storehousepublishing

When most people dream about escaping — escaping the 9-to-5, escaping a fixed income, escaping the worry of not having enough — they imagine one big move. Win the lottery. Inherit something. Find some secret system on the internet.

I’m 70 years old, and I’ve learned something the hard way: there is no exit door. There’s only an exit plan. And the best exit plan isn’t something you find. It’s something you build.

That’s why I say the escape plan IS the business. When you build a small, honest business of your own, you’re not just making extra money. You’re building the exit itself — one brick at a time.

Why Most Escape Plans Fail

I’ve watched a lot of folks my age chase “the answer.” Here’s what I’ve seen go wrong, over and over:

They wait for permission. Nobody is coming to hand you a way out. Not the government, not a former employer, not a Facebook ad.

They look for one big score. The lottery player spends $20 a week for 30 years — that’s $31,000 chasing a dream that statistics say won’t come. Small and steady beats big and never every single time.

They fall for the “secret system” scammers. If somebody promises you $10,000 a month by next Friday and asks you to pay $997 to learn how — the only person escaping anything is them, with your money.

The honest escape plan is the opposite of all three. It’s built by you, brick by brick, starting small.

The Business Builder’s Mindset: One Brick at a Time

Think of your escape like laying bricks. One brick is nothing to look at. Neither is ten. But lay one brick a day for a year, and now you have a wall. Two years, a room. Three years, a house.

Your bricks are the small honest income streams you build one at a time. Here’s the exact path that’s been working for me:

Brick 1: Publish what you know. I’m 70. I’ve spent five decades figuring out what works and what doesn’t. So I wrote short, honest little books about it — practical guides on making money after retirement, flipping items on Facebook Marketplace, starting a candy honor box route. Amazon KDP prints and ships them, and I earn a royalty on every sale. Cost to start: $0. Cost to write: my own knowledge.

Brick 2: Build your front porch. A simple website is your front porch on the internet. Mine is Storehouse Publishing. It’s where people can read what I write, find my books, and see what I recommend. You don’t need anything fancy — you need a place that’s yours.

Brick 3: Recommend what you trust. Once people read your work, some will ask, “Okay, what should I do first?” That’s where affiliate income comes in — you recommend tools and products you genuinely believe in, and when someone buys through your link, you earn a commission. No selling to strangers. No cold calls. You’re just answering a question honestly, the same as recommending a good fishing hole to a friend.

Brick 4: Stack and repeat. Here’s the beautiful part. Each brick adds to the last. The books bring people to the porch. The porch builds trust. The trust makes recommendations worth something. Nothing you build is wasted, and it keeps paying while you sleep.

The Honest Math of an Escape

Let’s talk real numbers, because I promised you honesty and I meant it.

• A short book on KDP priced at $9.99 earns about $3.59 per sale. Sell 30 a month across a handful of titles — that’s around $100/month.
• Ten books, all working at once, earning sales at different paces — now you’re in the $300–$500/month range.
• Add affiliate commissions from your website — even a modest $100–$400/month — and suddenly you’ve built $500 to $900 a month that didn’t exist before.

Is it a fortune? No. But it’s a door. It’s money that doesn’t depend on one pension, one check, one company, or one boss. It’s yours, built by your own two hands — or in my case, my own two typing fingers.

The Three Rules of a Real Escape

If you take nothing else from this old man, take these:

1. Start with what you already have. Your knowledge, your story, your experience. Every decade you’ve lived is inventory.
2. Be honest even when hype pays better. There are a thousand people selling garbage. Being the one voice that tells the truth is a business plan all by itself.
3. Do a little every day. One brick. Every day. That’s the whole secret, and it’s not even a secret.

The escape isn’t out there somewhere. It’s on your kitchen table, one honest page at a time.

— Larry Atterberry is a 70-year-old grandfather and the author of the “Still Hustling” series of honest incthank you so much