One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in the past year and a half is that it’s OK to ask for help.

Most of the major mistakes I’ve made in my life came from me thinking I could do everything on my own.

Every once in a while I have projects where I either need feedback or a comment or a vote. And the great thing about the internet is there are tons of people that are WAY smarter than me that have knowledge and a desire to help.

So this is me asking for your help : )

If you’d be willing to help me out once a week or so, I’d really appreciate it. Sometimes it will be just asking for feedback, sometimes it might be a new idea I want to run by people (but not one that I want to share publicly on the blog here).

I promise I won’t send you an e-mail more than once, maybe twice a week at most. I hate lame, pointless e-mails as much as anyone.

Join the DebtKid Helper Army!

Thanks to everyone that joins my little Army. I really appreciate it, and it will be fun to share a few more private things with you all that I don’t want to share here!

~ DebtKid

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 talked with my agent at the IRS today, because I still had not received anything in the mail from them confirming the payment plan I proposed.

Good news is that everything is on track, he just has to finish the paperwork, and then send it to his supervisor to get approved. If for some reason it gets denied, it will come back to him and then he said, “we can figure out what to do to make it work”.

Very reassuring. I’m still hesitant of all this IRS-niceness. But, that being said, I should have a answer back by the end of the month on my proposed $600/mo payment plan. We shall see.

In some bad news, my blog here got hacked over the weekend, I think I’ve got it fixed now, but crap I lost like half my search traffic. It’s starting to slowly come back, but a number of posts are completely gone from Google. I’ll look into how (if possible) I can recitfy this over the weekend. Big thanks to Ian from technorati though for pointing this out to me. You guys rock.

OK, I did an updated spreadsheet, included all business and personal unsecured debt. I did not include the car loan (which is under the business). Most of the business debt is all in collections. I have not heard from WAMU in over 9 months. Same on Wells until this week.

As far as me staying “current” on all of this….it’s still not possible. Yes, I had a good month last month, but that was one month, and with Wells taking out the $3,300 they did this week, I’m back to no extra budget on the business side of things. I also plan on beginning payments with the IRS this month @ $600/month.

That being said, my business income has stabilized, and I don’t see any reason why I can’t continue to pay myself a $35K/year salary (which is what I’ve been doing all this year).

The total owed to my mother is now accurate. I finally got access to her old account records and calculated all losses. It was pretty shocking to see how much money I used to play around with.

I was talking with my Dad this week about how it felt when I suddenly had $3,300 less overnite in my account. It totally felt like I used to feel when I had a HUGE loss day trading (ie, 20K or more). It’s amazing how my perception of money has changed. It’s a good change for sure.

Back in the day I wouldn’t have thought twice about a 3K loss at all.

Now every penny is gold.

Every so often (and increasing more often) I get e-mails from people. Sometimes they are losing their home, sometimes they just want to say thanks to me for sharing. I wanted to share this one, because I’m apparently not the only stupid kid out there….and the reader gives some good advice….

Reader E-mail

Dear debtkid,

Fellow nerd, idiot trader, and ‘business owner’, just read through your archives for about :30 and I find it very eerie how similar your story is to my own.

I too have problems opening up to other people, sharing my mistakes, admitting what I’ve done, so I thought I’d write you as a way to break that shell a bit, and maybe give you a little solace so you don’t feel alone in your mistakes.

I started a business (IT consulting, software development) and took on investment from some friends. That made me not want to close the business when I lost money the first 2 years. I felt I owed something to them. Desperate for return on investment, I turned to day trading….ruinous. I fell in to depression of sorts. My employees then proceeded to ransack the rest of the company…they stole my A/R and sold off company equipment. I’m letting my house go into foreclosure in the next few months (doesn’t make sense to setup a short sale, my credit’s trashed
anyway), and I’ve filed for ch. 7.

Of course, I might end up having to pay some debts back anyway. It’s going to be years of work. But you’re right, the only path is steady gains. I’m 21. I owned 4 xB’s in my business. I too have problems talking to girls.

