I LOST A MATCH ON Nov. 12 against my former tag-team partner, Kevin Gutierrez, who wrestles under the colorful name “Corn Boi.” It was a classic Lucha Libre stipulation match. I put my mask on the line, and Kevin would cut his shoulder-length hair if he lost. Mask versus hair—or, as they say in Mexico, mascara versus cabellera. We had many tried-and-true plot lines going for us. Teacher versus student. Old friends and tag partners who were now fighting furiously against each other. Older, bitter, crotchety veteran wrestler—that’s me—frustrated with this not-so-serious newer generation. It was a good story. All the while, I knew how it would end—with me losing my mask and announcing my retirement from wrestling. I’ll wrestle a goodbye match or two next summer, but essentially, I was done. When I put on the mask at age 40, I remembered a line from the great wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer. He wrote the obituary for Junkyard Dog, the African-American grappler who was a Main Event star and drew tons of money in the New Orleans area and later in the World Wrestling Federation. “If he had kept his weight under control and continued training, he could have been a star into his 50s like Ric Flair, The Crusher or Dick the Bruiser.” [caption id="attachment_1536026" align="alignright" width="400"] Juan's final wrestling match. Photo by Clint Dye of Tag Team Photography.[/caption] Right there, Meltzer had given me the formula for longevity in the sport. Ric Flair also said in his podcast that the enemy of any professional wrestler was inactivity. So, for the past nine years, I’ve tried to keep a regular wrestling schedule. If I didn’t have a match, I headed up to the Black & Brave wrestling school in nearby Davenport, Iowa, and worked out in that hard ring. It all helped. My work actually improved as I had regular access to a ring for the first time in my career. My body felt good. I eliminated the heavy weights from my training, especially exercises that stressed my lower back. I kept my weight under control. At five feet nine inches, I never allowed myself to go above 230 pounds, even during the holidays. Most of the time, the scale read around 215, and occasionally I got to a fit 208 pounds. With my tan, and dedicated work in the gym, I looked the part. Kevin and I worked hard at the school. I insisted we train the way we performed in front of a crowd. It was invigorating to finally be able to work on my craft in a way I had never done. When I was young, I wasn’t willing to move to locations that would have given me the chance to get in the ring and train with other pros. To be in a position to get to work with Kevin was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. Even at age 48. After several long practice matches last summer, I could feel the repercussions. A headache was a given. When I went to wrestling school in 1994, we were hyper-focused on our bodies. Our neck, back, shoulders and knees were our injury concerns. Those were the dangers that weighed on our minds. [caption id="attachment_1536024" align="alignleft" width="400"] Juan surrenders his mask. Photo by Clint Dye of Tag Team Photography.[/caption] But our minds—our brains—were not a concern. Now, it was becoming one for me. The science of concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive brain disease, are today well-known and ominous. The physicality of the sport also let me know that, while I could handle both the rigors of the training and my young contemporaries, my recovery was slower. It took me days or a week to recover fully from a 15-minute training match. What was most heartbreaking was seeing something so clearly at my advancing age that I never thought about in my 20s. I had talent. Some of the kids who graduated from the intense, three-month training program at the school didn’t have the same aptitude for the life of a wrestler. I was an athlete. Some others didn’t move as naturally in the ring. I saw countless young men hit the weights hard and still not look all that impressive, considering the time they were putting in. My body had always responded to training. I loved pumping iron, which some wrestlers considered more of a required chore. Lifting weights cemented what I had been feeling since I turned 40. Wrestling was my calling. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] I had pursued it, yes. But I had never given it the time, sweat and dedication that the craft demanded. I was always negotiating the price. As I approach turning 50 next March, Father Time was telling me I was pushing the limits. It didn’t matter how long or consistently I trained—the end was near. Especially if I wanted to dictate my last chapter, rather than have it decided for me. As we age, we begin to feel more physically vulnerable. You hesitate to climb on a roof or step too high on a ladder. All because you see or experience firsthand the physical dangers that life presents. You lose the invincible feeling of your youth, the blissful ignorance you had in your 20s. [caption id="attachment_1536025" align="alignright" width="402"] Juan with opponent Kevin Gutierrez, also known as Corn Boi. Photo by Antonio Varela.