of us attempting to be unconstrained.

As many of you know, I had a career in the early 90s as a recording engineer in Hollywood.  I left that to make money to feed my family, as I didn’t want to put them through the ‘hit & miss’ nature of that industry.  After 25 years back in the tech space, I didn’t agree with where it was going, and in my mid 50s left it to return to my recording work.  The result was the building of a massive private recording studio in central Mexico.  I wanted to talk through the business case for this and why we need some serious ‘out of the box’ thinking when it comes to funding art in all forms for the future.