I’ve been in a daze for pretty much a week now. Working til Midnite pretty much every night. I got a nasty cold/sore throat last week and am still trying to shake it. Not terrible…but thus the walking zombie title.

My father is coming up this weekend to help with some organizational stuff and getting a next 6 months plan figured out.

Tired.

Oh, and the girl doesn’t even know I exist. No worries though. More time to focus on this mess I’m in (or at least focus on getting out of it) I’m happy and I ordered a life from amazon this week, with shipping and potential delays…it should be here by January. : )

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

OK, so there is this girl that I’m interested in. My big concern is that I can’t be myself completely without letting her know whats been happening and what is continuing to happen in my life right now. And if I can’t be myself…we’ll I’m not very attractive then!

If a girl were to read what I’ve written here…would they be repulsed? Impressed? Feel sorry for me? Think I was crazy?

What do you think? How much do I *share* about what is going on with me? I don’t want to just be like “blah!!!!” and spill my life story. But I also want to be genuine.

Grr….life man.

It ain’t always easy (especially with women involved! no offense meant…I’m just frustrated (mostly at myself of course…)

Countrywide is the largest mortgage company in the US…think they are dealing with a short sale problem at the moment? You betcha. (not to mention short sales of their stock! Wish I had shorted them at $40!)

Countrywide’s Full Spectrum Lending division was the King of awful sub prime mortgages the past few years, and now those loans are going bad. If you have a countrywide loan and are facing foreclosure, a short sale of your home might be your best option.

I did a short sale of my home (and I had a first and second mortgage on the property) earlier this year. It can be done, but it requires patience and a plan and a little help. There are a zillion schmucks out there who will offer to “help” you when your down. Some are legit, most are not.

What I Did In My Short Sale

What I did (hiring a real estate agent with short sale experience) worked for my situation. It may not for your short sale, but I found it the best option. Working with a real estate agent you at least can get a background on the person, and if they work for a larger brokerage you know they have resources to help you. Think short sales are hard for you? They are equally as hard on the real estate agent! Getting a short sale deal done (especially right now with the overwhelmed lenders like Countrywide) takes alot of work. I do think its the best option vs. foreclosure though. You can also read my 7 steps to a successful short sale guide.

I don’t have a whole ton of spare time at the moment as most readers know, but there are a few finance blogs out there that I find myself reading from time to time because, well, they are good! These are my top 5 and the only ones I read religiously (using google reader of course. You are using google reader, right? : )

In no particular order…

My top 5

1. Clever Dude - Two reasons I like Clever Dude. 1. He’s Clever and 2. Like me he’s found writing has helped him deal with his debt.

2. BloggingAwayDebt - Tricia over at Blogging Away Debt always has great down dirty real life tips and experiences about dealing with debt. She is almost down to 20K in debt, from starting at over 37K.

3. Get Rich Slowly - JD’s stuff is always great. We were talking awhile back about doing some sort of business contest, but it never got off the ground. No worries though, I’m doing OK and GRS continues to be a great finance blog. His latest post about budgeting with an irregular income I think was written just for me!

4. Dumb Little Man - This blog should really be Smart Little Man….maybe that was taken. In any case while posts here aren’t always finance related…many are, and the content kicks butt. His business posts, like this one on referrals is the stuff I really love.

5. NCN Blog - No Credit Needed? That’s what I want! No credit would mean no debt! NCN has a very practical blog about all things finance related. Plus, if you’ve ever listened to his podcast, you just know he might be the next Dave Ramsey.

What say you!?

What 5 finance/debt related blogs SHOULD I be reading?

Beginning next month I’ll be running a start-up again in addition to my current business that is pretty stable. This is my Plan A to get out of the mess I’ve got myself in. I’ve been working on it for the better part of the year now.
This month financially has been OK. I made my last payment on my office, and we will be moving into my apartment at the end of the month. This is a good move. In fact, when I explained what we were doing to my employees, one asked, “I also wondered why we didn’t do this sooner!”. So, it will be a good move financially. Plus, I have some just bad memories of living here full time…it will be good to move on. My apartment has a very “positive” feel to it vs. the negative one I feel at my current office.