[/caption] When I would climb to the top rope of the ring to deliver an exciting move, my balance was not what it once was. My awareness of the risk I was taking, however, was ever-present. Pursuing your passion, versus following the safe route, is something folks have been dealing with for many centuries. HumbleDollar’s editor offered this great piece of advice a while back: “I’d put in a plug for earning and saving starting in our 20s, so we can pursue our passions in our 50s, when we likely have a better idea of what’s important to us.” That’s great advice if your talents and pursuits are cerebral. But what if they have a large physical element? I wish I could retire at 55 from the chemical plant where I work and then hit the road to do wrestling shots all over the country. But for my dream, that’s not an option. As Warren Buffett once said, “It's a little like saving sex for your old age.” My passion had a limited window, and it passed long ago. After the match, my kids and I headed to Applebee’s for a late-night meal. I told them this would be an aspect of the business I’d miss. My wallet was full from the generous pay. We drew a great crowd and the promotor paid me well—$300—plus my daughter sold lots of merchandise. I came home with more than $600 in my pocket. The match was good. I had delivered in the ring. For the fans, for the promotion company, for Kevin. My kids and I were all smiling and enjoying the meal and the glow from the evening. It was nearing midnight, well past my bedtime. But I knew the euphoria from the evening would keep me up late. A few days after the show, Kevin and I had a chance to talk on the phone. After our conversation about the past few days, he asked me how I’d felt at the end of our match. How did it feel in the ring taking off the mask with my sister, my nephews and my family in the audience? With the fans and wrestlers all watching and thanking me for my career? Grateful. Grateful was all I could think of. To have been physically able to get to that match, when the summer before I was questioning if I could reach the finish line and allow us both to have this moment. Grateful to have had a dream, and to get paid for it. Grateful to have been able to pursue it and enjoy everything that came with the journey. And—most of all—grateful that I was able to maintain my health, my job at the chemical plant and my family along with it. Juan Fourneau’s goal is to retire at age 55. When he isn't at his manufacturing job, he enjoys reading and writing about personal finance, investing and his other interests. Juan, who is married with two children, retired from the ring after wrestling on the independent circuit for more than 25 years. He wrestled as a Mexican Luchador under the name Latin Thunder. Follow him on Twitter @LatinThunder1. Check out Juan's previous articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

I GREW UP IN a blue-collar family. When money was tight, one strategy my dad used to improve the situation was simple but effective. Overtime, time-and-a-half and double-time were all terms I heard frequently throughout my childhood. In this Iowa factory town, those words can still be regularly heard at the taverns, bowling alley and family get-togethers. Overtime is the gift that can make a low-paying factory job worthwhile. Time-and-a-half turns that $12 job into a far more palatable $18 an hour, and can make the difference between renting and owning a home. If you can land that great job in your local area that pays $25 to $40 an hour, those overtime hours become truly lucrative. Once I began my job at the chemical plant in 1999, the idea of getting a second job went out the window. Making time-and-a-half became your second job. Spouses accommodated your overtime because neither of you could replicate that income elsewhere. I never developed the taste for overtime—or had the stamina to put in the hours—that some of my coworkers did. One year, I logged 500 hours of overtime. But I was single then, with no kids, and had just bought a house. The money came in handy furnishing my home, and my routine was pretty simple. Go to work for 12 hours. Hit the gym, sleep and eat. Repeat. This year, by contrast, I’ll log around 225 hours of overtime. Most of it is organic. I don’t seek it out. It's what I get when covering production demands and for vacations taken by others. We get paid biweekly. Today, my take-home pay is around $2,000 every two weeks. It doesn’t take much overtime to bump that up. If your life is set up to live off your 40-hour pay, the OT is all gravy. I once worked several 12-hour days, along with a Saturday, and brought home $3,000 after Uncle Sam took his hefty cut. It’s a good feeling, for sure, but you don’t see your family much during those two weeks. A year after I started in the plant, around 2000, one coworker told me he once broke the $100,000 mark. For those of us with high school diplomas, who live in a low-cost part of the country, that’s a lot of cash— an annual wage our parents never saw and money many of us never thought we’d make. But my coworker shared with me that it wasn’t worth it. He wanted to do it once, but it took 800-plus hours of overtime to do it. All you do is work, he said, and then recover from work. Some in the plant eat overtime like candy. They have the energy to work the hours and their batteries just run hotter. Some have spouses who stay at home with the kids. They work a ton of overtime and their partners don’t expect as much from them when they get home. