OK, it’s been a whirlwind of the last 24 hours.
approved at bank of america!
The good news is that I got approved for a business checking account at Bank of America. I don’t know how I got approved, but I did. I applied online last night, and received the approval via e-mail this morning. I brought in the required documents to a branch location, funded it with $50 from my personal account, and boom! It’s up and running. I can’t thank BOA enough right now for giving me this shot, the process was so easy, and I’m still in shock I was approved.
wells fargo, please pick up
I still have yet to connect up with my person at wells fargo to discuss what they did yesterday. I’ve now called my person at 4 different times today….no answer. To their (very small) credit, she did call me back once, and I missed her call. I did deposit $550 into my business checking account late last night just to cover a few smaller charges that could come through while I try to get this mess worked out.
thank you!
Thank you everyone who has helped me out the last 24 hours. I’m still incredibly on edge, and I still have an interesting conversation with Well Fargo to do, but at least I have some backup now with the BOA account. So thank you all you who gave me advice yesterday! (you know who you are)
I ordered checks for the new account, and with a little luck they might just arrive before payroll next week. Also, by then I should be able to transfer in my business savings to my new account so I can continue to pay the bills this month. Whew. Whew. Whew.
Not out of the woods yet…
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
be careful with the additional 550 that you transferred back into wf business checking.
i think that will be taken as well.
Positive steps! Hopefully thins keep going your way. I would totally keep a close eye on that $550 though.
Becoming a customer of Bank of America is not a reason to celebrate. Ask any customer. They suck, and they will zap you with expensive fees at every turn.
I know that you want strokes. But you still have that financial victim mindset, if you ask me. Everytime I come over here, it is the same story. It is like you like getting abused. When is this going to be over?
DK, DK, DK. I am just bewildered. You are not being out front about all of your loans. Like the WF 20k loc. Why did you not get all of this stuff cleared up when you went BK? Oh. You are still swimming in a whirlpool. I am sorry, I cannot be positive when this kind of basic crap is happening. You really need to set a date. “This is the day when I will be debt free.” You are shark bait until that day.
Actually, you need to say something today. “I am not going to be treated like dirt. I have more self-respect than that. I do good things for people, and I don’t deserve to be fleeced one hair at a time.”
You might have figured that you have other issues that are manifesting themselves in your financial life. Until you work on those issues, you will be repeatedly treated to the profitable activities of the banking industry.
This is serious business. Your future well being depends on you getting the right attitude. You may be an important person in people’s lives one day — they do not need someone making excuses and whining, and being abused repeatedly.
DK,
Ok, I have been stopping by to read your blog for quite a while now and I finally have to post. To be honest I think what WF did was fine, you owe them alot of money. As for them not returning your calls, why should they? Have you been calling them for the last few months to explain why you are not paying? I also think it is ridiculous that you got a tax stimulus check when you owe the IRS so much money. It was nice that you gave it to you mom, but she is just one of the many people that you owe money to.
Now for some frank talk about your business. Have you ever stopped to consider your continued comments on your business and how closely they relate to the problems that got you into this mess? You are constantly saying that this month was tight, but next month you are going to make money. Project A is struggling, but if you can get project C up and running you will be making lots of cash. This is chronic gamblers talk and it is exactly how you ended up so far in debt. “Sure I am losing money but soon I am going to hit that windfall!” “Yeah last months trading was bad, but with this new information on the Forex I am going to get all that money back and then some.” “So I lost $5,000 at the track last week, but this week I have a great line on an underdog and it is going to pay off 20 to 1!”
Maybe it is time to evaluate your business and take a good hard look at it just like when you came to your senses on the day trading. I have been willing to give you the benefit of the doubt for the last year, but maybe you would be better off with an actual job as an employee. It may suck but instead of hoping that you will have enough money next month to tackle some bills, you will actually have a steady income and you can budget. This will allow regular payments of known amounts. It may seem like a long payback time to get out of debt, but it is closer to a sure thing than thinking that a big business windfall is just around the corner. Although you stopped gambling by legitimate trading, you are just gambling on your business. You have acknowledged the trading mistakes, you have reduced your expenses, but as Lost Cause said, you still need to fix the underlying issues in your psyche that are going to continue to cause you problems.
Skip.
If your business is generating enouch income to cover its operating expenses (including taxes) as well as the debt service on the business debt, and you think it has growth potential, I see no reason why you should kill it.
I second earlier calls from other commenters for an updated list of your debts (lender, outstanding balance, interest rate, scheduled or minimum payments, and whether it’s business or personal). That and a rough idea of what your business has been generating monthly after operating expenses will let us–your dear readers–comment from a more solid factual foundation.
One last thought. I was surprised to learn that you had just ignored the Wells Fargo line of credit. Neglecting any of your creditors will only result in more suprises because you will not know what trouble is brewing, and that is not a winning strategy. You said you planned to settle the Wells Fargo line and other debts at some point, which is fine as far as that goes, but I think you are missing a crucial interim step. You need to get to a position where you able to service the CURRENT portion of your debt. That involves on one hand, stabilizing your income so you can budget, and on the other, comunicating with all your lenders to figure out what your minimum payments should be.