Reading over your current challenges, I have a few thoughts:

- If you haven’t already, you have to get over the girl thing. I think one of the reasons I took so many wild risks was to be ’successful’ so that I’d have some kind of credibility with women, so I wouldn’t have to feel inadequate. I realize now that I always had credibility, I just lacked confidence. I’m doing a lot better in this area. I’d be glad to listen if you want to talk.

- Do you still have employees? I’d caution you about working from home and leaving employees to manage themselves. Bad things happen…

- Obviously I know nothing of your business, but if it’s losing money (still?) it might be time to consider some hard cost cutting (employees, selling assets, buying used equipment, etc). I let my business lose money for a long time because I kept telling myself that the projects I was working on would soon make it profitable. Possibly you should liquidate and pay off the IRS and anything else thats not dischargable? Then close the business and add all business debts you’re personally liable for to your personal bankruptcy (only costs $26 to make an addition). If you don’t do it now, it’ll be 6yrs before you can. You can always take your ideas and startup another business to pay your living exp, your mom and your student loans, right? Or get a job? I have to tell you, closing my business has (overall) left me feeling much better. I was completely burned out and very sick. Now I’m just going to do a regular job for a year or so, might pursue some business ideas after that. Positive side, it’s a lot easier to date when you just work a regular 9-5, and you can still write and freelance.

- Sounds like you need to get out there and sell your projects/services. Consider eliminating/scaling back on any businesses that are distractions from your real growth opportunities. It might be tough to do this while you’re still saddled with worries about these business credit cards and such. My plan was to save my business with some online applications. I failed to meet my agressive sales goals because I spent too much time worrying about and dealing with debts and the problems my employees left me with.

I hope you’ll write back, we seem to have quite a lot in common. I learned a few good lessons from reading your posts: I’m going to make an effort, however embarrassing it might be, to talk about my personal failings with my dad. I’m also going to try to make more friends (I basically worked non-stop for 2 yrs, living at my office for about 6mos, and now only have 1 friend, who usually doesn’t call me back).

Anyway,

Best of luck

Reader

Interesting, huh?

Last year when I was living in my office I did a radio interview with Bob Brooks, who has a fantastic daily Christian finance radio show in Dallas/Fort Worth. He asked me to come back on the show again, which I gladly accepted. We did the show today, and you can listen to the whole segment below.

Bob has been following my story and I imagine that we will continue to stay into touch going forward. If I ever become super rich, he’d definitely be someone I would trust managing some of my billions : )

I talk a bit about my faith in the interview. It is a big part of my life, but I don’t blog much about it here. If you’re looking for some top-notch Christian finance blogs, check out Gather Little By Little, Being Frugal, and Bible Money Matters.

Looks like Wal-Mart launched a new personal finance blog called “Make Your Dollar Stretch” hmmm, I think I’ll stick to the good finance blogs I know.

I had a pretty fun article get published over at lending club’s blog today, “Jedi Master Yoda’s Guide to Surviving A Recession”. I had fun writing it, you should check it out and leave your best Yoda inspired tip for surviving a recession.

Feeling Risk-Averse

I’ve been feeling very risk-averse lately. I have business money that I need to start deploying into projects, but I just can’t seem to pull the trigger. I think I want to wait until I have official word from the IRS that my payment plan offer gets accepted by them.

My business will be down to just myself and one other employee starting in a few weeks. It’s really been just two other employees part time for a while now, but now we’ll officially be down to just myself and one other person. This is good. I’ve been contracting out more and more work, and it works allot better. Plus, I still don’t trust myself enough to want to take on new employees at this point. My one other kid will be working full time this summer, which I think will be good for me. We get along well, and he is a fantastic worker.

Women Update

I had someone write on my facebook wall yesterday asking me for a update on my dating (or lack there of) life. I definitely haven’t been on any dates lately, but I do have my eye on a few girls I’ve been hanging out with lately. I don’t see anything happening anytime soon, but hey, it’s getting nicer out here in Seattle, it’s springtime, love is definitely in the air. Maybe I’ll catch a whiff…

On facebook of course?

I finally got a facebook account setup for my little blog here. If you’re into that sort of thing, we should be friends. Click the badge below to connect up!