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] An old boss spent the first half of his career doing shift work. After weeks of marathon shifts, he came home to an annoyed wife. As they sat down to dinner, he noticed she’d put name tags on their kids. He got the message. In fact, he worked so much overtime that he took a pay cut during his first years in a management role. He told me he knew he had a problem when he got agitated looking at a paycheck that didn’t have a single hour of overtime on it. Honestly, I admired how he put his three daughters through college and maintained his marriage. They always took vacations, and went camping as a family. He seemed like my dad. If he wasn’t at work, he was home. If he wasn’t at home, he was at work. Over the years, I’ve recognized a sadder element to a few of these overtime machines. They don’t want to be at home, and their family doesn’t seem to mind them being gone. The house is quiet, with the dad usually at work, and the fat checks keep rolling in. Not my cup of tea, but who am I to judge? One coworker shared a story from his old employer in Davenport, Iowa. The warehouse he worked in was notorious for its overtime. He knew he didn’t want that life when another employee, who was gravely ill, wasn’t responding when his family members spoke to him. But when they asked some of his coworkers to talk to him, he was acknowledging their voices. My friend said that did it for him. He began looking for another job. For the past five years or so, I’ve usually made around $50 an hour when I work time-and-a-half. The math is simple. Work 100 hours of overtime and you got an extra $5,000. Those workhorses doing 700 or more hours of overtime per year? That’s big money. These folks, who love their overtime, can recite their employer’s compensation policy as if it’s burned into their brains. One year, on July 4th, we were forced to work the holiday. Some coworkers, who were older and had families, wanted the day off. They were already going to get eight hours of straight time—which was their holiday pay—and they wanted to watch the parade and fireworks. I was on graveyards that week, so I started late, around midnight. I worked my night shift, and got time-and-a-half for those hours, plus my eight hours of holiday pay. I went home, got some sleep, and came back to cover someone’s 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. I was pleasantly surprised when I got my check to see I received double time for those eight hours on the second shift. A few other local area employers pay just as well or even better. One of my friends from the gym, who works at the local power plant, has made some serious money maximizing his OT. He works hard and plays hard. He has a great relationship with his grown children and has been married for decades. He just isn’t the type to sit at home and watch Netflix all day. He grew up always having to work if he wanted name-brand jeans or a car. I was at a local barbecue and someone said that, in terms of pay, he was only below the general manager and the most upper management at his plant. I’ll be sticking with my overtime policy of only working when my team needs me to. If coworkers want the overtime hours and the cash that comes with it, they can have it. But it’s good to know that, if I do have to work some extra hours, I’ll get paid well for my time. Seems like a fair deal to me. Juan Fourneau’s goal is to retire at age 55. When he isn't at his manufacturing job, he enjoys reading and writing about personal finance, investing and his other interests. Juan, who is married with two children, retired from the ring after wrestling on the independent circuit for more than 25 years. He wrestled as a Mexican Luchador under the name Latin Thunder. Follow Juan on Twitter @LatinThunder1, visit his website and check out his previous articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

IN MARCH 1999, I began my job at the chemical plant where I still work today. During the weeklong orientation, I had my 26th birthday. It was the start of a job where I felt I couldn’t make any excuses. I needed to be an adult. I would be making good money. After graduating high school in 1991, I’d averaged $18,000 to $23,000 a year in various jobs. In my first full year at the plant, I made $42,000. The next year, after completing the training program and working 500 hours of overtime, I made more than $60,000—good pay for a guy in his late 20s with a high school diploma. Over the years, I’ve heard many bits of advice from the old-timers at the plant. I’ve also picked up many lessons from watching these folks over the past two decades. The first lesson came during an informal talk that a worker gave at the orientation. Today, it probably wouldn’t be allowed because it would be considered financial advice from someone without any formal credentials. But his talk was valuable in its simplicity and its roots in real-life experience. The technician implored us to begin contributing to our 401(k) immediately. He talked about the company match and how it was free money. He suggested we consider our investment allocations carefully. Because of our young age, he believed we should be in the aggressive portfolio. We had time to ride out the rough spells, he said. I began to save in the 401(k). There was a whiff of euphoria in the air. The market had been on fire for the past few years and it was still raging. Returns of 20% or more were typical. This technician, who was approaching retirement, was feeling good seeing his balance grow to numbers he’d never thought possible. A few years later, around the mid-2000s, I saw the same man. He was now retired and bagging groceries part-time. Maybe the dot-com crash burned him and he needed a job for a bit. Maybe he was bored and wanted something to do. I didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask, and he didn’t work at the store that long. Many veterans at the plant had started in the 1970s. The company had something similar to a 401(k) back then. As the great bull market began in 1982, they rode an incredible wave until 2000. Over time, I began to see the role luck and timing played in investment results. When you were born, and when you got hired, all had a big impact on your returns. If I were to guess, I’d say 98% of the plant workers saved in the 401(k). My older brother had been hired a few years before me. When he started, the old-timers in his area always told