" Jim did tell his mom though that he was going to continue working six days a week, and saving as close to three quarters of his take-home pay as he could. His mom was worried about him because he would not move out of his apartment; he lived in a rough neighborhood, where drug deals were commonplace on street corners, where old cars were up on blocks in front of run-down houses with mud where lawns used to be. There was a fatal stabbing last year near his apartment, he told his mom, an old warehouse was set on fire by delinquent teen-agers, and two men were injured recently in a "drive-by" shooting a block away from his house. So his mother insisted he map out a plan to move out of that neighborhood, but not rent again, rather, put money down on a home of his own in a nicer area of town. He would then have "freedom from" the weary world of crime, drugs, violence and noisy apartment dwellers above and below him in the poor side of town.

Mapping Statement #3: Jim told his mother he had decided that he would wait until he had $100,000 saved before buying a home for himself; and at that time, he would use about $75,000 of it for a down payment, so his mortgage payment would not be too steep. His mom had also urged him to buy a better car - he was driving the same 1984 Honda civic that he bought his...

But in two more years, when he had over $70,000 saved, he began to put money in 401-K investments and abandoned his plan to buy a house. He had mapped out a new plan: when he had saved $150,000, he would buy a "fixer-upper" house, do the repairs and renovations it needed, then sell it and buy two more. He would then achieve some "freedom from" any future financial worries.
Mapping Statement #4: Jim fixed up his "fixer-upper" property on the edge of town, and mapped out a plan to sell it himself to save the commission he would otherwise have to pay. But soon he was hit with a harsh reality, that he knew nothing about contracts and property regulations. So he mapped out a plan to attend real estate classes, get his license, and become a real estate agent, to obtain "freedom from" having to rely on others to market and sell his properties for him. The last we heard from Jim, he had bought a shopping center that needed fixing up, and was taking night classes in bookkeeping, so he could have "freedom from" counting on someone else to handle the tax forms he would need to fill out to report all the earnings he had coming in to his bank accounts.

References

Mills, Magnus. All Quiet on…