Just got off the phone with my real estate agent.

The bank has approved the short sale! Yay!

But only at a price 15K higher than what I have the buyer in contract for. So, good news on the approval, but now just need to make sure buyer follows through. If not, my agents thinks we can still find a buyer at the higher price.

Getting closer…

I'm 300K in debt. Gulp. I'm 24 and day traded away a fortune. Now I'm trying to crawl back to zero. Why not subscribe to my RSS feed and join me on this journey. You can also subscribe via e-mail. I appreciate tips and feedback! ~ DebtKid

I’m back.

At least I feel like I am. For the last few days I’ve been distracted (granted it was the weekend), and unable to focus.

2am at the office. Heck ya.

Yesterday brought it all back. I had been working on a plan B for my business in case my plan A doesn’t catch (It won’t launch until Sept. anyway, so I need another project to work on, thus, Plan B).

I worked from home a bit yesterday morning, (I have clearwire at home now, pretty fast so far, well worth the cost for the increased productivity of having internet at my house) and then came into the office around 2pm. I left at 2am. That’s what I’m talking about. I finally got in my grove again.

Business is fun

I think I can launch a similar service to what my business is doing now, just in a different industry. Right now my business has 125 clients, and brings in around 7K in revenue each month. But, I think I can replicate the model in different industries very easily. So, I’ve got about 2 dozen industries I think might work, and I’m testing 2 right now. I think I know the first one we will test, and if it looks good, we’ll start selling it in less than two weeks. Best case scenario, it could add 7-10K to our top line.

Feels good to be back.

Until Jan. of this year, I never considered myself “in debt”. Sure, I was losing $10,000 in a single day. But I wasn’t “in debt”. I didn’t have a “debt” problem. My problem was that I wasn’t having enough winning trades!

How delusional.

Debt is personal. It’s a 24/7 shadow that infects every aspect of your life. social. physical. spiritual.

I’ve never dealt with something like this before. It’s not tangible, yet its effects are.

I can beat it. I have to beat it.

I don’t have a choice to succeed or not. I have to succeed. To have any chance of a “normal” life (wife, kids, ect), my business has to succeed. I’ve promised to pay my mother back (I owe her over 100K). I have to succeed.

Boredom

I’ve felt bored with my life lately, and the pace with which it moves. How can that be? I’m losing a house, working crazy at my business, have a decent social life again…how can I be bored?

Because I’m not trading.

It’s the only explanation. When I’m looking at business options now, my plans look months into the future. My old “business options” (aka, trades) used to be executed and see results within days, hours, minutes even.

And now I have to wait to see if I will succeed or not. I won’t know tomorrow. I won’t even know a month from now.

I’m purely talking about my business success here. I don’t equate my life worth, or self-worth with how much money I make. But at the moment…my life completely hinges on my business income and how I manage my debt. How abhorred a thing.

Debt, the shadow infection.

As I was talking with my father today I checked my checking account and saw $750 more than when I checked this morning! Sweet! Thank the internet God’s! (It was some business earnings from Google). Now, I previously said I would save all my Adsense earnings. (just to note, only about $75 was from this site. But hey, $75 is $75 right?). I can’t do it. I had to work out a deal with Toyota financial today with regards to my car.

I got a two month extension on payments (so I won’t have another payment til July now). I did this just to get some breathing room. That’s what I need at the moment. Just some breathing room. But it cost me (I should say cost, that isn’t the best way to put it) $787 in back payments I had to make to skip two. Like I said, money in, money out.
I sold some items in my Garage this week and have people coming by tonite to look at more stuff in the house. If I can make a few hundred bucks tonite, that will be great.

At my fathers insisting, we are going to sit down with a Bankruptcy attorney here in Seattle. I am NOT filling a BK. Let me say again, I am NOT filling for bankruptcy. Frack that man, my business has gone from 0K to 7.5K in 6 months. If I had 20K in capital right now I could repeat what I’ve done in this one industry in ten others in 6 months. But, I don’t have 20K and so I can’t. Live and learn I guess.

A friend is bringing pizza over to the house tonite to play some games. Should be fun. It’s amazing how with my honestly with myself and my whole mess my social and personal life has gotten so much better. I’ve got lots of social things going on now, but I need more time to work! Gotta find that balance…

I’m thinking of adding a wiki to the site here, a place to organize all my debt contact information and strategies. Would anyone else contribute/think this is a good idea? I use wiki’s for my business quite a bit, and love em.

So, now that my (ex) roommates have all moved out, life at the house is peaceful, clean, and perfect.

Except they took the internet with them!