I Love Writing

I know I’m not the best writer in the world, but the more I’ve been doing it the more I really enjoy it. It really helps me in my thought process, as well as it just being a good business skill. I’m going to start writing more for LendingClub (they gave me a per-post raise!), and bring in some more cash from that gig. So expect to see more posts from me there as well as more informational posts on this site that I don’t fit in LC’s schema.

Big Hurdles Ahead

I have some major obstacles ahead. Bankruptcy or not? Business Bankruptcy or not? I still don’t have the cash (nor will I in the near term future) to pay down any of my debt, or even make minimum payments. I’m still very much living on the knife edge of this debt mess.

But I’m going to make it. (or so my Dad tells me!)

Somehow It’s going to work out. It just may take a long time.

The Journey

I’ll keep blogging here about what’s going on in my life in terms of this mess. I appreciate people’s feedback and I do read comments! I won’t always agree with what you say, but hey, that’s America!

I don’t know how long its going to take me to get back to even. 1 year. 3 years. 5 years. I don’t know!

Want to follow along? Please subscribe. I don’t make any money from this blog (though it did lead to my gig at Lending Club, so that was cool), but I really love numbers and right now I have 200 subscribers. I’d love to have a 1000!

I really hope I can help some people along the way in this journey. I’ll try to be as open and honest as I can. Dealing with debt sucks, but you’ve got to face it and you’ve got to be educated and make a plan. That’s what I’m trying to do.

I was lucky to get to be a beta-tester of the new online finance application mint.com. I wouldn’t usually write reviews like this, but I even shared this site with some of my family members because I thought it was so cool.

This is what I’ve been waiting for in a finance application

This has been the application I’ve been waiting for. The interface is slick, and the auto-updates of your accounts seamless. I easily added my wells fargo checking accounts as well as a few of my personal credit card accounts. Once I get my financial situation a bit more stable (if that ever happens), I will definitely be using mint to manage, monitor, and analyze my spending.

Main Interface

The main overview of your accounts gives a great snapshot of your latest transactions, alerts and more. Obviously my financial health is bad (and I haven’t even imported all my accounts. Mint.com can’t handle collection accounts)

Analyze Spending…easily

Mint.com makes analyzing and tagging transactions really, really easy. Sadly, it recognizes (truthfully…grrr) that my “most frequented merchant” is “overdraft fee”. Darn!

Favorite Feature

Probably my favorite feature is the ability to receive text messages when an account reaches a certain threshold. For example, lets say you want to receive a text when your checking account falls below $100.

Bugs and gripes

The one feature of mint that seemed to annoy me (that I probably just need to tweak a bit in my settings) was the e-mails I would receive of “large deposits” in my bank account. That’s great and all, but I got an e-mail this morning of a large deposit, that was dated August 28th. Not exactly current.

More Screenshots

Main Tabs

I need to update some of my “tags”

It’s become more and more apparent to me this week how tied my mood is to my bank account balance. If its low and I’m not sure how I’m going to make payroll, everything in the world is crappy and my head feels like its going to explode.

When I have over $500 in the ole’ bank account, and no bills in the short term (read: next 5 days), I feel on top of the world.

This is not a healthy relationship!

I’ve had this problem before and still do to some extent with the success of my business. In the past, when my business had a bad month, I felt terrible. When it had a good month, I felt on top of the world.

I need to find a way to at least buffer myself emotionally a little from the roller coaster ride that my bank account takes from week to week. I still always feel like I’m on the edge of a knife.

Sleeping is good

My apartment is great. It’s such a blessing to have, and I think if I didn’t have this place I’d really be in trouble right now. I never thought I would be so happy to have a toilet that I didn’t have to use a key to access!