him, “You can’t afford not to.” My brother never read The Wall Street Journal. I would ask him occasionally which funds he was in. He’d say he hadn’t looked in a while and wasn’t sure. He left it alone for the most part and retired early. I checked my funds often, moved my money around more than him and haven’t done as well. I would hear rumors occasionally of the few who never joined the 401(k). They had lost out on hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a million. But I could understand how this might happen. Many in the plant were from poor or working-class families. Some started families when they were young. They may have thought about saving. But they probably always felt they couldn’t afford the 7% of pay they needed to get the full company match. They were raising kids and paying bills. Often, their spouse was staying at home and that was important to them. Maybe they’d start next year. In that era, the pension plan was generous. The folks who were whispered to have never joined the 401(k) would invariably retire later, usually as soon as they could claim Social Security at age 62. Between Social Security and the pension they earned over 35 to 40 years of service, they could replace all the income they were making at the plant. It was always interesting to see the moment people pulled the trigger. One lady—a friend of mine—had started working at the plant in her 20s. She had a straight-day job later in her career, but then unfortunately had to return to the production line and work the swing shift that came with it. She started her week one Sunday with the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift. She was frustrated with the poor planning from leadership the week before. Her night was going to be stressful, with all kinds of problems and little support. As I helped her with a question, she had a few choice words about the mess and said that she was calling her financial advisor that week to see what options she had. She’d worked decades and made good money. A single mom, she’d raised her kids and, by then, they’d finished college. She retired a few months after that night and has enjoyed the years that followed. I was happy to hear that. She was a sweet lady. In her early years at the plant, it couldn’t have been easy being one of the few women, but she made it. One of my coworkers got called out one weekend in the freezing cold of winter to deal with a problem. As he was walking around, examining all the pipes while trying to solve the issue, he asked himself, “What the hell am I doing here on a Saturday night?” He put in for retirement, though he worked several more months. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] I saw him at Wal-Mart a few years ago. That call-out was just a blip, he told me. He said the real reason for his retirement was that his sister had passed away and it was weighing on him. He had plenty of money. Life was too short. There was a kind, older guy on my shift who grew up on an Iowa farm and had worked in our area since the early 1970s. I went to his retirement party. He waved his wallet at an old friend, smiling as he said, “This thing has decided every major decision in my life.” Like many I saw at the plant, he had put family first. His kids were raised and done with college. A small early retirement package pushed him over the finish line. He told me he was ready to be done with swing shift work and with the plant. But he then took a job as a school janitor for 20 years and finally retired for good with an Iowa state pension to add to his retirement savings. One old friend, who had been my Little League baseball coach for a short time, told me—when I saw him at a bar a few years after he retired—that he simply did some math and felt comfortable calling it a career. He added together his 401(k)’s historical annual return, his pension and his other savings, and asked himself if he could live off half that number. He could. He shared with me something I hadn’t heard many folks say. He had a great-paying job. He’d had it for decades. He didn’t really need the job anymore. And he knew that someone out there, a young person most likely, did need the job he had. It would change his or her family’s life, like it changed his and mine, so he retired. One guy, who was a bit of a miser, said he put his notice in when no one told him not to. His wife and his financial advisor both agreed he had enough money to retire. He had worked for more than 30 years. He was still on the swing shift. He’d invested in some Iowa farmland before the prices skyrocketed. He was frugal, and had his 401(k) and pension. He seemed to abhor debt and that had served him well. One recent retiree had been in leadership roles for more than half of his blue-collar career, so he hadn’t worked swing shifts for decades. He had many years under the old, more generous pension system. Yet, unlike so many in the plant, he wasn’t missing a beat. His mind was sharp, he was fit and still full of energy. I’ve always thought that some 20% of plant workers have the skills, ambitions and mindset that aligns well with the work we do. He was one of them. I never heard him pine to be an artist or chase a different dream or career. His talents were valuable and he had kept up with the changing technology. In his early 60s, I know he could easily have done the work for another 10 years. He shared with me that it would be silly to still be working at the plant in his 70s. What was the point? He retired after 40 years. We quickly discovered, when he headed off to winter in Florida, all the “little” problems he’d been solving that no one else noticed. I enjoy talking with the younger people who have been hired in droves since the baby