My husband should be able to quit his FT job as a software engineer at the end of this year and we will have successfully replaced his income with our investments. 

We have great engineering jobs and a growing urban area of about 450-500k people.

I live and work in the Boulder area as an engineer, and I know that in my industry I am limited to living in areas where rents and demand are high.

I wish I would have pursued this idea early, but hindsight is always 20-20.Anyway, I will be moving down to Victoria, TX (greater metro population ~110,000) at the beginning of June to begin an engineering job.

Like any skill, whether it is in sports, engineering, the arts, etc..., you need to learn the basics.You can learn a lot of the basics here, but one of the most important elements of any "basics", it to understand not just what they are...but what they mean.We live in a society of instant gratification. 

(My father was a high school drop out...got his GED and I went to his graduation at Penn State in Engineering when I was about 12). 

I’ve got a mixed use property that we are in the middle putting together engineered drawings to add 6 apartments to it and getting an appraisal to free up money for the buildout.

I've already got a county that's willing to work with me, planned unit development style, an engineering firm hired with conceptual design completed, market research and a handful of individuals who are willing to be "founding residents".

We had a structural engineer come when we first were in the process of purchasing to check out our crooked floor but they haven't returned since the cracks appeared. 

I am a mechanical engineer by education, I work in strategy and development for an Oil and Gas company.