P.S. To those few readers who seem to think I am “gambling” with my business. You are wrong. Sorry, no gambling there. Just good business. My Plan A project has been in production almost all year, and it’s mostly being worked on by two of my employees, not me. Sure its a “risk”, but what isn’t in business?

A ton is going on right now for me business wise. (sadly, not a ton of cash going on though!).

My plan A project will be launching very soon, and I’ll have a good idea within 6 weeks if its going to fly or not. I will be shifting some of my time to working on it in the coming months. It’s one of those things that’s either going to be a hit and huge (and generate 20K a month…think *software*ish), or not get adopted and just languish.We’ll see….

Thowing In The Towel

I’m giving myself through the end of this year to really hit a new level in my businesses. I’ve been stuck at this point of just scraping by (not to mention only being able to pay 1/4 of my current debt load) and I can’t take it much longer. If I had no debt at all, I’d have a comfortable lifestyle. But that isn’t the case and I’ve been working like a madman since January and it’s wearing me down. I think I can keep this pace up through Decemeber, but if significant cash isn’t coming in by Dec 31st 2007:

1. I’ll for sure finish my personal bankruptcy
2. I’ll bankrupt my business or sell it if possible
3. Get A W-2 Sales Job somewhere…

I’m obviously hoping I can pull of this miracle turnaround. I don’t know…we’ll see. I haven’t gotten sued……yet. I’m still here…..for now.

To me my biggest issue remains the money that I owe to my mother. I could legitimately BK both myself and my business. It would be shameful, and a black mark and my investors would be pissed, but I’d be OK. But the 160K I owe Mom…well, that’s never going away.

But, if I had to get a normal job (with some sort of commission involved…),heck 40 hours a week sounds like cake. It might take me alot longer to pay back Mom, but I gotta do what I gotta do.

So, here’s to 2007. Praying I finish strong…

DebtKid

A good run always clears the mind and soul. I ran the crap out of myself yesterday and today went 10X better.

Some pretty interesting comments on my last post. Its funny, when I really just write without thinking (ie, you get my thoughts unedited) comments are always plentiful and interesting. Thanks everyone, even the negative ones, keeps me thinking and evaluating my situation.

This is the lowest I’ve felt in a very long time. Last week was terrible and the weekend, while fun with some friends in town, was very stressful.

I thought I over drafted my business account into oblivion (ie, beyond being able to bring back), but thanks to some deposits posting it looks like I’m going to be OK there.

What’s not OK right now is me. I hate myself right now. I’m distracted all the time, constantly on edge, never rested, never at ease. The whole mess of living in my office for two months, keeping of the charade of being “OK” to the outside world has seriously affected my personality and thought processes.

Worst of all, my obsession with my situation and ways out of it has turned me into someone I never wanted to be: someone who can’t listen to others. My friendships have dwindled to a short few, of which only one knows what’s really going on in my life. It’s incredibly difficult for me to make new friendships because a.) I don’t get out much, though I’m trying more and b.) I have to be creative in every answer I give someone.

The truth is that I’m OK, and I’m not. I’m generally happy but I’m lonely. I’m ambitious but short sighted. I’m content with being poor, but yet I have to pursue profit. Because of what I’ve done I’m forced to make decisions and determine priorities not based I what I desire (love, relationships, faith, service), but on what is best for my financial situation.

God, no wonder I hate myself right now.

When I first came clean with my family and myself, I thought this process would make me a better person, stronger, more empathetic, more creative. Instead, I feel weaker, more selfish, more jaded.

If I can’t genuinely love other people because I’m so preoccupied without my own well-being and self preservation, what the crap am I doing with my life? I always thought (and had been told) that one of my greatest strengths was my ability to relate and be some sort of comfort to a wide range of people. I’ve lost that. I’ve lost my ability to care outside my own ‘effed up world, and it’s killing me.