boom generation exited the plant. If they’re interested and ask, I’ll share some of the mistakes I made with my money while working at the plant. I also let them know that I intend to keep my job there. Even after 23 years, I hesitate to call it a career. I don’t know why, I just do. Most know me as the guy who wrestles in a mask. It wasn’t my dream to work at the plant, and my talents don’t always align with my job. But I do my work well. People seem to like having me on their team, so I must be doing okay. I appreciate all the lessons that my coworkers have taught me over the years. And I hope the younger generation working at the plant has picked up a thing or two from me. Juan Fourneau’s goal is to retire at age 55. When he isn't at his manufacturing job, he enjoys reading and writing about personal finance, investing and his other interests. Juan, who is married with two children, retired from the ring after wrestling on the independent circuit for more than 25 years. He wrestled as a Mexican Luchador under the name Latin Thunder. Follow Juan on Twitter @LatinThunder1, visit his website and check out his previous articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

ABOUT HALF THE RENTALS that my wife and I own were foreclosures we bought around the time of the Great Recession. In fact, I closed on the first one on my wedding day—a fact my wife isn’t anxious to let me forget. In 2000, a family had bought the house for $70,000. In 2006, JPMorgan Chase foreclosed on the house. In 2007, the bank unloaded the property for $93,000 to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which had guaranteed the mortgage. I bought the place in 2007 for $50,000. I overpaid. It was the start of a tidal wave of foreclosures that would hit my hometown and the rest of the country. The pattern I saw with my first foreclosure was one I’d see again several times over the next eight years. A family would buy a home in the early to mid-2000s as interest rates dropped and property prices rose. They got a mortgage backed by a government agency. Next, a new loan was secured for more than the original purchase price, or home equity was borrowed to pay for renovations and improvements. Then the economy slowed and eventually hit a brick wall. The family would lose the home and the government would get the property back. The place would sit on the market for months, maybe a year. A local investor or landlord would pick it up for a fraction of the price that the family had paid. October 2010 was Lucas Street, another foreclosure. In January 2007, a couple bought it for $72,000. The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation foreclosed on it during summer 2010. I bought it in October for $35,000. The front of the house was a striking stone structure that increased its curb appeal. When I had to cut the stone to make a window a legal egress, as required by city code, I found out how expensive it was to have a contractor cut the rock. During 2014’s freezing Iowa winter, the tenants left for a week’s vacation. When they returned, they found the main piping to the house frozen. The bill was $8,000. That was painful. Next was West 4th Street, two houses down from my childhood home. The owners bought it in 2006 for $92,500. It was foreclosed in December 2011. The federal government was on the hook for $102,500. I got it for $43,000 in 2012. It was a two-bedroom home. We added a third bedroom by carving out part of the dining room. In August 2021, the tenant moved out. It was a sellers’ market, so I was eager to get the property listed. But the home needed a new roof over the garage and some renovations. My property manager handled the repairs, but struggled to find reliable workers. The work dragged on. The price of lumber and other building materials had skyrocketed during the pandemic. My property manager handed me the keys days after I had surgery to remove my tonsils. I wouldn’t be in any shape to do any labor for a week. Thanksgiving was approaching. The place still needed a fresh coat of paint and some minor cleanup, which I was going to handle. The house finally went on the market near Christmas. Despite the challenges, we sold the home in February 2022 for $80,000. I felt we left $10,000 on the table because we weren’t able to put the exact same house on the market the summer before. The sale validated a lesson I’d quickly learned about homes: They aren’t liquid. At any time during the trading day, you can check a stock’s price on Yahoo Finance. When you like the quote, you hit "sell." Done. Homes don’t work that way. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] The last bargain we got during the Great Financial Crisis was the house on Spruce Street. It was purchased in 2004 for $69,500. At the end of 2009, HUD foreclosed on the property. It was a small one-bedroom house. I almost didn’t look at it for that reason. Finally, after work one day, I asked to see it. Though it was small, it had a roomy basement and two bathrooms. A part of the dining room could again be potentially converted into another bedroom. Unlike the other homes I bought, it was more modern, built in 1954. The bank had cut me off the year before. It felt my leverage levels were approaching the danger zone, so I got a coworker—who was a diligent saver—to lend me the money. She didn’t like risk and never borrowed money, but her low risk tolerance meant she was stuck with low returns. My attorney wrote up a contract under which I’d pay a 10% annual interest rate to my investor on a three-year loan. She was a friend and a nice lady. But she let me know that, if I quit making payments, she wouldn’t hesitate to take the property. I was able to buy the home for $20,000. We