What no internet costs me

Having no internet as home has been costly to me in a few ways. 1.) I usually work a split work day, 11am-7pm, and then usually 10-1am. But that second part of my work day is usually at my desk at home. But with no interenet, no joy. 2.) I’ve been going to coffee shops with free wifi to work. This costs me gas, extra time, and the (occasional) $2 I’ll spend on hot chocolate. So, I need to figure out a fix for this that is doable. I can always park my car outside a library and get a signal from there (did that this weekend), but the $2 I save not buying a drink doesn’t make up for the lost productivity. I may look into clearwire, a new Seattle wireless provider. We’ll see. It’s not like I have extra cash at the moment, but without internet, my business can’t function.

Roomates (ex)

The drama never ends with these people. All the utility bills are in my name, and the outstanding balance for all bills is over 1K. I was told by all three that these would be paid to me weeks ago. I sent a sweet spreadsheet detailing all the bills 2 weeks ago asking for payment by last friday. I get a message Saturday from one of them, that was just ridiculous. I won’t go into the details, but basically this dumb ass (pardon my language) wants to be “bought out” for a few things all of the roommates bought together (and have since been left behind). It’s maybe $45 total, and I’m not fighting them on it. It really hurts me though on a personal level the selfishness I’ve seen. The absolute lake of respect and outright lies will not be forgotten by me anytime soon. I’m not a vengeful or hard person, but I have no reason to be “friends” with these people ever again.

Plus, I want my damn 1K!

Whew, no more swearing.

The House

Still no new news on the house. I did have someone from “Washington foreclosure assistance” come by the house Saturday and try to barge in. That was cool (as my brothers were in the kitchen cooking). Not.

Just got an update from my real estate agent about the Short Sale. The good news is that I won’t be moving to the office quite yet! Bad news…still no approval on short sale. Foreclosure auction is in August.

The e-mail:

I spoke to Green point earlier today. The person that is in charge of the file still has not gotten a hold of the investor that makes the final approval. You wouldn’t be able to close the end of this month at all. The earliest you could close is the end of June. That could change if I don’t get the full approval by the end of May. So, to answer your question you can plan on staying with the possibility that this could push over to the end of June. I will let you know if anything changes.

I have alot of outstanding checks at the moment from my business account, and just barely enough cash to cover them all.

Comcast

I called Comcast today and paid $224 toward my $300+ bill that is currently due for my business internet at the office. They had left me a “we may shut you off tomorrow” message yesterday.

After making the payment, I asked the lady, “how close was I to getting disconnected” “oh, you were on our list to disconnect today”

Whew. Now lets just hope some deposits from our credit card receipts go through today!

DMP

So I got my money orders for my $1480 debt management plan payment (that I am doing through ccnw.org) yesterday. I was hoping to drop them off at their office, but couldn’t get away from my office in time. So I called my counselor today and made sure I could still bring them by. The due date was the 10th! I had the 15th written down! Crap.

Luckily I guess they disbursed this month on the 17th, so I could drop the money orders off by 3:30 (I just got back) and they would make it in OK. Whew, just made that.

I’m really going by the skin of my teeth here.

Life

life is OK right now. It’s just a big limbo period right now….I don’t know where I’ll be staying in 2 weeks (my office, or still in my house?). Still no update on the short sale. I can’t date seriously (not that I’ve had any dates in the last year anyway…but still, it’s the principle of the matter). My whole life is all about my debt (and my business to support getting rid of the debt) at the moment. I do play in a competitive football league twice a week….but that’s about it at the moment.

In the next month, I’d like to:

• Have found a mentor (non-business, preferably middle aged male) at my church
• Attend some social functions at my church
• Have a new hobby, preferably something creative (writing screenplays, or making short movies….maybe along those lines), that isn’t work related
• Play outside at a park

I think I’m gonna squeak by this week. I’m going to the post office right now to get the $1480 money order for my next DMP (debt management plan) payment. I have three $1480 payments to make this summer, then it will drop down to around 1K a month.

Any more money coming in this month needs to go to:

Car Payments - I’m way behind with toyota, and if I lose my car, I’ll be up a creek

Comcast - If my internet gets shut down at the office I’ll be screwed

Business Debts

My other big issue at the moment is the two larger (20K and 30K) business loans I have with WellsFargo and WAMU. Both are very behind (but not quite to collections behind) at the moment.

I have been looking at business debt programs. Specifically

http://www.commercialdebtcounseling.com

I have been meaning to call these guys. If they could really settle the 50K in business debt for 20 or 30, it might be worth trying. I could come up with 30K somehow, right?

If they could settle the debt for 25K maybe I could get a prosper loan or another form to cover that settlement.