Does your business generate enough income to allow you to at least pay all the interest that accrues every month on all your loans? Maybe Wells Fargo would not have taken such a drastic step (which incidentally was wholly within their rights, and I would have done the same thing) if you had at been paying the current interest, so at least they would not see the debt getting bigger.
Please post the list of all your loans, and we’ll go from there.
Cheers,
Alan
@ DK, I remember you saying that this site makes 1k/mo. Your posts are your work and the rest is pretty automated. How much of your other business (whatever it is) can be automated? Your style suggests it is probably largely based on data basing and percentages.
From Skip: “maybe you would be better off with an actual job as an employee. It may suck but instead of hoping that you will have enough money next month to tackle some bills, you will actually have a steady income and you can budget. This will allow regular payments of known amounts.”
@ Skip, That is a pretty good plan and DK can tap into his customer base as extra income. That way, as A. Friend mentioned, he would not be killing his business.
But I don’t know, I was debating even touching this one
@ Lost Cause:
As a side note: http://home-buddies.com/special/top-10-worst-creditors/
Bank of America ranked #1 of creditors to avoid
sheez, I”m sensing an almost casey-like turn on the debt kid in the comments here.
Casey-like?
Casey? Oh dear….
Let’s clear some things up….the 20K is a LOC on my BUSINESS. Not myself. So, of course it was not “cleared up” when I did my PERSONAL bankruptcy.
@ a. friend – I didn’t “ignore” the LOC. I knew it was still outstanding, but the last communication I received had it at a third party collection agency, not Wells Fargo. There is no “current” portion of my business debt, it is all in collections. Even the IRS would be considered collections.
@ everyone else – OK, I will post an updated spreadsheet with all debts, etc. It will be up sometime later today.
@Zintradi- Yeah it is a bit of a Casey like turn. I like others first came to DK’s site in the middle of the KC saga. It was a nice change, some that is actually doing something! After following for quite some time, DK has made progress but I still think he is in denial about some things.
@Alan – If you take a look at the updated spreadsheet you will see that the business is not truly covering the expenses. It seems to be covering the current overhead and also the IRS potentially. There is another $100,000 that is being totally ignored, and that doesn’t include the car. By any reasonable measure the business is already bankrupt.
@DK – By definition, if all of your business debt is in collections then it has been ignored. Simply knowing that the debt is there is not sufficient to say that it hasn’t been ignored, you are smarter than that. I have truly been rooting for you but I still think there is a blind spot in your thinking. It seems that you are still looking for that same “strike it rich” way out of your debt. You have have done an amazing job ridding yourself of your old lifestyle and living below your means.
Knowing now the total debt to your business do you really think that you are going to turn it around? At current and past revenue you would have to forgo a salary for 3 years just to get current on your debt. You have already bankrupted yourself, why not the business? I know this sounds harsh, but you do need to consider it. You are working more than full time (I am assuming no KC style napping) and you may make 35k this year if nothing more goes wrong with the business.
I don’t want to harp on the get-a-job line, but please do consider it. You are young, it isn’t the end of the world to work for someone. You are skilled and educated, find a job that pays 35k or more and then keep concentrating on the blog in your free time. If it is making 1k a month, that is an extra 12k a year. With regular employment you can set up payment plans and start making more progress on the debt, increasing interest and revenue in the blog. Give all of the blog money to your mom to pay off that debt.
Just for some background I am an architect. I would love to work for myself, but the market in my area is pretty saturated and I have no plans to relocate. I work a day job for the government. Work is sometimes boring and co-workers can be the stereotypical goverment idiots. What it does allow me to do is have a side business in residential design, where my heart is. On good years I can make an extra 25k, bad years like now 5-10k. I pick and chose the jobs I take. My business is very cyclical and having a “day” job takes the stress out of keeping a business afloat. My wife and I save a large portion of our money and we are on track to “retire” by 55. By retirement I mean to work at what I love (residential design) and not worry about making tons of money, just enough to travel often.
Consider the day job, and then write this blog and others (lending tree) in you spare time. Work to make money that way. If you wish, and the business is more important to you than the blog, work a day job and work the business nights and weekends. I work 7:30 to 4:00 and then usually 5:00 to 10:00. I bet these hours aren’t much different than yours now. The 5 hours a night will go along way. I don’t work these hours year round, I pick a project work 2-4 weeks hard and then have fun until I decide to take another project. With a steady income from the day job, you can concentrate on the projects that offer a true payback. You won’t need to juggle multiple projects to try and get one to take off and pay the months bills. The monthly bills are paid from the day job and you can really concentrate on hitting it big with the side business. In a few years with the debt gone and a fresh start quit the day job and focus on what will already be a fairly well established business.
Well enough of this little rant. I popped out of the woodwork and said my piece.
Goodluck DK.
I remember when you first did the BK — yes, one gentleman did turn on you. He later apologized. Why? Because you did a BK, and still had over $300k of debts. Why oh! why did nobody tell you to get rid of it all?