upgraded the electrical system to a 200-amp service. After plowing $5,000 into it, we were able to rent it out. One thing that stuck with me during those dark financial times was seeing homes just sit. It almost didn’t matter what the price was. There were far more sellers and foreclosures than buyers. Credit had seized up. One of the biggest local employers was laying off folks. Overtime was cut at other factories, so many people who relied on that to make their house payments were struggling. The Great Financial Crisis was the scariest time I’ve lived through. It seemed like the rules were no longer working. Your home didn’t always go up in price. If you wanted to sell, slashing the price didn’t matter because there just weren’t many buyers. People were selling nice pickup trucks for cash. They needed to keep the lights on and pay for groceries. They had lost their job and it wasn’t easy to find another one. Pain and fear were everywhere. Reading about challenging economic times in a book is one thing. Seeing the aftermath of a bubble with my own eyes—and the wreckage it left behind—was another thing entirely. I hope to never see a depression. The Great Recession was enough for me. I’m thankful my family didn’t have to suffer the way so many other families did. Juan Fourneau’s goal is to retire at age 55. When he isn't at his manufacturing job, he enjoys reading and writing about personal finance, investing and other interests. Juan, who is married with two children, retired from the ring after wrestling on the independent circuit for more than 25 years. He wrestled as a Mexican Luchador under the name Latin Thunder. Follow Juan on Twitter @LatinThunder1, visit his website and check out his previous articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

WHEN I BEGAN MY journey to becoming a professional wrestler in 1994, I didn’t give much thought to the money aspect of the business. Wrestling was a secret organization similar to magicians or, frankly, the Mafia. Information wasn’t readily available on the industry’s economics. I simply had a burning desire to be a part of this crazy circus that I’d always loved as a fan. As I began training to be a wrestler under Skandor Akbar in Dallas, information came in trickles. In my class, there was a huge wrestler who got booked before me, even though I’d trained for longer. It didn’t bother me. He was a legit six foot 10 inches tall and weighed a solid 400-plus pounds. He was a nice guy and I was happy for him. At the time, even World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) was losing money and struggling to draw crowds. When my fellow newbie debuted, he said the crowd was fewer than 100 people, and full of former Texas wrestling stars and veterans. He shared that he didn’t get paid for his first match. After several delays and setbacks, I had my first match in 1996. There were some veteran wrestlers on the card. The business was becoming hot again, the start of a boom that peaked in 1999. I debuted at the Sportatorium in Dallas in front of a healthy crowd of more than 800 fans. My first match was one of my worst. I sucked up my disappointment and headed back to thank promoter Grizzly Smith and the rest of the office crew for the opportunity. I wasn’t sure if I’d get paid. As I walked in, they handed me an envelope and asked me to sign my name to confirm I’d received my earnings for the night. It was $40. I was happy to be paid, and thought it was a fair amount, given my experience—or lack thereof. It wasn’t their fault that I chose to live in Iowa, so the fee didn’t even cover my travel expenses. Right after me, the tag team in the semi-main event came in. They signed their papers and counted their money. I thought I overheard the number was $150 each. They were happy with it, as they had a booking for the next night as well. I talked a bit with the wrestler in that evening’s main event, and I overheard him tell another guy that he’d flown in from Tulsa, with his ticket paid for by the promotion company. My best guess is he was getting $200 that evening, but I’m speculating. Sad to say, the realities of being an independent wrestler haven’t changed much since then, and certainly haven’t kept up with inflation. Forty dollars is still a typical payday for my efforts in the ring if it’s a local match near my home. What has changed is that merchandise sales have become a bigger part, or even the majority, of many independent wrestlers’ pay. When I began wrestling, the industry had transitioned away from an earlier era of territory wrestling, where the regional stars were able to make a good living. By 1996, the only athletes making serious money in the U.S. were under contract with the two national organizations: WWE and the now-defunct World Championship Wrestling. Today, landing a wrestling contract is no longer the only route to financial success. In the last 10 years, a new type of professional wrestler has emerged—the true independent. They can make a living on the independent scene, or at least enough that they only require a part-time job to supplement their pay. This affords them the opportunity to make their craft their sole focus. They can take as many quality bookings as they want, and aren’t limited to weekend matches. They can devote the hours needed to eat well, train at the gym, improve their in-ring work, develop a strong social media presence and sell their merchandise online. [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] As you develop a name for yourself, your fee begins to increase. Today, it's not uncommon for an independent star to make $300 or more per appearance. Throw in T-shirt sales and other merchandise, and young wrestlers can make an okay living