Other Issues

IRS - Still need to come up with 1K to pay off this bill by mid-June

House Short Sale - Still no approval from the investor to short sell the house at 410K. Foreclosure auction set for mid-August. Hoping to avoid this.

Mail - I’ve gotten some pretty funny (and creative) letters from people offering to buy my house for “a fair market value!” and other such nonsense. It’s amazing what lengths people will go to to take advantage of someone losing their home…

It’s interesting being me right now.

Really, it is. Here’s just a small snippet of the craziness of my life right now…

Shower Scene

I get up this morning around 10, after a late night driving home from Portland to see my family for mother’s day weekend. The trip was good, hard at times seeing some family members I haven’t seen since they found out about my mess, but good.

I’m eating some cereal in the kitchen downstairs (only wearing a towel, as I was about to hop in the shower) when I see a car and two people pull into the driveway. Crap, I think. No more naked time for me this morning. Kinda weirded out (my agent told me not to expect anymore people by the house, and I haven’t seen anyone for weeks looking at the place) I head upstairs to hop in the shower, figuring they will just check the place out and leave.

So I’m in the shower, humming my way through some awful rap tune when the door cracks open half way.

I freak out a bit….then a voice yells, “Is anyone here?”

“Um…yes…”, I answer.

“Oh…are you in the shower?” (the water is clearly on and running…I chuckle)

“Yep, still here”

“Oh, my flier said the house was vacant”

“(me still showering) nope, not yet”

“OK, well, thanks”

“Yep”

(I continue my shower)

End Shower Scene

Yeah, welcome to my crazy life.

It’s actually a good thing I saw the couple when I was downstairs eating breakfast. I don’t normally have breakfast, but decided this weekend I need to eat more consistently, so I had some fruit loops (my friends gave me a box when they moved two weeks ago). Had I not seen them, and someone just opened my bathroom door and yelled in while I was showering…I probably would have grabbed some soap and started chucking the bars at the intruder. So, lucky day for him I guess.

Back To Work

I haven’t had access to my e-mail since Friday, so I’ve now got 154 e-mails to catch up on!
Down To The Wire

This week is a big test for me financially. I have $800 for my office lease I’m paying today, and payroll and a $1500 debt management plan payment that are due tomorrow. I have a nice couch I put up on craigslist last week that a lady is looking at tonite for $500-600.

If I sell the couch, I should be able to make everything this week. If not….well, like I said, my life is interesting.

After the shower scene today, it got me thinking…how much do male strippers make a night?

(Just kidding! That was me trying to be funny)

The more time I spend alone at my house, the more its really beginning to sink in that I won’t have a place to live in a few weeks. I’ve had some ideas (offering free house sitting, for example, couchsurfing.com) of how to have a place to stay without paying anyting, but none have seemed super great. My latest one I’ve decided to roll with though and see if it pans out…

It only took me an hour to think of the idea and write a quick ad, so if it works, and it gets me a room, great. If not, well, I guess I wasted an hour.

Here is the link to the post

or you can see it here…

The Ad
Me: small business search engine marketing expert

You: Small business and home owner with extra room.

To make a long story short, I run a small start-up business in Seattle, and I’m poor. I have a small office where I work, but at the end of this month, no place to live!

More about me: Poor yet talented entrepreneur

I provide you or your business with 15 hours a month of search engine marketing (SEM) and web-promotion consulting. I will help you understand how you can use the web to grow your business in an effective and cost-efficient manner. Many SEM consultants charge in upwards of $100/hr.

I can….

*Install Google analytics on your existing website and show you how to use it to track and analyze your web traffic
*Help you install and setup a free blog on your existing website
*Show you how to get more local visitors to find your service/product on the web
*Help you start a basic webpage with its own domain (www.yourseattlecompany.com)
*Show you the best keywords to target with a PPC (pay per click) campaign within Google/Yahoo/MSN
*Manage a PPC campaign for your small business

In other words, I can help your small business get more business from the web.

More about you: small business owner with an extra room in their Seattle home

Do you have an extra room in your home? Want to host a non-smoking, non-drinking, hard working young entrepreneur? Then lets make a deal! You need more exposure on the web…I need a place to sleep at night. (I have a small office, so during the week I would only be around the room from 8pm-10am).

I’m a very easy going, no drama, Christian young man (23). I’m creative (see this post), flexible, and am OK with pets, old people, young people, any people! E-mail me and let’s chat…I can talk with you about your business and see if this arrangement would work for you and I.

Oh, I’ll even throw in free lawn mowing twice a month! (I used to run a lawn mowing business when I was in grade school. I still enjoy mowing lawns!)

Preferred Neighborhoods:
wallingford
freemont
ballard
queen anne
downtown
magnolia
greenwood