First off, the customer service people that I’ve dealt with at Toyota Financial have been great. Some of their policies however, are just plain silly.

My current vehicle is a Scion Xb that I purchased new about 2 1/2 years ago. Yes, it was a dumb purchase, I of course realize that now.

When I purchased the vehicle I signed the loan under my name and my company as well.

During my bankruptcy I decided to reaffirm the car, and continue making payments on it, but Toyota is sure making it difficult.

My grips:

1. No statements - Toyota refuses to send me monthly statements because apparently they cannot contact me because of the bankruptcy

2. No autopay - Auto payment cannot be setup because of the bankruptcy apparently as well.

3. No online pay - I cannot login to my account online at TFS, it got disabled during the bankruptcy and cannot be turned back on.

So, I asked (jokingly a little) “So, I can’t get a statement on this loan. I can’t setup an auto-payment, is the loan even still active?”

Well, it is. But I tried. It’s just kinda crazy, I’m trying to make payments to Toyota, and they are just making it difficult. It’s not a huge deal to mail a payment each month, but without a statement, it’s just an annoyance. Maybe I’ll look into bill-pay again at my bank.

It just seems that a customer like myself that goes through a bankruptcy and then wants to keep their car (at least until it’s no longer upside down)…you’d think they’d make it easier to pay each month. Weird.

Here’s my current balance:

I’m all about technology that brings online connections into the real world. In fact, I think that is the best use of technology. Prime Time Money created a useful map of US personal finance bloggers. I love the personal finance community. I learn something new everyday from many of the bloggers listed on the map.

I was in the shower yesterday, I try to shower everyday. All my good ideas either come in the shower, or at like 2am at night while I’m laying in bed.

Maybe that’s the only time my brain slows down enough to really be creative…I don’t know. But all my businesses successes have come from either shower or 2am ideas…but I digress.

I was thinking, oh crap, I’m almost 25 now. I started making stupid financial moves at 18. What if I could go back and give my 18-year old self advice? What would I tell the 18-year old me?

Here’s what I’d tell the 18-year old me (circa 2001):

Don’t lose that ability to feel

You have an amazing capacity to feel emotion. Don’t lose it. Sometimes it will hurt you, but overall it’s one of your greatest strengths. Learn how to channel it into healthy relationships.

Get 1 credit card. Yep, just one

One credit card is all you need to start establishing a credit history. Heck, one credit card is all you’ll ever need. Get one from your bank, and commit to keeping the balance low. Oh, and don’t buy that fancy digital camera, you won’t use it much. Do buy that T68i cell phone, that thing kicks butt for years.

Talk to Mom and Dad

I know you love your parents, but have you told them that lately? Oh, and take some extra pictures this Christmas, it will be the last time before Mom and Dad split.

Don’t read that day trading online book

Yes you, don’t read that book about day trading online and how much fun it is to scalp stocks. Be content with your crappy job. You interact with fun people, it beats watching Level II quotes at 5:30 in the morning in the long run…trust me.

Enjoy the summer

Don’t work so much in the summer! Yes, I know you want to be self-sufficient and make money but holding down two jobs and 15 credits is a bit overkill. Go for more runs, quit the more stressful job and go golfing more with your brothers. You have the rest of your post-college life to have summers be just another season.

Ask that girl out

I know you’re still hurting from your last relationship, but it’s been awhile now and you shouldn’t keep holding on to something that isn’t there. You meet plenty of nice girls…see if they want to go sometime. Go for a ride in Dad’s convertible. He’ll let you take it out, but only if you’ve got a girl to go with you (trust me on this one).

Don’t join that MLM Scam

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Run it by Dad first, he sold Amway back in the day, he’ll understand how you’re intrigued by this. You’ll learn some great copy writing skills, but you could do that for free.

Write down your thoughts

I know you keep a written journal now and again, but starting writing more just for fun. Keep your journal online somewhere (livejournal!), it will help you process what you’re dealing with right now.

Never give up

No matter how hard things get. And they will get hard, and even if you follow my advice to the letter, life finds a way (thanks Jurrassic Park). But never give up. When you feel like giving up, go talk to Dad.