as they try to reach the bigtime. The journey gets fun as you reach out to promotors, or they seek you out. Making $100 can be the first milestone. Having a promotor fly you in is another step up. If you keep your calendar full, have a healthy social media presence and negotiate your value well, you can be off to the races. As the years went by, the guys who started with me—and who made it to the big show—were the ones who made wrestling their primary job. For some, it was by taking a vow of poverty and cutting expenses to the bone. Others began to make enough cash with wrestling that, as long as they kept their cost of living low, they survived. Recently, WWE superstar Sami Zayn visited the Black & Brave Wrestling Academy in Davenport, Iowa, where I train, and took questions from students. He shared that he’d lived with his parents in Montreal until he was age 27. Even after developing a name for himself on the independent wrestling scene, he stayed with his parents until signing with the WWE. Living with his parents allowed him the luxury of focusing on his career. For me, I’ve been fortunate to work with a local Iowa promotion company, SCW Pro. That’s meant regular bookings and a 30-minute drive to most shows. The crowds are healthy, often 200-plus, and the fans support their wrestlers. I typically come home from a show with $150 to $225. SCW Pro’s promotions have grown in recent years, along with the crowds. I’ve had some great payoffs at some of its bigger events. Many a Sunday morning, I’ve used the previous evening’s wrestling money to buy groceries for the week and take my family out to dinner. For whatever reason, my wrestling earnings are more satisfying than the exact same amount garnered through overtime at the local chemical plant where I work fulltime. On the days when I don't sell much merchandise and have a small payday, I just chalk it up to being part of the deal. As a Hispanic bilingual luchador—one who’s been doing this a long time—I’m in demand at Hispanic festivals, Cinco de Mayo events and county fairs. At these shows, I can command more of a guarantee, making $100 to $150 sometimes. Combine that with my merchandise sales and I’ve had some great payoffs in the past 10 years. My wife and I took our first trip to Los Angeles in 2014, all paid for by wrestling, thanks to a generous promoter based in Des Moines. This summer, my son and I drove to Kansas City and took in a weekend of Major League Baseball, had an overnight stay and fantastic barbecue. Again, it was all paid for by my professional wrestling. I’ve had six shows in the last two years where I grossed $700, plus many more in the $300 range. In your salad years, you take the bookings for the work—and the experience. In my early 20s, I met wrestler Lenny Lane, who was working part-time in Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling organization. He was on national television every week and was better than me at every single aspect of the game. He wrestled better. His ring gear, his physique, his ability on the microphone, even his tan was better than mine—and I’m Hispanic. I asked Lenny how he had made it and progressed so much faster than me, despite being the same age. He shared with me the story of a promoter in Cleveland who gave him a lot of work. “The pay was terrible, Juan,” he said. “But he would let me wrestle three times on every card. I’d work an opening match, wrestle again under a mask, and then come back and do a tag.” At the same stage in my wrestling career, I’d been prideful about my pay and refused to wrestle for less than $75. I sat at home a lot. I was lucky to be wrestling once a month, while Lenny was finishing a year with more than 200 matches and valuable experience. After that conversation with Lenny, I started looking at the pay as just one factor to consider when deciding whether to seek or take a booking. No matter how much I’m paid, if my opponent or I get injured, it’s a bad night. What counts as a successful booking? No one is hurt, the pay is good and I have a solid match—in that order of importance. For two decades, I’ve looked at my wrestling pay as beer money, a side hustle. Not all art pays bills. Playing softball with your buddies doesn't make you money. Wrestling does, and I’m grateful that I was lucky enough to be paid for something I love. But more than the money, wrestling has helped me escape the mundane of my day job at the chemical plant. It’s full of showmanship, athleticism and colorful characters. One of those characters is my childhood hero, Tommy “Wildfire” Rich. It was a thrill to meet him backstage at a show. I tried to describe it to my son, Alex, who’s inherited my love of science fiction, superheroes, bigfoot and Star Wars. I told him to imagine meeting Luke Skywalker—not the actor who portrayed him, but the actual Luke Skywalker, lightsaber and all. Meeting “Wildfire” was kind of like that for me. That memory alone is worth all those $40 paydays. But such paydays are drawing to a close. At age 49, these are feeling like my last years as an independent wrestler. I have a little money to show for it all—and a lot of great memories. Juan Fourneau’s goal is to retire at age 55. When he isn’t at his manufacturing job, he enjoys reading about personal finance and investing. Juan, who is married with two children, can still be seen in the ring on the independent professional wrestling circuit. He wrestles as a Mexican Luchador under the name Latin Thunder. Follow him on Twitter @LatinThunder1. Check out Juan's previous articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]

