In Arrested Development (one of the greatest shows ever!), the father of the Bluth family would use a one-armed man to teach his children valuable life lessons. Lessons about leaving a note, and not teaching lessons. Classic.

Growing up, my parents taught me all kinds of valuable lessons. Like, “don’t play with fire!” (I love the 4th of July), and “eat your vegetables”. Sadly, my parents never taught me about financial matters. It was a very taboo topic. Now after getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans, day-trading for 3 years, and almost losing everything (including my sanity), I’ve come up with 7 lessons I wish my parents had taught me before I went and screwed my finances up so badly.

7 Financial Lessons I Wish My Parents Had Taught Me Before College

Have you talked with your kids yet? (more…)

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

This week pretty much sucked.

Business wise, I got a few things done, but not much. I’m feeling anxious all the time now, and it just doesn’t make much sense. I’m in a much more stable point right now than say 6 months ago. Yet, I’m feeling more anxious than I have in years. (more…)

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…)

It’s amazing how my work performance has changed since I stopped day trading. Not only my work performance, but everything in my life.

Even now, as I just got out of a spit bath shower using a pot of heated on the stove water, I feel so much better about myself. Not everything is hunky dory, no, not even close. But I am working. And I’m working hard. I’m not staying up til the wee dawn hours watching stupid charts bounce back and forth, praying they go the right direction.

Even as I’m contemplating filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy I feel more like a normal person than I have in a very long time. Now, maybe that is strange, considering I have over 300K in debt. But at least I’m no longer adding to that debt!

Even if I file the 13 I will have an incredibly difficult road ahead. I will probably still be paying $1500 or so back to creditors. I will also have to live below my means so that I can send $400 to my mother each month. She would not even be considered in the bankruptcy, but I have to send her that money each month or she cannot survive.

Friendships 

In talking with my one close friend who knows about this, I asked if she would still be my friend (I wasn’t being too serious here, it was in a joking manner) if I declared bankruptcy, and was living in my office, and would have to check “ever declared bankruptcy” on those forms for jobs and the like. She replied,

“I’d still be your friend even if you had to check five boxes!”

Aww..I about cried.

(the other boxes are like “ever had a felony?” ect,)

Now that I’m not trading I don’t feel like I know some “secret” that no one else knows about. I can relate better with people, and I feel more like the person I was 4 years ago.

The House
This weekend some friends of mine offered to help me clean up around my house and getting ready for sale (although it already has an offer). How nice, right?

In the end, yes. But for a while I was like, “why am I doing yardwork in a home I am short-selling and that already has a good offer?” Plus, I spent $33 on bark, and flowers, and dirt. I was feeling really dumb. My bank account is overdrawn at the moment (I didn’t compute my business cashflow correctly and the last payroll run killed me). And $33 is not something I have to spare on a wasteful event! Let alone the time and energy to weed and clean and crap. Humph.

Then we actually started working. It was a beautiful day out, and spending time with my friends weeding was probably the most relaxing and fullfilling thing I’ve done in some time. I started off so bitter about my pride (why don’t I just tell my friends?), and ended up pretty OK with the situation. Yes, it was a “waste” of $33…but taking a little bit of good pride in my house made me feel not so crappy about this whole giant mess.

Still, keeping my whole debt fiasco under wraps is having more and more concequenses both emotionlly and financially:

• My friends eat out quite a bit (financial side)
• I’m having to lie about why I am selling my house (emotional side)

Responding To Some Comments

• I have not listened to Dave Ramsey’s show. But I have read alot on his site, and understand some of his principles. I know about the “debt snowball” method. I just don’t have ANY extra $ at the moment to pay off anything right now.
• The DMP rolled all the personal loans/credit cards that I had not negotiated to 0% or that were student loans. I kept a my old wellsfargo student card out of the program and another citcard one that I got for 0% for a year. I want to try and pay those off on my own
• I will be selling some of the bigger items around my house on craigslist in the next month. Thanks Charles for the tip about amazon for books.
• The new updated debt sheet does look ALOT better than the old $334,442 in debt one. BUT the only reason for that is the new one assumes I get my house sold. I may and likely will have tax liabilites from the short sale. I’ll update more when more happens
• Yes, I got 0% for 1 year on many of my credit cards. They only offer this after you haven’t paid them for many months. It’s not a fun route to go. When I went in for my last credit counseling apt they got a copy of my credit report. My score has gone from a 709 (when I bought my house) to now in the 400’s. Yikes.
• The 120K I owe my mother was not a loan. She put me in charge of investing her money, and I day traded it away. Of all my debts, this is obviously the hardest one on me. It has affected our relationship, but it has not destroyed it.
• I ran that tracert thing someone mentioned and the “casey” was from West Sacramento. So, there you go. Seems like it was really that guy.
• It seems some people like reading this blog. Thanks for the comments. I can’t post daily, maybe someday, but right now I have to focus on my business, and selling all my crap.