I ONCE DABBLED IN the world of sales. I wasn't very good at it. In 1997, I got a job at Schwan’s, driving one of those yellow trucks you see in neighborhoods all over the U.S. selling frozen treats, ice cream and a variety of food. I thought it would be a delivery and service job. But I found out during the orientation and training that there was an element of sales. I read the books of motivational speaker Zig Ziglar in my free time and got some basic training in sales from the company. But as I began my route in the railroad town of Fort Madison, Iowa, I could see I needed help. A natural sales guy I was not. At a party one weekend, I ran into my dad’s old friend, Pablo. My dad was godfather, or padrino, to Pablo’s youngest son. I was interested in talking to him because he was a successful car salesman. As we talked about my struggles in sales, Pablo gave me a few tips. He also shared with me how he began his career. Pablo was from San Antonio. He spoke good English, but like many Hispanic men in my hometown of that era, he had a limited education. He dropped out of school in sixth grade to work because his family didn’t have a lot of money. He met his wife when they were both working as migrant laborers, following the crops. My Midwestern town is home to a Heinz manufacturing plant where, in the old days, migrant workers picked tomatoes from the fields and transported them to the plant. After one season in the mid-1960s, Pablo and his wife never went back to Texas. Instead, they decided to make a home here in Iowa. He met my dad at the retread factory, but he lost his job when he broke his leg. When he’d recovered, he landed a job as a janitor at the high school. Needing more money, he also worked as a janitor in the evening at the local Montgomery Ward store, where he was known as Paul. One day, the store decided to have a sales contest to see who could sell the most bedsheets. They divided the store employees into three groups, with the sales staff getting to pick their team from all the store employees. Though most of the traffic would be driven by the sales team, they wanted to include everyone in the contest. One manager suggested, as an afterthought, they include the janitors so they didn’t feel left out. Like the slow nerdy kid at dodgeball, Pablo was picked last. He was eager to win the prize and began to tell the customers he saw walking in about these fabulous bedsheets they just had to have. He found out he had a natural talent and began closing many sales. He was spending just as much time spotting leads as he was cleaning the store. It turned out that Pablo’s team won the contest. It wasn’t even close. Matter of fact, Pablo sold more bedsheets by himself than the rest of the store combined. The next day, after the contest was over, Pablo was pushing his broom, sweeping the floor as he always did. The store manager came up to him and suggested he put his broom down. He gave him a necktie and a job offer. “Paul, we think your skills would be better served selling.” [xyz-ihs snippet="Mobile-Subscribe"] That humble beginning was the start of his sales career. Pablo eventually got a job as a car salesman in my hometown and consistently grossed six figures for more than 30 years. He put his sons through college, and one even became a school principal. When my dad bought a car, he always went to his “compadre Pablo.” I went with my dad once as he bought a small, ugly used Dodge Omni for my older brother. I had the privilege of driving the same car when I turned 16. You couldn’t see the wall in Pablo’s office for all the sales awards he’d won. I’m sure it helped that he was one of the few salesmen at that time who spoke Spanish. Ultimately, however, Pablo was just a fantastic salesman. He won sales contests that provided family vacations, the latest televisions and appliances, and he drove the dealership’s best demo car for free. At different times, he owned a theatre that played Spanish movies in the Quad Cities and a Mexican restaurant. He was also a landlord—all while working six days a week selling cars. When I saw him last week, enjoying his retirement, I asked him if he ever regretted working so hard all those years. Typical of his generation and background, he told me he never worked hard. He had seen migrant workers in the fields picking crops. That was hard work, he said. He made a sale, handed the ticket to the office, and his work was done. The hours were long, yes, but it never felt like hard work to him. Not bad for a Mexican-American kid with a sixth-grade education from a barrio in San Antonio. My sales career ended after six months. The long hours working my route were getting to me, so I put in my notice. I wasn’t making great money and, with my sales skills lacking, I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. I got a temp job that eventually led me to a position at the plant where I work today. It was a great move for me. I did develop an appreciation for the sales industry, though. The profession isn’t always given the respect it deserves. Every company relies on sales, and it’s a job that provides opportunity for those with sales talent, skills and drive. Your education, grades and background don’t matter in sales. What drives your career and salary is your results, and my dad’s friend Pablo is a great example of that. “Only in America,” as Don King would say. Juan Fourneau’s goal is to retire at age 55. When he isn't at his manufacturing job, he enjoys reading and writing about personal finance, investing and other interests. Juan, who is married with two children, retired from the ring after wrestling on the independent circuit for more than 25 years. He wrestled as a Mexican Luchador under the name Latin Thunder. Follow Juan on Twitter @LatinThunder1, visit his website and check out his previous articles. [xyz-ihs snippet="Donate"]